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First TV Station To Broadcast 24 Hours A Day

Markxxx

Markxxx

What was the first TV station to broadcast 24 hours a day? I mean as a regular thing and not a one time thing or like only when the Jerry Lewis Telethon was on or another special event
 
...probably one of the CBS O&Os. I know WBBM-TV/2 Chicago was microwaved overnights in the late '70s to Upper Midwest cable systems on the same channel after WVTV/18 Milwaukee signed off for the night...
 
One early case of a station broadcasting to the all-night hours was KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles in the early 1960's, followed starting Feb. 26/27, 1963 by WCBS-TV 2 in New York where, in honor of the 12th anniversary of The Late Show, added a second edition of The Late Late Show and switched to a 24/7 transmission schedule - and "down time" lasting as much as an hour and as little as 5 minutes. WNEW-TV 5 in New York briefly had a 24/7 schedule during the 1972-73 season, but the first in NYC to run 24/7 for keeps was WOR-TV 9, in 1979, followed a year later by WPIX 11.
 
In Canada it would have been CJON, a (then) CTV affiliate in St John's NFLD that first went 24 hours in 1972. Some of the early overnight programming included pointing a camera at a fish tank with background music from a co-owned radio station.

They still broadcast 24 hours today although occasionally some of the late night programming can get very bizarre. Stuff like conspiracy theory documentaries, talks on new age health cures, the "NTV Computer Animation Festival" and random old interviews and films (the film "Waiting For Fidel" pops up a lot). Geoff Stirling (the somewhat eccentric owner of NTV) has been known to randomly call the stations master control and order that a certain program be shown.
 
I would think Superstation WTBS would be in there somewhere.

Also, in the early to mid-70s WJKS 17 in Jacksonville FL would broadcast 24
hours between Friday night and Saturday mornings.....showing about 3-4 movies
in a row.
 
I might have to think it was one of Triangle's TV stations. I remember WNBF TV 12 in Binghamton being on all night back in the late 50's. If I remember the all night host was Len Hathaway. I always thought given the hour he should have been named Len Halfawake. Not saying it was them
, and it might have been for a short period of time.
 
WTVS in Detroit was one of the first PBS stations to go 24 hours in 1982 (at the time it was 24/6 as they was off the air Sunday nights). to add, this was at a time when some PBS stations was signing on and off 2 or 3 times a day and sometimes didn't sign on until 3:00PM in the summer!
 
In the Raleigh/Durham market, WFMY-TV in next-door Greensboro was the only thing on-air for 24 hours until the late 1980s when Goldsboro-licensed independent WYED-TV 17 signed on with lots of Home Shopping Network fare. I want to say the big stations in town went 24 hours in the early-to-mid 1990s.
 
I know in New York City Channel 2 WCBS TV was the first station to transmit 24 hours a day but had about an hour or so of a test pattern because their late night movie had various running times. Onec CBS began overnight news Channel 2 was programming 24/7 sometime in 1982.

WOR-TV Channel 9 began 24 hour operation in the mid Spring of 1980 and WPIX Channel 11 followed vary soon after..closer to a couple weeks than a year. Soon after Channel 4 WNBC TV began 24 hour operations about 5 nights a week.
 
Leave us not forget WDTV channel 3 in Pittsburgh and it's Swingshift Theatre in 1949. Some folks on this board make fun of others of us who are not informed, or who are unaware of TV history. It seems that no one consulted the history books on this one.
 
Michael Bayus said:
Leave us not forget WDTV channel 3 in Pittsburgh and it's Swingshift Theatre in 1949. Some folks on this board make fun of others of us who are not informed, or who are unaware of TV history. It seems that no one consulted the history books on this one.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but didn't that all-night skein carry over to at least the early years as Westinghouse-owned KDKA-TV 2? Evidently, different markets had different times they went to 24/7 programming before it became the standard.
 
Pittsburgh had lots of factors in the 50's which would have this make sense for WDTV.

- Lots of steelworkers on a three-shift schedule. It was pretty much a 24 hour town in those days
(as those of us who can remember bars that were packed full at 6AM can attest)

- WDTV had pretty much a monopoly in the #6 market in the country. There was ample
opportunity to time shift kinescoped shows that did not make the prime time schedule.

I believe you are correct that KDKA continued this after taking over the station, at least for some time.

I also remember WSTV in Steubenville, Ohio running "Movies Till Dawn" for many years. I think
they began doing it in the 60's.
 
I know in the Boston market, WCVB channel 5 was broadcasting 24 hours in the early/mid 70s Monday through Saturday. They would shut down early Monday morning (late Sunday night) for about 3 hours. I think they went full 24/7 in the 80s
 
I might be wrong, but it seems like WFFT/55 in Fort Wayne (independent then, Fox since that network began) was 24 hours at least by the early 80s. Before that, I remember them broadcasting round the clock during the Blizzard of 1978, only a couple months after they signed on, and they were also on all night for the holiday movie marathons (which I miss very much).
 
FreddyE1977 said:
Pittsburgh had lots of factors in the 50's which would have this make sense for WDTV.

- Lots of steelworkers on a three-shift schedule. It was pretty much a 24 hour town in those days
(as those of us who can remember bars that were packed full at 6AM can attest)

- WDTV had pretty much a monopoly in the #6 market in the country. There was ample
opportunity to time shift kinescoped shows that did not make the prime time schedule.

I believe you are correct that KDKA continued this after taking over the station, at least for some time.

I also remember WSTV in Steubenville, Ohio running "Movies Till Dawn" for many years. I think
they began doing it in the 60's.
Click to expand...

In the early to mid-80's, indie WPTT/22(now MyTV WPMY) was on 24 hours, 6 days a week, which should tell you something about Pittsburgh.
 
New Orleans dates?

RyanHoward said:
In the early to mid-80's, indie WPTT/22(now MyTV WPMY) was on 24 hours, 6 days a week, which should tell you something about Pittsburgh.
Click to expand...


Source for WWL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn8...fvw1l1z2vp4drvgamwmrk0h00410.1575856360495952

I heard according to sources on Youtube that WWL-TV in New Orleans was 24/7 by 1983. Is that indeed Correct?

Any clear date about when WDSU went 24/7?

I know WVUE was signing off up until 1991-92 at the earliest by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-sLh1soNe8

Latest date on Signoffs wiki I found for WYES was 1989. If that is not correct, When did WYES go 24/7?

I also can go through I archive for PBS info. that will be here shortly
 
Hi there I am a first time poster to this board. Looking forward to many years of postings regarding the broadcast business.

Replying to the question regarding the first 24/7 tv station. WCBS TV may have been the first ever to stay transmitting 24 7. WFIL TV now WPVI TV actually was one of the first. Starting around 1957 or so , Channel 6 ran all night movies from like 2am till the next morning around 7am .

Charlie O Donnell( who later went on to greater announcing fame as the announcer on The Jokers Wild Tic Tac Dough and of course Wheel Of Fortune) was the host for the program. It ran Tuesday night(Wednesday morning) through Saturday night(Sunday morning), the station signed off early Mondays and Tuesdays. Channel 6 at that point was a 24/5 operation.

It ran for about 4 years before being cancelled in early 1961, probably due to low rating and overtime costs, and Channel 6 resumed signing off at around 1:30 or 2am, and didn't go 24/7 till early 1992 when World News Now premiered.
 
WPVI was still signing off as late as December 1997. They would go off the air early Saturday and Sunday mornings around 4AM. By 1998, WPVI was 24/7.
 
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