WXYZ, Detroit: Suitcases Full Of Money

Without WXYZ, ABC may not have made it. Lytle Hoover, who was then directing The Soupy Sales Show from there, told me that every Friday morning the GM flew to NYC with a suitcase full of money so ABC could cover payroll checks.

WXYZ-TV began broadcasting October 9, 1948 and was the third of the five original ABC-owned and operated television stations to begin operations, after New York City and Chicago, and before San Francisco and Los Angeles. WXYZ-TV was created out of ABC-owned radio station WXYZ (1270 AM), which produced the popular radio programs The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet.

In the 1950s WXYZ-TV began producing a series of popular and innovative programs which featured many personalities from WXYZ radio. The station’s success generated revenues large enough that it helped keep the then struggling ABC network afloat during the 1950s.

WXYZ began broadcasting in color in 1964. By 1978, WXYZ-TV was the second most-dominant television station in the United States in local viewer ratings, no doubt attributed to ABC’s prime-time ratings dominance and the continued success of Channel 7 Action News with lead news anchor Bill Bonds. In 1979, ABC named Jeanne Findlater as WXYZ’s general manager. She was the first woman to hold that title at a large market television station.

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