First 24 Hour Commercial/Public TV Station

[Radio-X]

This has been something I have been wondering about for quite awhile...

Who was the first to provide regular 24 hour programming on their TV station? Was this heavily advertised?

I have heard WPXI in Pittsburgh started in the late 50's-early 60's for steel workers on the overnight shift...but I have no proof of this. I'm also not sure if it lasted very long.

Alternately, I have heard that stations in LA (KNX-TV) and Dallas had at least a couple nights a week of 24 hour broadcasting by the late 60's.

The earliest actual "24 hour" broadcast I'm aware of from a TV Guide (save for JFK assassination/moon landing/etc) was WCBS-TV New York in the mid 70's. They'd 'sign off' for 15-90 minutes with test card before signing back on. Transmitter was usually not shut off.

In terms of public broadcasters, I have heard WTVS in Detroit ran 24/7 since the mid 80's (auto plant workers and Canadian viewers on cable), and KCTS Seattle (also on Canadian cable) has been 24/7 since 1989. Otherwise, it seems like everybody was signing off into the early-mid 90's...

Radio-X

 

[rwells2265]

One of the first, if not THE first, smaller station to go to a round-the-clock schedule would be WTVY ch. 4 in Dothan, Alabama. I believe they were 24/6 by 1970.

Another one in the state, WBRC-TV ch. 6 in Birmingham. came really close to being a 24-hour operation back in the '60s/'70s .... they'd sign off at 2 or 2:30, and sign back on at 4 or 4:30.

I think a TV station in Las Vegas, when it was under Howard Hughes' ownership, was a 24-hour station. There's the oft-told fable of TV listings showing "TO BE ANNOUNCED" most overnights, since Hughes virtually invented on-demand viewing ..... he'd call the master control operator, and tell him what movies to air. Not sure as to its validity, but what a fun story anyway!

--Russell

 

[Gregg.]

I know from 1960s TV Guides I've seen that WCBS-TV 2 NYC (mentioned above) and KTTV 11 Los Angeles were the first almost-24 hour stations. Neither station timed their last movies so they'd end at the beginning of the morning programming. In fact, neither ran an old black and white sitcom to fill up the time if they had more than 30 minutes before the regular morning sign on. When the last movie ended, it was Test Pattern till the regular sign-on time.

I guess we can say Los Angeles had 24 hour TV first, because KTTV's last movie would end after 6am. KTTV's morning programming started at 7 or 7:30, so the last movie would often begin at 5am or later. Meanwhile KNXT 2 always started its programming at 6am, with a couple of episodes of Sunrise Semester. So a Los Angeles viewer could simply switch his TV from Channel 11 to Channel 2 when KTTV's last movie finished.

And yes, I've also heard that WTVS Detroit was the first PBS station to go 24/7 because it is so widely seen on Canadian cable. It even is seen on British Columbia cable systems, even though they also carry KCTS from nearby Seattle. So it was logical for WTVS, in the Eastern Time Zone, to go 24/7, since it has viewers in the Pacific Time Zone. I've heard that WTVS gets more contributions from north of the border than it does from its Detroit area viewers.

 

[FreddyE1977]

This has been something I have been wondering about for quite awhile...

Who was the first to provide regular 24 hour programming on their TV station? Was this heavily advertised?

I have heard WPXI in Pittsburgh started in the late 50's-early 60's for steel workers on the overnight shift...but I have no proof of this. I'm also not sure if it lasted very long.

Actually I believe it was WDTV (the forerunner to KDKA-TV) with a movie program called Swing Shift Theater
circa 1953 or thereabouts.

I know it was promoted in newspaper ads at the time. I have seen them and will try and see if I can find
any examples to post.

 

[ftballfan]

WCMU and its translators didn't go 24 hours a day until 2010! I vividly remember watching their signon announcement at 6:45am when I was little. It mentioned the stations themselves along with microwave relays

 

[K.M. Richards]

WCMU and its translators didn't go 24 hours a day until 2010! I vividly remember watching their signon announcement at 6:45am when I was little. It mentioned the stations themselves along with microwave relays

I'm going to suggest that this is as interesting as the original intent of this thread, and suggest a second thread on what stations were among the last to go 24/7.

 

[Ultimajock]

...WBBM-TV/2 Chicago was also an early 24-hour operation; in fact, when WVTV/18 Milwaukee was microwaved to cable systems between Madison and Fargo in the mid-1970s, whenever WVTV signed off for the night the microwaving company would automatically switch over to WBBM-TV for the rest of the night until 6:00 AM Central Time...

 

[K.M. Richards]

My friend Mr. MacKenzie's comment, coupled with the post from Gregg earlier in the thread, leads me to think that CBS as a whole may have been early adopters of 24-hour operation in all the markets they owned stations in. That would, in the 1960s and 1970s, have included the three stations mentioned -- WCBS-TV, KNXT and WBBM-TV -- plus WCAU-TV Philadelphia and KMOX-TV St. Louis.

My reason for thinking that is that CBS had a custom animation made for its O&Os that opened "The Late Show", which was the all-night movie. I found a YouTube link to it:
https://youtu.be/k3cl6QoZSDw

 

[BMR]

First 24 hour TV station

In the UK, ITV first started going 24 hours 30 years ago this summer. Before that TV in the UK generally closed at around 1am, unless something very special like a general election or a major sports event overseas was taking place.

Purely out of interest.......What and when was the first US TV station to broadcast 24 hours a day?

 

[semoochie]

In the UK, ITV first started going 24 hours 30 years ago this summer. Before that TV in the UK generally closed at around 1am, unless something very special like a general election or a major sports event overseas was taking place.

Purely out of interest.......What and when was the first US TV station to broadcast 24 hours a day?

I know that nearly 50 years ago and possibly before, some Seattle stations were on all night because of Boeing. Presumably, the same was true in other places with a healthy percentage of night shifts.

 

[Bronx]

Back in the early 80s when I was living in Buffalo the local cable TV company would put WCBS on its local origination channel at night because it aired movies all night. All the local Buffalo stations signed off.

Bronx

 

[gr8oldies]

I don't have the definitive answer but I'm thinking WWOR, New York.

 

[Gregg.]

After looking at a number of 1960s TV Guide magazines from around the U.S., it seems WCBS-TV 2 New York was the first station to go ALMOST 24 hours. It would finish the last movie of the night around 5:30 or 6am and start the new day around 6:30am. (In those days, stations had to do maintenance nearly every day. So I suppose they could not go continuously around the clock.)

Then KTTV 11 in Los Angeles followed suit. And I believe they were followed by KNXT 2 Los Angeles, today KCBS-TV, which would end its last movie around 4am, so I guess we could say they were a 22 hour station. And that was it for quite a while. You'd think WGN-TV or WBBM-TV in Chicago would have joined them, or maybe a station in San Francisco or Philadelphia or Boston. But that didn't happen into well into the 70s or maybe later. Usually one station in larger markets would run all night on Saturday night, maybe on Friday night too. But again, it took maybe 15 years for these stations to go around the clock, seven days a week. Maybe it happened in Seattle as mentioned above, but I didn't see any early Seattle TV Guides.

I know it didn't happen for WOR-TV in NYC (now WWOR-TV) till much later. I believe in NYC, WNBC and WPIX were round-the-clock before WWOR. But when we started getting Superstations in the early days of cable, then those stations became 24/7. First that was WTBS Atlanta, and then the other superstations followed suit, including WWOR-TV and WPIX NYC, WGN-TV Chicago, KTTV and KTLA Los Angeles, etc.

Many markets didn't get all-night TV till CBS, NBC and ABC started offering their own all night news service, in response to CNN offering stations its Headline News service all night. It was only then that stations outside the biggest markets could stay on all night with little effort.

 

[newsmark]

WFAA 8 Dallas was on 24 hours a day by the mid-70s. The earliest schedule I could find online was for 10/25/76. I think it might have been even earlier, but my memory's foggy on that.

At that point, they were going off for a few hours on Sunday night/Monday morning, as many stations did, but they were 24 hours the rest of the week.

 

[ftballfan]

Back in the early 80s when I was living in Buffalo the local cable TV company would put WCBS on its local origination channel at night because it aired movies all night. All the local Buffalo stations signed off.

Bronx

I think I saw WCBS late night listings in Pittsburgh back in the late 1970s

 

[crainbebo]

Nope. I've got Seattle TV Guides from 1957 onward. KTVW 13 (yes, the little indie from Tacoma) had a "Swing Shift Movie" at 1AM PT in 1957, but the rest of Seattle stations were off before 1AM (and most around midnight). KTVW signed off around 2:30 or so. Seattle probably didn't have 24-7 until the 1970s - I know KING-5 was 24/6 around 1982, signing off late Sunday nights.

 

[Gregg.]

It's interesting to note that in LA in the 1960s, you had some sort of TV on 24 hours a day because KTTV 11 would end its last movie around 6:30am and begin its new day around 7am. Meanwhile KNXT 2 would end its last movie around 4am and begin its day around 6:15am. So one or the other station would always be on the air.

But in most cities, only one station would run two movies after the late news, or run a one-hour drama after the late movie. Maybe some NBC stations would run a drama or a movie following the Tonight Show. But in the 60s, many markets had nothing on after the Tonight Show ended, even in Central and Mountain Time Zones when Tonight or the late movie ended around midnight.

Even in 1973, when NBC offered the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder after the Tonight Show, some NBC stations would still not take it, and sign off instead. In other markets, only the NBC affiliate would be on that late, and only because NBC made it easy to stay on that late (2am ET and PT, 1am CT and MT).

 

[hamster]

In the Washington/Baltimore region back in the 70s there were only two that were on the air all night...WTTG channel 5 and WJZ channel 13. Both stations pretty much did the same thing during those hours..movies !! WTTG would show mostly b/w flicks as did WJZ but sometimes WJZ would throw in a few surprises such as when they showed Beatles movies such as Help and A Hard Days Night during the early morning hours of New Years Day and they did that for a few years. Looking back I think WJZ was trying to launch some kind of tradition but they stopped doing the New years morning Beatles thing by the early 80s.

Somewhat on topic....WRC channel 4 though they were not 24 hours back in the 70s after they would air Tom Snyder during the week they did air some kind of comedy show. Usually making fun of the commercials of the era such as having some man on camera say "..hey men..does you wife nag you to death..here is book for her just in time for Christmas..it's called "BITC* !!"....get BITC* for your BITC* !!" and the one making fun of the classic Mean Joe Green Coke ad. Some "kid" who looked like he was probably in his 50s walks up to a female stripper wearing a robe and says "...would you like to have my Coke ?" She takes the soda, drinks it and gives the kid her robe and then stands there wearing high heels and a bikini. Then the kid says ".....too bad I don't have a six pack !!". Wish I knew what show that was. Was it syndicated or just something WRC did for fun in the middle to the night ?? Looking at some of my old DC/Baltimore TV Guides from that era whatever this is was never listed in the listings for WRC but I most certainly do remember it.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I can't independently verify it, but KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh claims to have been the first.
They ran an overnight movie package called Swing Shift Theater which was intended for the
many mill workers in town who were working rotating shifts at the time. This would have
been under the previous Dumont ownership and WDTV call letters in 1953.

 

[hamster]

I can't independently verify it, but KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh claims to have been the first.
They ran an overnight movie package called Swing Shift Theater which was intended for the
many mill workers in town who were working rotating shifts at the time. This would have
been under the previous Dumont ownership and WDTV call letters in 1953.

Even though I no longer have the book but I do seem to remember reading in Charles Jacques' history of Pittsburgh's long defunct West View amusement park about KDKA/WDTV doing the all night thing. He went on about due to the mill workers working rotating shifts how Pittsburgh for a time was a late night city with many stores, restaurants, movie theaters being open through the night even West View themselves had kept their rides running until well after sunrise. I can't imagine what it would had been like to be on a roller coaster at 5 AM or having a beer in a bar to toast the sunrise so yes with so many places then open for business all night I can easily see KDKA/WDTV doing it as well.