Retro: Atlanta - Monday, April 8, 1974

[RandTV]

Source: Atlanta Constitution

2 WSB (NBC)

MORNING
7:00 Today
9:00 Today in Georgia
9:30 Monday News Conference
10:00 Dinah's Place
10:30 Jeopardy! - Art Fleming
11:00 Wizard of Odds - Alex Trebek
11:30 Hollywood Squares - Panel: Demond Wilson, Dionne Warwick, Doc Severinsen, Edward Albert, Ernest Borgnine, Totie Fields, Charley Weaver (Cliff Arquette), Kate Jackson, Richard Crenna
AFTERNOON
12:00 Channel 2 Action News
12:30 Merv Griffin
2:00 Days of Our Lives
2:30 The Doctors
3:00 Another World
3:30 How to Survive a Marriage
4:00 Somerset
4:30 Truth or Consequences
5:00 Mod Squad
6:00 Channel 2 Action News
7:00 NBC Nightly News
7:30 Salute to Hank Aaron (broke Babe Ruth's home run record that night) - Joe Gargiola, Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek
8:00 MLB Baseball - Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Atlanta Braves (Blackout regulations would've shown the tape-delayed Cincinnati Reds vs. San Francisco Giants game on WSB instead had the Braves game not been a sellout within 72 hours of game time)
11:00 Channel 2 Action News
11:30 Tonight Show - Guest Host: McLean Stevenson; Guest: Sandy Duncan
LATE NIGHT
1:00 Tomorrow
2:00 News (5 min.)

5 WAGA (CBS)

MORNING
7:00 Captain Kangaroo
7:30 Atlanta A.M. (cropping off the second half of Captain Kangaroo)
8:00 CBS Morning News
9:00 Phil Donahue Show (as it was known at the time)
10:00 The Joker's Wild (Day 1 with children as contestants for Easter Week)
10:30 Gambit
11:00 Now You See It - Jack Narz (premiered the week before)
11:30 Love of Life
AFTERNOON
12:00 5 News Scene
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1:00 What's My Line? - Larry Blyden
1:30 As the World Turns
2:00 Guiding Light
2:30 Edge of Night
3:00 The Price is Right
3:30 Match Game '74 - Panel: Allen Ludden, Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jo Ann Pflug, Richard Dawson, Fannie Flagg
4:00 I Dream of Jeannie
4:30 Mike Douglas
EVENING
6:00 5 News Scene
7:00 CBS Evening News
7:30 Xernona Clayton (local talk show hosted by civil rights activist)
8:00 Gunsmoke
9:00 Oral Roberts Easter Special (locally pre-empting Here's Lucy and The New Dick Van Dyke Show)
10:00 Women of the Year Awards
11:00 5 News Scene
11:30 CBS Late Movie - "24 Hours to Kill" (1965, drama) - Lex Barker, Mickey Rooney, Walter Slezak

8 WGTV (PBS) Athens

AFTERNOON
4:00 Sesame Street
5:00 Mister Rogers
5:30 Electric Company
EVENING
6:00 Sesame Street
7:00 The French Chef
7:30 Forum
8:00 Special: "Much Ado About Nothing" (presented by Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival)


11 WXIA (ABC)

MORNING
7:00 Garner Ted Armstrong
7:30 Rise and Shine
8:30 Courtship of Eddie's Father
9:00 Hazel
9:30 Dick Van Dyke
10:00 Password - Guests: Linda Kaye Henning, Ed Asner
10:30 Love, American Style
11:00 One Life to Live
11:30 Brady Bunch
AFTERNOON
12:00 11 Pro News
12:30 Split Second
1:00 All My Children
1:30 Let's Make a Deal
2:00 Newlywed Game
2:30 Girl in My Life
3:00 General Hospital
3:30 3:30 Movie: "Arrow in the Dust" - (1954, Western) - Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray
5:00 Bonanza
EVENING
6:00 11 Pro News
6:30 ABC Evening News
7:00 Concentration - Jack Narz
7:30 To Tell the Truth - Garry Moore
8:00 The Rookies
9:00 ABC Monday Night Movie: "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1969, Western) - Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Claudia Cardinale
LATE NIGHT
12:15 11 Pro News
12:55 Mission: Impossible
1:55 News (15 min.)


17 WTCG (evolved into TBS)

MORNING
7:00 Three Stooges & Little Rascals
8:30 Romper Room
9:00 New Zoo Revue
9:30 Donna Reed
10:00 Movie: "Revenge of the Pirates" (1951, adventure, Italian) - Maria Montez, Jean-Pierre Aumont
AFTERNOON
12:00 Mr. Ed
12:30 Lucy Show
1:00 Movie: "This is My Affair" (1937, crime drama) - Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck
3:00 Banana Splits
3:30 Flintstones
4:00 Gilligan's Island
4:30 Leave It to Beaver
5:00 Beverly Hillbillies
5:30 Petticoat Junction
EVENING
6:00 Lucy Show
6:30 Father Knows Best
7:00 Gomer Pyle
7:30 Andy Griffith
8:00 Wild, Wild West
9:00 Movie: "Monkey on My Back" (1957, biography) - Cameron Mitchell, Dianne Foster, Paul Richards, Jack Albertson
11:00 Alfred Hitchcock Presents
11:30 Movie: "College Swing" (1938, comedy) - George Burns, Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Martha Raye, Betty Grable
LATE NIGHT
1:10 Movie: "This is My Affair (repeat)

30 WETV (PBS)

Same schedule as ch. 8 WGTV except the following:

6:00 Crime in Atlanta
6:30 The Oleana Trail
7:00 Book Beat
7:30 Eye to Eye

46 WHAE (Ind.)

MORNING
11:00 Fury
11:30 Cartoon Festival
AFTERNOON
12:00 700 Club
2:00 A New Day
2:30 Bozo
3:00 Porky Pig
3:30 Dennis the Menace
4:00 Lone Ranger
4:30 Room 222
5:00 Batman
5:30 Batman
EVENING
6:00 Dennis the Menace
6:30 Room 222
7:00 Mayberry R.F.D.
7:30 Easter Is... (pre-empting Circus)
8:00 700 Club
10:00 Oral Roberts
10:30 Good News
11:00 Mayberry R.F.D.
11:30 Honeymooners

 

[RyanHoward]

This was from the day Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, taking over the lead from Babe Ruth(714 career HR's).

 

[RandTV]

This was from the day Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, taking over the lead from Babe Ruth(714 career HR's).

That's just what I mentioned under ch. 2 WSB. That was why I chose that day for that market.

 

[Ccook55]

I was working at a pizza restaurant that night. No TV in the place so I had to be content to seeing replays of the homer.

 

[RandTV]

I was working at a pizza restaurant that night. No TV in the place so I had to be content to seeing replays of the homer.

That was the case in the pre-VCR era.

 

[installLSC]

What if Aaron hadn't hit 715 that night? Well according to listings of the time the next Braves telecast, local or national, wasn't until April 17(!). Imagine if the historic home run was hit on a radio-only game.

 

[ShawnHill1]

What if Aaron hadn't hit 715 that night? Well according to listings of the time the next Braves telecast, local or national, wasn't until April 17(!). Imagine if the historic home run was hit on a radio-only game.

I'm sure the Braves and the then-WTCG Channel 17 would have put additional games to the TV schedule until Hammerin' Hank broke the record. WTCG had taken over from WSB as the over-the-air TV flagship of the Braves the previous season (1973), and them being an independent (and WSB as the NBC affiliate back then), there wouldn't have been any worry of network obligations to worry about. When WSB aired Braves games, it was about 25 games a season.

Back then, WTCG was airing 50 Braves games a season, which was pretty standard for most teams in those days, in terms of the number of local telecasts, unless you were in New York City (where you had about 100 Yankees and 120 Mets games on local TV, via WPIX and WOR, respectively) or Chicago (with both the Cubs and White Sox airing about 130-140 games apiece on WGN and WSNS, respectively). It wasn't until Ted Turner's purchase of the team in 1976 that the Braves started airing more than 100 games a year on what eventually became Superstation WTBS.

 

[Ccook55]

I had heard (and correct me if wrong) that until Aaron hit #715 that NBC would break from whatever was on, network or local, every time he came up to bat. Locally on radio, Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson were in the booth, and word was that Hamilton insisted on being at the mic whenever Aaron came to bat whether it was his turn or Johnson's.

 

[ShawnHill1]

No surprise about Milo Hamilton...he was an egomaniac.