Best TV Station - 2003
WRBU-TV (UPN 46)
Local viewers who like their television free need to thank the Roberts Brothers, Michael and Steve, for increasing their options this year. WRBU dropped the home-shopping format and switched to UPN shows, Jerry Springer, plenty of reruns and seldom-run movies. It's not PBS by any stretch -- how many stations run The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air back-to-back every day? That's preceded by back-to-backs of Moesha. And there's Soul Train on Saturdays at 10 a.m. Yikes. But there are surprises, too, particularly during weekend movie slots. This summer The Plague surfaced on Channel 46 on a rainy Saturday afternoon -- uneven, but fitting for a rainy day. The big deal for the station was getting the rights to broadcast Rams preseason games. The first game drew 9.1 percent of local televisions, the second-worst rating of any Rams game since the team moved here. But the rating was more than three times what WRBU usually gathers, so it was worth it for the station. Now that folks know where to find their beloved sheep, they'll also discover where Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons went. Movin' on up.
