We became familiar with Terry Dullum as anchor from 1975 and Pat Sweeney at sports from 1983. We also got to see weather personality Dewey Bergquist who gave the weather from Fargo but also the Grand Forks broadcast. Some people who travelled to the States were familiar with Bergquist because they heard or saw him in Fargo doing weather as early as the 1950s.
I remember when Bergquist retired in 1985, there were a few of those old timers who were sad on both sides of the border. Even for myself, he was the face of weather south of us for 15 years of my life. He was replaced in 1985 by the first full time meteorologist in the state John Wheeler. He was based at the WDAY location in Fargo but did the Grand Forks WDAZ broadcast as well.
It would be some time before Winnipeg would get a local meteorologist with John Sauder first with CKY/CTV and CBC Winnipeg. We have had to receive broadcasts from weather specialists most of the broadcast history on Manitoba. Even now, we have do with broadcast meteorologists outside Manitoba.
Our regional relationship with different areas is fading with digital and satellite radio, cord cutting from cable and the like. Some young people only get information from smart phones so are not exposed to television in the same way. There were just fewer listening and viewing options. This meant many people were exposed to the same entertainment and news.
For Winnipeg, the 1970s and the 1980s saw most in the city having cable television. There were three Canadian networks and four U.S. networks (including PBS). A weather channel, a French channel and public access pretty much rounded out the dial. While many programs were simulcast, often weather updates broke into the North Dakota signals. It is at those times a meteorologist like John Wheeler would appear with a bad weather report.
In the 1970s, I began to watch U.S. national news. My favourite network was ABC which was on KTHI from Fargo. I was aware of local news from that station but my interest was more in the national ABC World News Tonight broadcast. Still, I knew that the weather guy at least in the early 1980s at KTHI was Rob Thorson. The KTHI station had the tallest tower in the world. It was needed because reception was a problem for all the American station. During bad weather it was possible to lose signal for any and all the stations.
WDAZ was the closest North Dakota cable station to Winnipeg (along with Prairie Public Television and PBS). KCND Pembina, North Dakota was closed and moved to Winnipeg to become CKND in 1974. The WDAZ station was affiliated with NBC which in the 1970s was third place in the ratings in the U.S. whereas KTHI in Fargo carried ABC and that network had moved into number one in ratings.
NBC programming had a few bright spots in 1970s such as Saturday Night Live but had programming that older Americans liked such as Marcus Welby, Ironside, Columbo, McLeod and McMillan and Wife. Other programming later in the decade such as Little House on the Prairie, Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life appealed to families and younger kids but network struggled. Regardless, in North Dakota, WDAZ/WDAY had high ratings which may have had to do with local news which they did very well. And once someone tuned into a network, they were likely to stick with it. No remore controls back then.
In 1983, everything changed in August when ABC went to WDAY/WDAZ and asked them to change affiliations to their number one network. For ABC, it was an attempt to lock in Fargo and Grand Forks but also Bismarck which even in the 1980s did not have much in network affiliates. KTHI was completely taken by surprise with many staff only learning about it after the deal was done. It caught people in Manitoba by surprise too although we had no say in what U.S networks did.
Suddenly, WDAZ with ABC affiliation had the number one station. KTHI with NBC now had the third rated network. The good news for KTHI was that ratings steadily climbed as they focused on comedies and acclaimed dramas and reclaimed the long lost position at the top. It was in 1985 when John Wheeler came aboard the WDAZ broadcast as meteorologist.
While Grand Forks was smaller than Fargo, they offered a very good news broadcast than won awards for their coverage of the 1997 flood. Wheeler became a recognizable face for his cut-ins during bad weather south of the border. By 1986, the only two North Dakota stations left on cable were WDAZ and Prairie Public when KTHI and KXJB were dropped because of signal quality. This meant that John Wheeler was the only weather guy we saw from North Dakota in our homes in Winnipeg.
In the years following we received our NBC, CBC and later Fox signals from Detroit, Toldeo, Rochester, New York and lastly Minneapolis. Or connection to WDAZ remained strong even as the Grand Forks station closed their news department in 2018. Winnipeg still got their signal from Grand Forks but the news came from WDAY in Fargo. All through this John Wheeler was the meteorologist. That is, until this week when he retired.
His weather department grew to six people. It is an example of what local news can be. WDAY has a large weather, sports and news department and lots of local broadcasting. It is worth comparing to our own local news which is pathetically tiny when covering local sports or have meteorologists employed. John Wheeler's retirement is the end of another era of broadcasters and he'll be missed even from those in Canada.
All over, there have been retirements. In the last two years, we have seen Janet Stewart and John Sauder leave local TV broadcasts. Some have been let go in cost cutting. Given how local TV has seen audiences drift away to so many other platforms, perhaps we never get to know someone as well as a John Wheeler. The audience has grown so fragmented. Here's to John Wheeler in retirement!
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