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First 24 Hour Commercial/Public TV Station

There was a bar near my elementary school where a lot of the swing-shift workers from the mill used to head for a shot and a beer after their shift.

I remember my teachers, who came from more well-to-do parts of town, being aghast at a bar so close to the school being open, and FULL, at 6AM!
 
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WREG in Memphis started staying on 24 hours in the Fall of 1977 programming movies from what was then the largest film library of any tv station.

One of the newspaper tv columnists had earlier heavily criticized the local stations for not providing 24 hour service even on the weekends and pointing out how a station in the small market of Tupelo, Mississippi was 24 hours on Friday and Saturday nights.

Wasn't there some sort of legend about Howard Hughes paying for one of the tv stations in Vegas to stay on 24 hours?
 
If we're talking small market stations, I recall WSTV/WTOV in Steubenville, OH running an overnight package
called "Movies Till Dawn" in the late 60's/early 70's.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
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.
Click to expand...

WDTV/Pittsburgh began round-the-clock programming five days a week in March, 1952 - though even it was not the first to do so.

This article states that WCPO/Cincinnati operated on a 24 hour basis briefly in 1950.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com...-1952-03-17-OCR-Page-0092.pdf#search="24-hour television%22
 
***Wasn't there some sort of legend about Howard Hughes paying for one of the tv stations in Vegas to stay on 24 hours?***

They way I heard it (Somewhere on this site, I bet) was that Hughes bought an independent station in Vegas and would occasionally call in and request movies, particularly his fave at the time, "Ice Station Zebra" with Rock Hudson.
 
Corky Marlowe said:
***Wasn't there some sort of legend about Howard Hughes paying for one of the tv stations in Vegas to stay on 24 hours?***

They way I heard it (Somewhere on this site, I bet) was that Hughes bought an independent station in Vegas and would occasionally call in and request movies, particularly his fave at the time, "Ice Station Zebra" with Rock Hudson.
Click to expand...


Hughes had KLAS channel 8 then and now an affiliate of CBS. It was Johnny Carson who had owned Las Vegas' indy in those days that being KVVU channel 5.

On a similar note ( related to Hughes ) there was that "story" that had been repeated over the years about Elvis Presley calling up one of the Memphis stations to request them to show his movies in the middle of the night. First...I doubt that one because one..In the many of Elvis bios over the years it was said that Elvis hated most of his own movies so why would he request to see them ?? Second Elvis Presley owned one of the first VTRs for home use. If he did want to see one of his old flicks there would be no need to call up a local TV station.
 
I believe WTVT Channel 13 in Tampa (#1 in market), was the first to broadcast 24/7 in the market, because they claimed to do so. "24 Hour News Source" was it's slogan and it began in 1989, when they became Channel 13 Eyewitness News. I have no idea what really is the first 24/7 in Tampa... :confused:
 
FreddyE1977 said:
There was a bar near my elementary school where a lot of the swing-shift workers from the mill used to head for a shot and a beer after their shift.
Click to expand...

Mobile, AL is the only city in Dixie that I know of with 24 hour liquor licenses. This is due to it being a port city and running shifts 24 hours a day. On that note, it was very late to 24 hour a day TV broadcasts. In my youth I can remember people that wanting to keep dancing driving an hour to Mobile after the bars closed in Pensacola and Biloxi at 2:30 AM.

I really have no idea why Woods Broadcasting went 24/7 with WTVY in Dothan in the mid '70's. Other than the fact that they were on the tallest tower in the south-east with the largest coverage area and reached all or most of 4 or 5 TV markets...
 
Dozens of stations jumped on that "24-Hour News Channel/Source" bandwagon in the late '80s and early '90s. OTOH, we were very late at 24-hour operations. KNDO went 24/7 in 1996, and so did KCYU-LP (Fox 68). The other three locals still went off the air into the 2000s, and even the 2010s. KYVE would go 24/7 besides two hours of occasional maintenance Monday mornings, in the mid-late '00s, KIMA went 24/7 in 2011, and KAPP finally went 24/7 in 2012 adding World News Now and MeTV 35.2 simulcasts to their late night lineup.

KING-5 was 24/6 in the early '80s, don't know if I mentioned it already. They aired old movies, Marshal Dillon and Alfred Hitchcock overnights, and signed off after the late movie Sunday night/Monday morning. They would later sign off late Sat nights in the early '90s (they preempted SNL to 12:05 due to Almost Live!, airing Friday the 13th: The Series for a few years at 1:30AM). KING went 24/7 when NBC offered Nightside on Saturday nights/Sunday mornings. KOMO was 24/7 in the early '90s as well.
 
This thread reminds me of another question. What was the last market ( say 75 plus ) not to have at least one local station that was on the air all night ?? My guess would had been Hampton Roads, Virginia. When I had lived in Virginia Beach for a time in 1987 I can remember several late nights when no local station was on the air at all even though TV Guide at the time had CBS Nightwatch listed for WTKR channel 3..but WTKR wasn't airing it but rather they would sign off at 2AM.
 
In the Boston area WCVB Ch. 5 was broadcasting 24 hours back in the 70s. They would go off the air for a couple of hours early Monday mornings. They would have a late night movie with a host named George Fennel whos face you could never see. The slogan would be Five All Night, I did find a youtube clip. Not sure when WCVB turned on the air in 72 if they started doing 24 hours or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYzuvB_ynMo
 
You means 75 and lower, or 75 up to 1 (New York City)? I could talk forever about Yakima/Tri Cities.
 
I remember that back during the 1970's, only WLWC-4 (later WCMH) and WBNS-10 were on the air 24 hours during the weekends airing overnight movies.

And on other nights of the week, all of the three main network stations in Columbus, signed off around 1 or 2 AM.

I also remember that the PBS station in Columbus usually signed off before midnight back then.
 
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