Welcome to Central Illinois' On-Line Broadcast Museum. This website documents in detail the history of each of the viewable TV stations, past and present, across mid-Illinois in text, photos, and videos, as well as each station's current status. This site also includes local radio history and automated analog formats, again told in pictures, videos, and text.
Note that this website displays best on a full-size monitor, desktop, or laptop computer. If you're watching on your mobile phone, the mobile phone view has been replaced by the desktop view throughout this site. You can zoom in on the page if needed. Also, you may have to sign in to YouTube to view some videos. Some browsers do not allow some embedded videos to play, so click on the "YouTube" logo on the video to view it from YouTube.
Our late Moka and I are in my office at WICD/WCCU in
mid-2021 as I prepare for a newscast and weathercast. We lost Moka on June 12th last year.
Doug Quick
Radio/TV Broadcaster/Historian, Author, Webmaster
complete bio available here.
TV Time Capsule
The TV Time Capsule is taking the summer off. It will return in the Fall.
Featured Videos
Through June 14, I once again showcase more Featured Videos from TV's history here on the Home Page at Doug Quick Online, the Central Illinois' Online Broadcast Museum.
Four videos I recently added to the WCIA history page include all of The Beatles' appearances on the "Ed Sullivan Show." It was appropriate for me, as that's where I first saw them on Channel 3. So, I added the second mini-concert of The Beatles as one of the Featured Videos. You'll love it, and while you're in the mood, watch the others on the History of WCIA site.
While we're talking about music, over the last month, I've featured a 1974 video of "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" from their post-divorce days and, over the last couple of weeks, shared a pre-divorce edition of the show. Now, I reach back further for a 1965 appearance of the duo on "The Hollywood Palace." Be sure to check out the video below.
Then we move into 1966 with a "Jack Benny Hour" broadcast on NBC with Trini Lopez, The Smothers Brothers, and Phyllis Diller. That's followed by a 1967 third-series episode of "The Flying Nun." I would have liked to be in the room when the producers made the pitch to the network! Let's face it, it was a ridiculous show.
So, with the Beatles starting off the Featured Videos, why not bring John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) back seven years later with a 90-minute interview with Dick Cavett on his late-night ABC talk show?
By 1980, I was too old for Saturday morning cartoons, but many had requested them, so I delivered a three-hour sample of toons that were part of the CBS Saturday morning lineup.
We'll finish the TV videos to remember George Wendt and "Cheers" with a montage of cold beginnings to the classic NBC show from its first season of 1982-83.
Do you remember where you first heard the Beatles on the radio? It may have been in February 1963. I'll play a radio recording when WLS played "Please Please Me."
Do you remember when you first heard Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon?" I do because I have the tape recording. It's here on this week's Classic Radio selection. The Classic Radio selection returns to January 1974 with a complete aircheck from KSHE, 94.7FM, Crestwood-St. Louis, MO. This video is a 40-minute complete air recording of the classic rock (Album-Oriented Rock) station that still rocks St. Louis in the number one ratings spot! I recorded it when the reception was at its best overnight. KSHE broadcasts with a 100-thousand-watt signal, covering much of southwest and central Illinois at the time.
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
The Ed Sullivan Show (1964) CBS The Beatles
The Beatles appeared once on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. This 16-minute appearance is pure Beatlemania. You'd better check your pulse if you don't get goosebumps from watching this!
I remember watching this when it aired on Sunday night, February 16, 1964. I watched it on WCIA, but it also aired on other CBS affiliates, WMBD-TV, WTHI-TV, KHQA, and KMOX-TV. It aired live from the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, where the weather was more pleasing for the guests and audience.
It was recorded on monochrome videotape, probably an RCA Quad-4 VTR. From the corners being trimmed, the show may have used RCA color TK-41 cameras, a common artifact of those cameras. If I had to guess, that would have been the technical setup. CBS didn't regularly broadcast in color until the 1966 TV season, and most TVs had more rounded picture tube masks, so the trimmed edges would not have been noticeable, and it saved bandwidth for the recording process.
The Beatles performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show" from Miami Florida
(from YouTube)
One thing that's quite noticeable is that they look like they are having the time of their lives. You'll also see Ed get annoyed by some in the audience. Some older audience members also express apparent displeasure with the music. However, in a few short years, the older people in the audience would hear instrumental versions of the same songs and enjoy them on their favorite FM beautiful music station.
You'll see a much different Beatle John Lennon in the Dick Cavett video below on this week's Featured Videos.
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
The Hollywood Palace (1965) ABC
This "The Hollywood Palace" installment above aired on October 23, 1965, on mid-Illinois stations WTVP, WTVH, and KTVI. The variety show had just begun to broadcast in color a month before, so this video is possibly among the first half-dozen colorcast "Palace" shows. It also coincided with WTVP and WTVH's ability to color broadcast the incoming network signal. KTVI could already broadcast color programming.
In this video, Milton Berle hosted the "Hollywood Palace" with guests Abbe Lane, Bill Dana, and Sonny and Cher. Little did Sonny and Cher know that within four years, they would host their own hour-long comedy/music variety show on ABC.
Sonny and Cher performing in 1965 on "The Hollywood Palace"
(from YouTube)
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
The Jack Benny Hour (1966) NBC
This edition of "The Jack Benny Hour" was recorded on October 16, 1966, and aired on December 1, 1966, on NBC. It preempted that week's airing of "Star Trek," as shown at the beginning of the recording, along with the NBC color Peacock intro. AMC (American Motors Corporation) sponsored this show. The embedded product commercial is included in the show, but unfortunately, the agency commercials are not. This recording is from the original NBC production. I wish the video quality was better, but it won't take away the fun of watching this show.
Jack Benny with The Smothers Brothers
(from YouTube)
This show's guests include Trini Lopez, Phyllis Diller, The Smothers Brothers, and Mel Blanc. It was produced and written by Hal Goldman and Al Gordon, his regular crew and writers, with Irving Fein as executive producer. It was pre-recorded at NBC, Burbank.
This Jack Benny Special aired on mid-Illinois stations WICS, WCHU, WICD(in black and white), WGEM-TV, WTWO, and KSD-TV.
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
The Flying Nun (1967) ABC
Sally Field as Sister Bertrille on "The Flying Nun"
(from YouTube)
After doing "Gidget" in a bikini, Sally Field is now a nun, Sister Bertrille. She played the novice, originally named Elsie Ethington, who was in service at the Convent San Tanco, near San Juan, in Puerto Rico.
Her enthusiasm was over the top in two ways. First, the other nuns, much more conservative, felt she displayed too much energy. Plus, she would fly over the top of the convent, and anywhere the wind would take her.
She often called on her local friend, Carlos, played by Alejandro Rey, who owned a San Juan disco, for help in some scheme to improve the lives of the island's citizens.
The other regulars include those characters who were nuns: Marge Redmond, Madeleine Sherwood, Shelly Morrison, and Linda Dangcil.
"The Flying Nun" aired on ABC from September 7, 1967, through September 18, 1970. The video above is the first season's third episode, airing on September 21, 1967, on mid-Illinois affiliates WAND, WIRL, WJJY, and KTVI.
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
The Dick Cavett Show (1971) ABC Guest: John Lennon
John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Dick Cavett in 1971 on "The Dick Cavett Show" seen on ABC.
(from YouTube)
"The Dick Cavett Show" was ABC's attempt to compete with NBC's "Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in the late-night market.
The video above was recorded after Mr. Cavett's weekday morning talk show on ABC, which aired beginning in 1968. The following year, he hosted a three-times-a-week prime-time talk show, then later replaced "The Joey Bishop Show," which aired at 10:30 pm (CT). It's from that late-night series where the video above is taken. He often filled the entire show with a single guest, as with Groucho Marx, Marlon Brando, Katherine Hepburn, and this featured video with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Dick Cavett was a Yale graduate who was originally from Johnny Carson's home state of Nebraska. Like Carson, he also had an interest in magic tricks. After graduating from Yale, he went to New York, where he began to work as a writer for Jack Parr. He also wrote for others, trying his hand as a stand-up comedian, and did some summer stock acting at various venues. By the mid-1960s, he had enough recognition to work as a game/quiz show panelist for television. After that, he got to host a daytime talk show for ABC.
He later moved to CBS in the mid-70s and ended up on PBS in the late 1970s, doing what he did best: hosting a talk show.
This late-night ABC version of "The Dick Cavett Show" aired September 11, 1971, on WAND, WRAU, WJJY-TV, and KTVI. Note that it aired four days before the final broadcast of WJJY-TV! See more about the ill-fated "Ghost" TV Station by clicking here.
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
Saturday Morning (1980) CBS
This three-hour video includes much of the CBS Saturday morning lineup of kids' animated shows, including commercials. My generation watched Saturday morning TV many years before, and this fell before my kids came along. Still, many of you have requested videos featuring Saturday morning TV, and here is one example.
The list here includes "The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle," "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show," "The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour," "The All New Popeye Hour(just the intro)," "Drak Pack," "Fat Albert," and "The Tarzan/Lone Ranger Adventure Hour."
This video was recorded from KPIX, Channel 5, San Francisco, CA. These shows would have also aired on WCIA, WMBD-TV, WTHI-TV, KHQA, and KMOX-TV.
Click on the image to watch the video directly from YouTube.
Cheers (1982) NBC
In memory of George Wendt, I bring you a set of cold opens from several episodes of the first season of "Cheers." From September 30, 1982, through August 19, 1993, it became a classic comedy sitcom for NBC.
The series starred Ted Danson as Sam Malone, the owner of the bar "Cheers." Shelly Long played Diane Chambers, the server at the bar, and Nicholas Colasanto played Ernie "Coach" Pantusso, the bartender. Other characters were played by George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Kelsey Grammer, and others during the series' run as it evolved over its 11-year run.
The series aired locally on WICS, WICD, WEEK, WTWO, WGEM-TV, and KSDK.
The cast of "Cheers" during the first season of the series.
(from NBC)
Classic Radio
WLS, 890AM, Chicago (1963) Dick Biondi
A YouTube contributor posted this 13 years ago, but I discovered it this week. At age 14, Mitch Godwin recorded WLS from his home in Delaware, 750 miles from Chicago! Even more notable is that this off-air recording may have captured the first time a Beatles record was played on WLS. That was in February of 1963, almost a year before the Beatles were on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in February of 1964 over four Sunday nights! Watch the Beatles' appearance from February 16, 1964, above in Featured Videos.
This recording includes several other Top 40 songs, then "Please Please Me" from the Beatles. As one comment on the video says, the song "JUMPS out of the speaker!" The original recording was on VeeJay Records (I have a copy in my collection), and the group's name was misspelled as "The Beattles."
From 1961, the DJ lineup on WLS, "The Bright Sound of Chicago Radio." Dick Biondi, is pictured.
Click on the image to listen to the video directly from YouTube.
KSHE, 94.7FM, St. Louis (1974)
This video/audio is one of my classic, complete off-air recordings from KSHE (FM), Crestwood-St. Louis, Missouri, recorded on an unknown date in June of 1974. To put this into context, that was the month I began my broadcast career at WTIM-FM in Taylorville. This aircheck was recorded at my home, at the time, in southwest Taylorville, probably after working my radio shift one late at night. The mono recording was made over 104 miles away from the KSHE transmitter! I did make a few very short edits as the station would fade out.
I had no idea what I was recording other than the station, as it played music I had never heard before. As I heard it, I loved it. Nektar's "Remember the Future" and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon."
The DJ was Don Corey. (Thanks to Steve Rosen for identifying him)
Both played album sides were enough to motivate me to purchase both albums the next day! Luckily, I found them at a small record and head shop in Taylorville called the "Sound Cellar." I still have both albums, but have included them on my car flash drive. I used to listen to both on my way home from WICD/WCCU on Friday nights when I worked the evening shift.
You'll hear over 30 minutes of music before the jock returns for the spot set. The music continues with a set from the Moody Blues. In those days, I occasionally would drive the 90 minutes to St. Louis and cruise the city just to listen to KSHE and KADI. I miss those stations as they once were. I'm glad I have at least a few recordings from that era.
Click on the NWS logo above to get the Lincoln, IL site and/or
click on the links below the logo for the latest weather story and current radar view of Mid-Illinois.
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Latest Updates to the Museum
2025-0510 Several updates and additions were made to the History of WCIA, WICS, and the WAND pages. The second page of the WAND has been edited to put the story in chronological order, making more sense.
I added samples from daytime dramas to each page, including the first episodes of "Days of Our Lives" and "General Hospital" and samples of classic daytime dramas from the 1950s through the 1980s.
Watch for more video samples and even more pictures from each station as time passes.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
2025-0516 I've nearly finished updating the early histories of WCIA, WICS, and WTVP. The displays for each station now include many pictures and videos. I've also included news coverage from ABC, CBS, and NBC of President Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963.
I've also tried to show many of each station's stories more chronologically. I'll continue to add to each as I move to the period from the late 1960s through 2000. I hope to have it completed soon.
2025-0516 After being absent from this website for several years, I've added the stories of the "Ghost TV Stations" from St. Louis. One has a link to a radio and TV station in Mid-Illinois. Their stories have also been revised beyond what I published in my book, with several clarifications and rewrites that better tell the stories. I added pictures for both stations that broadcast for less than a year. Plus, I'll explain to you why they failed.
2025-0517 We're making more changes, enlarging the WJJY-TV story, and moving the information to its page under the heading "Central Illinois' Ghost TV Stations." There will be more changes in the coming days!
2025-0602 Updated and new Drake-Chenault Automated radio format samples have been added to the Radio Automated Format page. More will be added soon!
2025-0606 I finally added some material I've wanted to complete for over 10 years! It takes me a while sometimes...
I added better examples of the Drake-Chenault format samplers that the radio music syndicated company produced and distributed to radio station owners/managers to sell their services to mostly FM stations. The company began in the late 1960s, as more FM stations signed on to the air, but it didn't produce much income to support a full-fledged radio airstaff.
Drake-Chenault offered several popular music formats that would run on automation systems. That would satisfy the FCC's non-simulcast regulations for AM/FM radio facilities.
I rerecorded the format samples from 1974-75 and added the samples from the 1976-77 LP set to the Automated Radio Format page. You'll hear aircheck samples from all their formats from both promotional LP sets sent to radio stations to sell their services.
The LP cover from the 1976-77 box set is shown above. If you start with the introduction, at the end you'll find the link to the next cut on the record set.
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Much of the information on the history of TV pages on this site comes directly from my 2016 book "Pictures on the Prairie: The First Ten Years of Mid-Illinois Television." There are many more pictures on this site than in the book as space was limited.
Latest TV
Headlines
2025-0419 Now is the time to contact your congressional representative and senators to maintain federal support for Public Media. For more details, visit Illinois Public Media.
Allen Meida Group
Proposes Sale
2025-0602-You might remember a "not-so-popular" decision of Allen Media Group, owners of local TV stations, WLFI, Channel 18, Lafayette, IN, WTHI-TV, Channel 10, Terre Haute, IN, and WSIL-TV, Channel 3, Carterville-Harrisburg, IL. That decision eliminated many meteorologists at the local TV station in favor of using co-owned The Weather Channel to produce local weather for broadcast at the local stations.
It's been reported that Allen Media Group is putting its stations up for sale. The group includes 28 ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates in 21 markets., including the ones listed above.
The group has experienced financial pressures over the last couple of years.
Click here to learn more about the Allen Media Group and its proposed sale.
Now Streaming Nationally
Click on the image above to listen to MeTVFM. It's the popular music companion to MeTV, Memorable Entertainment Television, America’s #1 all classic television network. Launched at 87.7FM in late February, 2015, MeTVFM features a unique mix of timeless and memorable music incorporating a wide variety of classic hits, deep tracks and softer sounds spanning several decades of popular music.
Previously on Videos of the Week...
If you've missed any of the "Videos of the Week" or "Classic Radio" recordings, you'll find them here. Unfortunately, there's no written narrative to go along with each. You have to visit each week for that.
Radio Classics
WLS 890AM Chicago (1973) Charlie Van Dyke/Fred Winston/JJ Jeffries/John Landecker/Bill Bailey
KPNX-TV, NBC 12 News, Phoenix, Arizona
Bonanza (1960-61) NBC 14 Episodes
All in the Family (1972) CBS "Sammy's Visit"
What's Happening (1977) ABC "Doobie or Not Doobie"
Carol Burnett Show-The Family (1977) CBS "Elephant Story" segment
Classic Radio
WLS-FM (1982) Chicago Steve Dahl and Garry Meier
Starsky and Hutch (1975) ABC First Episode
All-Star Party for Burt Reynolds (1981) CBS
The Twilight Zone: Rod Serlings's Lost Classics (CBS) 1994 Special with James Earl Jones
People Are Funny (1955) NBC Art Linkletter
You Bet Your Life (1955) NBC Groucho Marx
Classic Radio
Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show (1940s) NBC Over 11 hours of shows
The Cara Williams Show (1964) CBS Pilot
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1968) CBS
Jackie Gleason Show (1969) CBS
Baretta (1976) ABC Robert Blake
Diff'rent Strokes (1978) NBC Pilot
Classic Radio
KXOK Documentary "The Glory Days of Radio in St. Louis"
The Red Skelton Hour (1965) CBS
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: Whales (1968) ABC
CBS News with Walter Cronkite (1970) CBS
Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971) CBS
Classic Radio
WWTO (1973) Drake-Chenault Solid Gold
WLRW (1974) Drake-Chenault Solid Gold
The Ed Sullivan Show (1964) CBS The Beatles
The Hollywood Palace (1965) ABC
The Jack Benny Hour (1966) NBC
The Dick Cavett Show (1971) ABC Guest: John Lennon
Classic Radio
WLS, 890AM, Chicago (1963) Dick Biondi Show
KSHE, 94.7FM, St. Louis (1974)
Next Regular Update June 14
To be announced
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