Friday’s question has been successfully answered. The cities listed were all designated as all-UHF television markets by the FCC’s channel reassignment plan of 1952 and have remained that way ever since. They were designated this way because the country was running out of VHF channels and because most of them were situated close enough to multiple larger metropolitan areas that the shortage was particularly acute…
Before 1952, many of these cities had at least one VHF channel assigned. In Fresno, for example, there was channel 12, KFRE-TV at the time, which moved to channel 30 and now operates as KFSN. Bakersfield had channel 10, KERO, which is now on channel 23. Several cities, Columbia SC for example, retained this single VHF channel arrangement even after 1952…
I knew a lot of this stuff beforehand, because I was a freak and I used to sit around reading things like the channel assignment table when I was a teenager. But I got further information here and here at this cool history of the Dumont network…
Speaking of Dumont, those of you who are really inclined toward trivia might find it interesting that there is a direct link from the fourth network of the 1950s to the establishment of the fourth network of the present thirty years later. Dumont’s owned and operated stations became the Metromedia group after the network folded. This group was later purchased by Ruper Murdoch in the 1980s as the beginning of his new network…
OK, I’ll stop being so damned geeky now…
Until after breakfast, at least…