I was born in 1970 and my prime TV watching years were 1973-1982. I LOVED TV. I remember my Kindergarten teacher saying "I'm sad today" on the last day of Kindergarten. I blurted out "Well I'm not! Now I get to see m' shows!" Haha.
We had three independent local stations in the NYC area. I grew up in New Jersey. WNEW (5) WPIX (11) and WOR (9). WOR was pretty worthless. They couldn't afford the more recent, popular syndicated shows, so they got cheap shows. While 11 had The Honeymooners, 9 had Life of Reilly. I think the only channel 9 show I watched was Hazel. And on Thanksgiving they would have a Godzilla/King Kong marathon.
Channel 5 had The Brady Bunch, Andy Griffith, The Flintstones, I Love Lucy, Make Room for Daddy, Bugs Bunny/Loony Toons and later on All in the Family and MASH.
Channel 11 had Batman, Gilligan's Island, Little House, Happy Days, Lavrene and Shirley, Dick Van Dyke, The Lucy Show, Mothers In Law, My Three Sons, and Love American Style.
An interesting thing- there were TWO versions of Our Gang/The Little Rascals. Channel 5 had the VASTLY superior Hal Roach 1924 to 1942 episodes. Channel 11 had the HORRIBLE MGM years 1943 to 1947ish. They were just awful and they had to call it Our Gang
Similarly, Channel 11 had the 1930s and 40s Popeye cartoons which were wonderful. Channel 5 had the early '60s Popeye cartoons that were made for television. They stunk on ice, if you dont mind me saying. For some reason in the later ones they called Bluto Brutus. They were just bad.
I was overall a channel 5 guy myself. Interestingly, WNBC, the NY local NBC affiliate, would run Mary Tyler Moore Show and Here's Lucy back to back at 4pm. Then I would watch Little House on channel 11 at 5pm. What a great lineup!
So much Lucy. Lucy was on at 9am on channel 5 with I Love Lucy. Then at 10:30am on 11 The Lucy Show, then at 4:30pm Here's Lucy. Honestly, at 7 or 8 years old, to me all 3 series were equally good. I would notice them repeating jokes, storylines, ect, on the 3 shows but it never bugged me. I have to say, I never liked The Lucy Show or Here's Lucy eps without Viv. In fact, I LOVED seeing Viv (Ethel) in color!! She always wore blue eyeshadow. I was so very gay. Haha.