April 25: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 25. Discuss or comment as you please……

1908: Journalist Edward R. Murrow is born (as Egbert Roscoe Murrow) in Guilford County, North Carolina. He would die in 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. [I often wonder, had Murrow lived 2 or 3 decades longer, what he would have had to say about the way TV journalism evolved. Methinks he would have been something less than complimentary...]

1953: WCOS-TV (channel 25) begins operating in Columbia, South Carolina. It is the state’s first TV station, but would find the going rough after competition arrived, going dark less than 3 years after launch. The channel would then remain vacant for almost 6 years, until WCCA-TV (later WOLO-TV) signed on in 1961.

1954: WDEF-TV (channel 12) hits the air in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

1964: Actor/voice artist Hank Azaria (The Simpsons) is born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York.

1970: Actor Jason Wiles (Third Watch) is born in Kansas City, Missouri.

1982: Announcer Don Wilson (The Jack Benny Program) dies in Cathedral City, California, aged 81.

1992: Growing Pains and Who’s the Boss? air their final original ABC episodes.

1995: Game show host Art Fleming (Jeopardy!) dies in Crystal River, Florida of pancreatic cancer, aged 70.

(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…..)

 

[radioman148]

>>1908: Journalist Edward R. Murrow is born (as Egbert Roscoe Murrow) in Guilford County, North Carolina. He would die in 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. [I often wonder, had Murrow lived 2 or 3 decades longer, what he would have had to say about the way TV journalism evolved. Methinks he would have been something less than complimentary...] >>

He'd be spinning in his grave if he saw the state of journalism today.

 

[Stanislav]

>>1908: Journalist Edward R. Murrow is born (as Egbert Roscoe Murrow) in Guilford County, North Carolina. He would die in 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. [I often wonder, had Murrow lived 2 or 3 decades longer, what he would have had to say about the way TV journalism evolved. Methinks he would have been something less than complimentary...] >>

He'd be spinning in his grave if he saw the state of journalism today.

I think, had cancer not taken him, he would have still died prematurely...but of a broken heart. :'(

 

[bpatrick]

Fred Friendly, who worked with Murrow for
years, was once asked what programs Murrow
would watch if he were alive. Friendly named
the "CBS Evening News" (I think Dan Rather was
anchoring at the time), "60 Minutes," "Nightline,"
"Sunday Morning," "Frontline," and possibly the
Sunday news-interview shows. But mostly, he
said, Murrow would probably listen to NPR.

 

[mleach]

Fred Friendly, who worked with Murrow for
years, was once asked what programs Murrow
would watch if he were alive. Friendly named
the "CBS Evening News" (I think Dan Rather was
anchoring at the time), "60 Minutes," "Nightline,"
"Sunday Morning," "Frontline," and possibly the
Sunday news-interview shows. But mostly, he
said, Murrow would probably listen to NPR.

Didn't Friendly also claim at one time ( back int he 80s ( that if Murrow whould have seen many of the then-local TV newscasts he would "throw up"?

I would hate to see what would Murrow do if he was watching a local TV newscast and the top story is about American Idol or some local anchor sporting tattoos up and down their arms like the one reporter I saw recently on our local ABC affiliate.

 

[ricksegers]

I see the deification of Ed Murrow continues...His war time reports were phenomenal. However, much of his TV work was the same drivel that people complain about today. Also he hosted a celebrity interview show with stars in their homes. All this was before he became a government shill. Fred Friendly is not great shakes either as he spent the last years of his life preaching the gospel according to Murrow and in turn boosting his (Friendly's) reputation at the same time.

 

[LKellerIII]

I see the deification of Ed Murrow continues...His war time reports were phenomenal. However, much of his TV work was the same drivel that people complain about today. Also he hosted a celebrity interview show with stars in their homes. All this was before he became a government shill. Fred Friendly is not great shakes either as he spent the last years of his life preaching the gospel according to Murrow and in turn boosting his (Friendly's) reputation at the same time.

Ricksegers has a good point. I don't judge Morrow, and I have great respect for him - especially for standing up to Joe McCarthy. But we have to remember that in early television - there was actually more crossover between entertainment and news than there is now.

I remember staying up late as a kid to watch Morrow's Person to Person celebrity home visits..on Friday nights, I think. In Good Night and Good Luck, they briefly show him doing one of these shows and being very disgusted about it - as if it was beneath his journalistic integrity - maybe that's the case. When Morrow left the show, it was taken over by another excellent CBS journalist - Charles Collingwood.

Mike Wallace was another who started out doing primarily light frothy talk shows, celebrity interviews and commercials. He gained his hard journalism cred much later - primarily through 60 Minutes.

 

[radioman148]

>>I think, had cancer not taken him, he would have still died prematurely...but of a broken heart. >>

Well said!

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1975: Actress Emily Bergl (Men in Trees) is born in Milton Keynes, England.