Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 55

i 11 ir f4- ptr i ta ir i vn-'i -tu 1 1 TELEVISION 55 TViS 3 I Uafifci By Ben Kubasik STAFF WRITER Bruce Springsteen on NBC says Bruce appearance as musical guest on the May 9 Night will mark the network TV debut The host is Joe Peed star of Cousin Networks and Country Music Fans of The Nashville Network also can find their favorite performers elsewhere on upcoming specials CNN joins the ranks today with a half-hour New special (2:30 pm and again at 8:30 pm) reporting on rising popularity Tomorrow at 9 pm NBC broadcasts the 27th annual Country Music Awards hosted in Los Angeles by Clint Black Lorrie Morgan and Travis Tritt with Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks among the performers Brooks who won six awards last year including entertainer of the year and Alan Jackson top new vocalist have five nominations each this year Tonight at 8 NBC repeats its January is Garth special CBS earlier this month videotaped Country Music Hall of 25th Anniversary in Nashville and will show it May 20 NBC says its weekly Country likely will be back as a series of specials next season DOCK OS a BCTieS OI 116X1 BC Michael Pascucd left who founded WUG 55 In 1985 and aervea aa Its president and general manager Marvin Chauvin celebrate the seventh anniversary today I horoughly Modern I -55 The producers of Fax hit With have come up with a spinoff of a spinoff: and about two working-dass guys The sitcom spun off from the short-lived of the (which was spun off from with premieres May 30 at 9:30 pm Matt LeBlanc reprises his role as Vinnie Verducd (Matt LeBlanc) this time teamed with Robert Torti who plays the hunky Bobby Grazzo Pennsylvania Primary longest major-network coverage of the Pennsylvania Primary will be on CBS at 11:35 pm at 11:30 will include Pennsylvania results inside its scheduled subject: a look at GOP fund-raising NBC will cut in with brief news during the evening and perhaps an update on its news-magazine (10 pm) CNN will have continuous reports and C-SPAN C-SPAN will join with WTAE-TV Pittsburgh affiliate for its coverage II Last Jam Carson in the early '60s days until his last show also a distinctly separate area you taka a market the size of Long Island it would be about a Top 15 market anywhere in the United States Top 15 markets generally have a minimum of six commercial television says Michael Pascucd the businessman who founded WLIG and serves as president Pascucd up on Long Island end thought an area of three million people should realty be served by its own local television (Ch 67 ran Long Island programing in the 1970s but went bankrupt now part of the Home Shopping Chib) a family community and a family guy and I thought we needed a family-type station with good entertainment and a mix of programing with educational and spiritual dimensions to It took Pascucd a half-dozen years of effort to launch WLIG in 1985 with local news religious shows and advertising availabilities ensuring that Long Island indeed had a voice (WUG is owned privately by Oxford Resources a holding company in the auto-mobile-lease financing business) But try as it might to rule this natural territory Ch 55 seemed forever marooned on the fringes With a transmitter in Ridge it was on the geographic fringe for Nassau and western Suffolk viewers whose antennas pointed in the opposite direction toward New York City And high UHF channel was on the fringe of TV dial the station was so desperate as to give away free UHF loop antennas even passed them out in Chauvin remembers we still have them well be happy to send them ND THEN there was Cablevision the Long Island behemoth that refused to put Ch 55 in its cable lineup which made it hard for the 300000 homes to watch Every other Long Island Bystem found room getting WUG into 300000 other cable homes even Brooklyn-Queens Cable made it available to its 350000 New York City subscribers But Cablevision of Woodbury said it have the channel capacity Then when channels opened up it said Ch programing essentially duplicated existing offerings Meanwhile Cablevision carried stations from Boston and Scranton Pa And new national cable services like CNBC and TNT found channels while there still was no welcome for local TV-55 Could this be because WUG had a Long Island newscast that might compete with News 12? Could this be because TV-55 Bought ad dollars in the same territory as Cablevision? Oh noooo Meanwhile Ch 55 was losing per Pascucd says (The privately owned company release exact figures) Though had a deep Pascucd still tried to sell WUG four years ago when that happen the Btation dropped its nightly newscast in April 1989 (WUG lO MOST PEOPLE television is a smart department store where they chooBe from the latest slickest new program styles But to some of us TV is a dusty flea market where we prowl for treasures vintage collectible and amusingly tacky The older and cruder (and hopefully black-and-white) the video style is the better why the arrival of independent station WLIG 55 in 1985 was such a momentous event Here was a truly hand-to-mouth operation a low-rent UHF station in a high-powered market And what a schedule! in Cisco Not only that but when WLIG signed on the air Sunday afternoon April 28 1985 (with the 1935 Clark Gable movie of the it promptly lost transmitter power and went dark two hours later wiping out the remainder of its first broadcast day! A station after my own heart! Unfortunately my heart pay the bills Not even the combined devotion of all the mondo-TV lovers out there could do that simply outnumbered by folks who like their TV good And so WLIG began its journey toward respectability TV-55 as the station calls itself arrives at its seventh anniversary today with a spifty modem lineup Because WLIG is licensed to Riverhead which lies outside the 35-mile syndicated exclusivity boundary from New York City (although the channel is available in Brooklyn and Queens) this little operation can run the same hits as the big-city stations wait til 7 pm for TV-55 has it weeknights at 6 get home in time for Ch 55 runs it at 7 WLIG also calls itself a Movie and long-time general manager Marvin Chauvin now boasts the rights to 1000 films considerably more recent than the classics he used to run (To celebrate this anniversary week prime-time double feature presents such upscaled films as of and (at 8 and 10) and and Through Sunday Ch 55 will stay on die air 24 hours a day (up from 18) This simply because Ch 55 has survived seven years or because it loves us Yesterday was the start of the May ratings sweeps It also was the first day of a one-week test placement on massive Woodbury system (on converter Ch 14) a long-delayed date that TV-55 hopes will lead to the marriage that should have happened years ago Poor Long Island-based WLIG has always been an industry oddity Though the Island is technically a part of the New York TV market the largest Guests tonight: Jerry Seinfeld BB King Carl Reiner Tidbit: When the show bowed on Oct 1 1962 competition on rival New York stations included two old movies on Ch 2 and "Father Was a on Ch 7 -v- TONIGHT ON TV b- DeHvor Than from Evil: Tho faking of Alta ViOW (WC8S 2 at 9): in a change-of-pace role Harry Hamlin plays a disturbed man who takes -r hostages in a maternity ward Frentflno: Who Cares About tho Children? (WNET 713 at 9) probes Arkansas' foslar-care system 1 Dateline NBC (WNBC4 at 10): Jane Pauley speaks to BiM Cosby two days before the final Aady EdaUala Please see TUBE on Page 70.