Star Trek - "The Cage"

Notes:

"The Cage" is the pilot to the original 1960s series of Star Trek, recorded during TV Land's November 2006 'Inside: Star Trek' marathon. This episode was produced in 1964 and was not broadcast alongside the series but rather only existed as a screener for NBC executives in an attempt to get the show greenlit. In 1986, "The Cage" was made publicly available through a VHS release and two years later, the episode would make its television debut.

I received this recording a few days ago in a collection of Star Trek reruns recorded in the mid-to-late 2000s and it really peaked my interest. I was aware of Star Trek's pilot episode but had never actually watched it before and wasn't fully aware of its broadcast history. I looked into it a bit and some sources list this episode as premiering on television on October 15, 1988, some list it as November 27, and others list it as October 4. Hmmm, looks like we've got a discrepancy.

First off, I can scratch out the November 27 claim as 11/27/64 was actually the date the episode was filmed. What I assume happened was IMDb sucked up that date automatically thinking it correlated with when "The Cage" premiered on television in '88, when in reality, it was mashing together two completely different events. The general concensus is that the episode hit TV in October 1988, but which day did it first air and where? It's a bit tricky to tell, but here's what I found.

• The Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana) has an October 16, 1988 airing at 3:00pm (CST) on West Monroe's then-ABC affiliate KARD that boasts "Susan Oliver and Majel Barrett also star in this pilot for the original series, never before seen on television."
• The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina) quickly invalidates the former with an October 15 airing at 8:00pm (EST) on Columbia, SC's CBS station WLTX that mans the same exact listing description. It's safe to assume any airings using this listing were simply pasted from previous airings. Also, we now know the episode ran in syndication rather than premiering on one single network.
• Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) lists an October 12 airing at 8:00pm (EST) on WRGT (Dayton's then-FOX station), completely cancelling out the frequent October 15 claim.
• The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) has "The Cage" listed as airing on several different stations on October 8 at 7:00pm (EST) with the same description that I found on October 15 and 16.
• The Anniston Star (Anniston, Alabama)'s October 4 edition lists an 7:00pm (CST) showing on WGNX with the aforementioned description. According to the page linked above on Memory Alpha, this is their decided premiere date for the episode. Unfortunately, their article lacks a citation on that claim (tsk, tsk!).
• The Miami Herald (Miami, Florida)'s "Prime Time Guide" section for the October 3 edition showcases an 8:00pm "premiere" on WCIX (now WFOR) stating "Airing for the first time on TV is the original Star Trek pilot...". It appears the popular October 4 claim can now be invalidated as well. Upon further inspection, I found a September 29, 1988 edition of Santa Cruz Sentinel (Santa Cruz, California) that features an article about the upcoming premiere stating, ""The Cage," the pilot for the original "Star Trek" series, will be televised for the first time the week of Oct. 3." Well, that should be the end of our search. It's all there in print: October 3, 1988 is the premiere date... right? Well, not exactly...
• The Ithaca Journal (Ithaca, New York) has an 8:00pm (EST) listing for an independent channel 11 (which I'm assuming is WPIX). This listing doesn't date to October 2, or October 1, or September 30, 29, 28, or 27, but rather September 26, 1988. There's no big fanfare for it or literally anything written about it outside of its title in the two-hour 8:00pm block sandwiched between two airings of INN News. Part of me believed this had to have been an error. Maybe they meant to publish that listing for the Monday, October 3 edition? I looked into it some more and the following edition on September 27 actually lists an airing on different New York station, WNYC, at 8:00pm. Again, no articles or mention of the airing throughout the paper outside of a single listing.

So what's the concensus? Honestly, I don't know. It seems wildly unlikely that WPIX or WNYC would have premiered the episodes earlier than the rest of the country with what appears to be zero advertising. I dug up the October 3, 1988 edition of The Ithaca Journal and it too lists an 8:00pm airing with no promotion. Very strange. I'd be inclined to mark this pilot as premiering on October 3, 1988 given what the Santa Cruz Sentinel listed as well as the countless other stations having premiere listings on that night, but the fact that it's listed as running on WNYC on September 27 is really steering me towards a September debut.

If you have any further info on when and where "The Cage" first aired -- or if I screwed up somewhere in my frantic research -- please let me know! Embedded waaaaay up there are some split screen credits from this airing as well as the airing of "Space Seed" that followed it.