In a valley where the big-city signals disappear behind the ridges, Channel Thirtyone has always come through. Some nights, we are all you can get.
STATION EXTERIOR · COUNTY ROAD 9 · OCTOBER 1987PHOTOGRAPH 01 / NO SECOND EXPOSURE RECORDED
A voice between the ridges
Blackridge was built above coal. The houses followed the seams; the roads followed the houses. By the time the last deep workings closed, the valley had a school, a post office, Bell’s Grocery, a filling station, a bar—and very little reason for anyone to pass through.
WBRG signed on in 1961 from two rooms beside the county’s civil-defense relay. Families who could not receive Pittsburgh or Harrisburg finally had a picture of their own. The station outlasted the mines, the county’s first warning system, and three different promises of reliable cable.
By 1987, the old, independent low-power station served approximately 30,000 viewers across Blackridge and the surrounding towns. We carried weather, church services, high-school sports, familiar reruns, and the names of neighbors who had passed away. Mine-subsidence bulletins ran between advertisements. Nobody thought that unusual.
Faces you know
Touch a portrait to check the personnel record.
Evening news / Since 1968
Walter knows every family in Blackridge. He writes the obituaries, coaches the junior debate team, and has never missed the evening news. On October 31, he read every name without looking down.
Personnel photograph approved: October 12, 1987.
Valley weather / Since 1979
Marian’s forecasts include every hollow, every ridge, and every road the county has stopped maintaining. Her weather map still shows Briar Glen. She says she grew up there. Her file says she still lives there.
Home town: Briar Glen. County map reference unavailable.
A note on this archive
There was no Channel Thirtyone website in 1987. These pages are a present-day reconstruction of station logs, off-air recordings, photographs, and community notices recovered from the condemned Annex.
The original material ends at 11:13 PM. Some entries in the reconstruction do not appear on the original material.
Examine the records ↗“If we ever go off the air, you’ll know it’s time to go home.”
— Walter Vale, station anniversary broadcast, 1986
The station has no recorded procedure for viewers who are already home.