April 3: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on April 3. Discuss or comment as you please……

1941: Actor Eric Braeden (The Young and the Restless) is born (as Hans Jörg Gudegast) in Bredenbek, Germany.

1949: WLWC (channel 3, now WCMH-TV on channel 4) begins operating as Columbus, Ohio’s first TV station.

1953: KCJB-TV (channel 13, now KXMC-TV) signs on in Minot, becoming North Dakota’s first TV station.

1953: TV Guide launches as a national publication with local listings in 10 regional editions. The new national magazine was born out of Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications' purchase of numerous regional television listing publications such as TV List, TV Forecast, TV Digest, Television Guide and others.

1955: KWTX-TV (channel 10) signs on in Waco, Texas.

1956: Comedian/game show host Ray Combs (Family Feud, Family Challenge) is born in Hamilton, Ohio.

1958: Actor Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) is born in Massapequa, New York.

1959: Actor David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) is born in Saratoga Springs, New York.

1960: An adaptation of Pat Frank’s post-apocalyptic novel “Alas, Babylon” is broadcast on CBS’s Playhouse 90. It stars Don Murray, Burt Reynolds, and Rita Moreno.

1961: Actor/comedian Eddie Murphy (Saturday Night Live) is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1964: As a devastating tornado sweeps across the northern portion of Wichita Falls, Texas, KAUZ-TV (channel 6) interrupts regular programming to provide a live tornado warning. As meteorologist Ted Shaw reports on the twister, a studio camera is manhandled out the door of the studio on Seymour Highway and pointed toward the northwest, capturing live images of the approaching funnel -- one of the first tornadoes ever to be broadcast on live television.

1967: WNYE-TV (channel 25) begins operating in New York City. The station's original licensee is the New York City Board (now Department) of Education.

1967: I’ve Got a Secret ends a 15-year run on CBS.

1970: ABC broadcasts the final original episodes of Here Come the Brides and The Flying Nun.

1972: Actress Jennie Garth (Beverly Hills 90210, What I Like About You) is born in Urbana, Illinois.

1973: WIIL-TV (channel 38, later WBAK-TV, now WFXW) signs on in Terre Haute, Indiana as an ABC affiliate. The station would switch to Fox in 1995, citing an overabundance of nearby ABC affiliates that WBAK felt was hurting its ratings in outlying areas. DYK: WIIL was originally slated to broadcast on channel 66, but managed to get a change to 38 before signing on the air.

1977: The acclaimed Anglo-Italian miniseries Jesus of Nazareth is first broadcast on American TV. (It had premiered in the U.K. one week earlier on ITV.) It is still broadcast twice a year (every Easter and Christmas) on the History Channel.

1986: Actress Amanda Bynes (All That, The Amanda Show, What I Like About You) is born in Thousand Oakas, California.

1993: Comedian Pinky Lee dies in Mission Viejo, California of a heart attack, aged 85.

1997: The FCC adopts its Fifth Report and Order, laying the groundwork for digital television (DTV). Among its many provisions are requiring the affiliates of the top four networks in the top 10 markets to be on the air with a digital signal by May 1, 1999, and those in markets #11-30 to be on the air by November 1, 1999. The Sixth Report and Order, adopted this same day, establishes DTV companion channel allocations for existing NTSC stations.

2002: Writer/producer Roy Huggins (Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, The Fugitive, The Rockford Files, The Virginian, Alias Smith and Jones, Baretta, Hunter) dies in Santa Monica, California, aged 87.

(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…..)

 

[jsu5381m]

April 3, 1974 - Superoutbreak of tornadoes over the Ohio and Tennessee Valley with 148 twisters killing over 300 people. To see how primitive TV Radar was back then, WHIO 7 in Dayton actually was one of the few stations I think in the U.S. to have an in studio radar. The background was glowing green with black and white blobs as precip. The only way you could tell a tornado was headed twoards Xenia, Ohio was because of the pronounced black and white hook echo.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1977: The acclaimed Anglo-Italian miniseries Jesus of Nazareth is first broadcast on American TV. (It had premiered in the U.K. one week earlier on ITV.) It is still broadcast twice a year (every Easter and Christmas) on the History Channel.

I have "Jesus of Nazareth" on DVD, and the background info for it states that at least in the first year of its airing (on NBC), the miniseries was split into two parts: the first part on April 3 (Palm Sunday in 1977), and April 10 (Easter 1977). In later years when it aired on NBC (at least into the early '80s), I remember seeing portions of the miniseries split into smaller time slots during Holy Week.

Do any of you know when the last time "Jesus of Nazareth" was aired on NBC?

 

[Corky Marlowe]

April 3, 1974 - Superoutbreak of tornadoes over the Ohio and Tennessee Valley with 148 twisters killing over 300 people. To see how primitive TV Radar was back then, WHIO 7 in Dayton actually was one of the few stations I think in the U.S. to have an in studio radar. The background was glowing green with black and white blobs as precip. The only way you could tell a tornado was headed twoards Xenia, Ohio was because of the pronounced black and white hook echo.

Xenia was blasted by the tornadoes, along with the small town of Atwood, Indiana. Sounds like WHIO's radar was about like WKJG/33 in Fort Wayne at the time, and yes, not many stations had radar, let alone Super Doppler Bigfoot Viper Radar.

 

[wbhist]

1967: WBKB-TV (Channel 7, now WLS-TV) in Chicago moves its weekday afternoon movie series, The Big Show, from 4 P.M. to 3:30 (the first film shown under this new time: Good Day for a Hanging (1959), starring Fred MacMurray). 17 months later, in September 1968, the station changes the program's name to The 3:30 Movie.

 

[Ultimajock]

April 3, 1974 - Superoutbreak of tornadoes over the Ohio and Tennessee Valley with 148 twisters killing over 300 people. To see how primitive TV Radar was back then, WHIO 7 in Dayton actually was one of the few stations I think in the U.S. to have an in studio radar. The background was glowing green with black and white blobs as precip. The only way you could tell a tornado was headed twoards Xenia, Ohio was because of the pronounced black and white hook echo.

...that's a fairly accurate description of how WTMJ-TV/4 and WITI/6 Milwaukee's radars looked at the time...