Between 1979 and 1988, all three TV stations in Knoxville, TN went through musical affiliation chairs! WATE Channel 6 went from NBC to ABC, WTVK Channel 26 went from ABC to NBC, and WBIR Channel 10 stayed with CBS! Then, nine years later, in 1988, WATE stayed with ABC, WBIR went from CBS to NBC, and WTVK went from NBC to CBS and became WKXT Channel 8! It is now WVLT on Channel 8!

The story now 26 years later is Channel 8 is fighting with Channel 6 in Knoxville for #2

1:33 WTVK Became An CBS Affiliate

Turns out, WATE DID NOT become the winner as they said they would at the end. It was WBIR who became the BIG BIG BIG BIG winner. WBIR to this day has the largest news team in Eastern TN, and is consistently been the #1 news station in that area. as for WTVK, along with the move to CBS, they went through a few call letter changes, to WKXT and then to WVLT and a move to Channel 8 (somewhat short spaced to Atlanta-Athens GA (WGTV)) and would become in a heated 2nd place race with WATE.

1979: WTVK (Ch. 26) changed from ABC to NBC. WATE (Ch. 6) changed from NBC to ABC. WBIR (Ch. 10) remained with CBS. 1988: WBIR (Ch. 10) changed from CBS to NBC. WTVK (Ch. 26) changed from NBC to CBS. Swapped channels from 26 to 8 in 1988. WATE (Ch. 6) remained affiliated with ABC.

They seemed to think WATE would benefit from the confusion that would come from their competition swapping networks. How wrong they were; WBIR only got stronger after switching to NBC.

Boy, it looked more like a hot potato game. With NBC as the potato. All three stations changed affiliations.

1:50 King Bir had Forgotten how greed Caused King Wate's Kingdom to Crumple *CUE KING WATE'S KINGDOM BEING PIXELATED*

The next two people in line for King Witvik's throne (WTVK-TV 26, 1953-1988): * King Wixty (WKXT-TV 8, 1988-1997) * King Volt (WVLT-TV 8, 1997-present)

0:24 Ok so far its making sense in terms of the colored eggs, Gold Egg being ABC, Silver Egg being CBS, and Lead Egg being NBC (matching up with the Ratings of the networks around 1979) but at 1:02 when it says that the ABC would turn from Gold back to lead, that isn't true. Sure, in the 80's ABC wasn't #1, but they weren't in last place, that was CBS, so the ABC egg would have turned to Silver and the CBS egg would turn to Lead. At 1:14 its correct about the the NBC egg going from Lead to Gold (as NBC was seeing a huge comeback in the mid-late 80s) but at 1:19 WBIR 10 would not be the strongest in Television Land, as that CBS egg should be lead, so at 1:47 they are assuming the NBC egg would turn to lead again, but NBC will very quickly become the strongest network, and absolutely dominate in the 90s. So at the end they say WATE 6 would rule Television land again, but actually WBIR 10 would be the real winner as they have the strongest network, WTVK 26 (later Channel 8) would be the big loser with the bottom rated network, and WATE 6 would be in the happy middle ground. Btw this is all just talking about the Networks each channel had, not taking into account the ratings of Newscasts or Syndicated Programs Yeah, I just typed all that, I am THAT bored with this whole Coronavirus and "Shelter in Place" stuff going on as of 3-27-2020

This was from 1988...but they still used the pre-1986 NBC logo?

King "Wit-vik" is now King "Wivelt".

Did WTVK actually air this? It’s awesome.

1:32 King BIR didn't nerf King WTVK's crown like King WATE did

But I thought WATE 6 was already an ABC affiliate before 1988, starting in 1979. WBIR 10 was a CBS Affiliate and WTVK 26/WVLT 8 was an NBC affiliate until those two swapped stations in 1988.

Now you know why viewers are not satisfied with everything!

King BIR won due to his Syndication

nbc was on all of the big three stations in knoxville, first is wrol/wate, second is wtvk/wkxt/wvlt and now wbir.

When did WVLT became a VHF station

"Uh-oh, here comes the peacock." - WBIR

WATE now own by nexstar

When WROL came on the air in 1953 they were a radio station affiliated with NBC radio so they went with the NBC tv network, WTVK came on a few hours later and CBS went with them , since WTVK was a very weak station when WBIR came on the air in 1956 CBS moved to WBIR, in 1979 ABC became the number one network and wanted a stronger station in Knoxville since NBC was in third place WATE went with ABC, NBC became the number one network in the 80s and wanted a stronger station , by this time WTVK had won the rights to broadcast on channel 8 but had trouble switching signals and the switch to 8 was delayed , because of this plus WBIR dominating the local news NBC switched to WBIR , after the switch WTVK changed its calls letters to WKXT , in 1997 Gray Television bought WKXT and changed the call letters to WVLT

What about the Independent Tv stations?

In Knoxville the usually best ratings are: 1. WBIR 2. WATE (Somehow for whatever reason) 3. WVLT

Why wasn’t fox there?

after the switch from WTVK 26 now channel 8 WKXT now WVLT CBS

wtvk wate wbir nbc-cbs NBC-abc abc-cbs

wate abc 6 owned by nexstar media group