Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 19. Discuss or comment as you please……
1925: Actor Hugh O’Brian (The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) is born (as Hugh Charles Krampe) in Rochester, New York.
1938: The first televised soccer match (England vs. Scotland) is shown on the BBC.
1948: The ABC television network launches. The network’s first affiliate is WFIL-TV in Philadelphia (now WPVI-TV). Their first owned and operated station, WJZ-TV in New York (now WABC-TV) would not sign on until August. Because of a lack of allocated channels under the VHF-only system (only the largest markets had 3 or more channels available) and the soon-to-come 4-year freeze on new construction permits, ABC would be for several years a network mostly in name, with very few primary affiliates.
1948: The former experimental station W6SIX begins regular broadcasts on channel 4 as KDYL-TV (later KTVT, KCPX-TV, now KTVX) in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the first TV station to sign on in the Mountain Time Zone.
1949: Journalist Forrest Sawyer is born in Lakeland, Florida.
1953: WAFB-TV debuts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (the second TV station in the state), broadcasting on channel 28. In 1960, the station would move to channel 9 after an allocations shift moved Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s WDAM-TV from channel 9 to channel 7.
1986: Benson ends its ABC network run with an enigmatic series finale. The season’s story arc had Benson running against former employer Gatling for the Governorship. (Benson had won Gatling’s party’s nomination while the Governor ran as an independent.) The final scene has them watching election returns, but just as the announcement is about to be made of the winner, the show fades to black. Three different endings had allegedly been shot involving either a Gatling win, a win by Benson, or a surprise win by a wildcard candidate in the form of a crooked senator, putting both of them out of a job. None of these endings proved satisfactory to anyone involved with the show, and the network preferred a cliffhanger, so the decision was made to keep the ending unresolved. However, the series was canceled after the cliffhanger aired. Story editor and co-producer Bob Fraser has said that, had the show continued, Gatling would have won the election.
1986: WTRT (channel 26, later WYLE-TV) signs on in Florence, Alabama. The station, seemingly doomed from the start, is one of the most recent additions to the infamous UHF Morgue. Never having a solid foundation, in a tiny market with puny facilities and less than exciting programming (mostly home shopping), the station would somehow manage to scrape by for 2 decades, weathering a bankruptcy, loss of their primary programming sources, a lack of money to build out their DTV facility, and the death of the ownership’s CEO before pulling the plug on February 8, 2007. Unable to find a buyer, but not wanting to lose their license, WYLE-TV began broadcasting a test pattern 24/7 on February 3, 2008, in a desperate (but futile) move to avoid the FCC’s “one year off-air and you’re outta there” rule. Unsurprisingly, Uncle Charley doesn’t consider a test pattern to constitute “programming” and would cancel the station's license and all outstanding applications and permits on March 12, 2009. So sad. (*sniff*)
1987: The Simpsons characters make their first appearance on Fox’s The Tracey Ullman Show.
1990: Wings premieres on NBC.
1992: A sad end for a funny man: Comedian Benny Hill dies of heart disease and renal failure in Teddington, South West London, England, aged 68. He died alone in his flat, seated in his armchair in front of the television, and was not discovered for 2 days (a friend contacted police when Hill repeatedly failed to answer his phone). A few weeks earlier, doctors had recommended Hill lose weight and undergo a heart bypass, but he declined their advice.
1993: The 51-day Federal siege of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound at Mount Carmel (near Waco, Texas) ends dramatically when a massive fire destroys the compound, killing 76 people. The entire horrific event is witnessed live on TV across the country, footage provided by a KWTX-TV mobile unit.
1995: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is bombed, an attack that would claim 168 lives and leave over 800 people injured. (Until the 9/11 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.) Convicted bomber Tim McVeigh is said to have chosen April 19 for the bombing to coincide with the 2-year anniversary of the Waco Siege (see above). In the confusion and terror of the morning, local TV stations covering the attack live end up feeding the soon-to-blossom conspiracy theories with erroneous reports of additional unexploded bombs in the building (which would have implied a much larger conspiracy, as well as at least a partial “inside job”).
(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)
1925: Actor Hugh O’Brian (The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) is born (as Hugh Charles Krampe) in Rochester, New York.
1938: The first televised soccer match (England vs. Scotland) is shown on the BBC.
1948: The ABC television network launches. The network’s first affiliate is WFIL-TV in Philadelphia (now WPVI-TV). Their first owned and operated station, WJZ-TV in New York (now WABC-TV) would not sign on until August. Because of a lack of allocated channels under the VHF-only system (only the largest markets had 3 or more channels available) and the soon-to-come 4-year freeze on new construction permits, ABC would be for several years a network mostly in name, with very few primary affiliates.
1948: The former experimental station W6SIX begins regular broadcasts on channel 4 as KDYL-TV (later KTVT, KCPX-TV, now KTVX) in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the first TV station to sign on in the Mountain Time Zone.
1949: Journalist Forrest Sawyer is born in Lakeland, Florida.
1953: WAFB-TV debuts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (the second TV station in the state), broadcasting on channel 28. In 1960, the station would move to channel 9 after an allocations shift moved Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s WDAM-TV from channel 9 to channel 7.
1986: Benson ends its ABC network run with an enigmatic series finale. The season’s story arc had Benson running against former employer Gatling for the Governorship. (Benson had won Gatling’s party’s nomination while the Governor ran as an independent.) The final scene has them watching election returns, but just as the announcement is about to be made of the winner, the show fades to black. Three different endings had allegedly been shot involving either a Gatling win, a win by Benson, or a surprise win by a wildcard candidate in the form of a crooked senator, putting both of them out of a job. None of these endings proved satisfactory to anyone involved with the show, and the network preferred a cliffhanger, so the decision was made to keep the ending unresolved. However, the series was canceled after the cliffhanger aired. Story editor and co-producer Bob Fraser has said that, had the show continued, Gatling would have won the election.
1986: WTRT (channel 26, later WYLE-TV) signs on in Florence, Alabama. The station, seemingly doomed from the start, is one of the most recent additions to the infamous UHF Morgue. Never having a solid foundation, in a tiny market with puny facilities and less than exciting programming (mostly home shopping), the station would somehow manage to scrape by for 2 decades, weathering a bankruptcy, loss of their primary programming sources, a lack of money to build out their DTV facility, and the death of the ownership’s CEO before pulling the plug on February 8, 2007. Unable to find a buyer, but not wanting to lose their license, WYLE-TV began broadcasting a test pattern 24/7 on February 3, 2008, in a desperate (but futile) move to avoid the FCC’s “one year off-air and you’re outta there” rule. Unsurprisingly, Uncle Charley doesn’t consider a test pattern to constitute “programming” and would cancel the station's license and all outstanding applications and permits on March 12, 2009. So sad. (*sniff*)
1987: The Simpsons characters make their first appearance on Fox’s The Tracey Ullman Show.
1990: Wings premieres on NBC.
1992: A sad end for a funny man: Comedian Benny Hill dies of heart disease and renal failure in Teddington, South West London, England, aged 68. He died alone in his flat, seated in his armchair in front of the television, and was not discovered for 2 days (a friend contacted police when Hill repeatedly failed to answer his phone). A few weeks earlier, doctors had recommended Hill lose weight and undergo a heart bypass, but he declined their advice.
1993: The 51-day Federal siege of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound at Mount Carmel (near Waco, Texas) ends dramatically when a massive fire destroys the compound, killing 76 people. The entire horrific event is witnessed live on TV across the country, footage provided by a KWTX-TV mobile unit.
1995: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is bombed, an attack that would claim 168 lives and leave over 800 people injured. (Until the 9/11 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.) Convicted bomber Tim McVeigh is said to have chosen April 19 for the bombing to coincide with the 2-year anniversary of the Waco Siege (see above). In the confusion and terror of the morning, local TV stations covering the attack live end up feeding the soon-to-blossom conspiracy theories with erroneous reports of additional unexploded bombs in the building (which would have implied a much larger conspiracy, as well as at least a partial “inside job”).
(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)
