bpatrick's Carolina/Tennessee thread just now tantalized me about something. It has become accepted wisdom to us "geeks" through Wikipedia and the like that NBC did not begin full-fledged early evening newscasts on Saturday until early 1969, and on Sunday until 1970, two days after Chet Huntley retired. But one station in that edition bpatrick posted carried, in 1963, a 15-minute newscast at 6:45 ET anchored by Sander Vanocur. Information has surfaced also that Ray Scherer, longtime NBC correspondent, and Robert MacNeil, later of PBS fame, co-anchored on Saturday evenings sometime around 1965 or so, a la "Huntley-Brinkley." Meanwhile, NBC fixture Frank McGee had his documentary-style "Frank McGee Report" air on Saturdays and/or Sundays from about the mid-1960s until 1970, when "Nightly News" expanded to seven nights a week.
Allegedly, the first several months of the 1969 Saturday evening broadcast had Huntley or David Brinkley soloing at the desk on alternate weeks, but NBC, not getting good enough ratings, assigned others to that duty.
I wish I could pinpoint dates accurately, but the Vanderbilt TV News Archive does not have any listing for NBC's Saturday newscasts in the late 1960s. This is because local affiliate WSM-TV in Nashville (from which these archives were--and are--taped) preempted the 5:30 CT slot for years with syndicated country-music shows on Saturdays until sometime in the late 1970s. And those archives only go back to August 1968, so there are no records of any NBC weekend newscasts prior to that time except from newspaper and TV Guide listings from that period. I only have a few TVGs from the 1960s, and I recall seeing only the "Frank McGee Report" listed. For one thing, I do not know when McGee started his show.
Another thing to take into consideration is that few stations bothered to produce even LOCAL newscasts on weekends until the 1970s or so, so it stands to reason that relatively few would be interested in clearing a network newscast when they could get far more money running, say, an old movie, before network prime time. When one thinks about it, it may well be amazing that NBC's launches on Saturdays in '69 and Sundays in '70 took off and have remained to this day.
Do any of you have listings from the 1960s that could answer some of these questions? I think the Wikipedia article could well use some updating if there is any firm info about starting dates and anchors and so on.
Allegedly, the first several months of the 1969 Saturday evening broadcast had Huntley or David Brinkley soloing at the desk on alternate weeks, but NBC, not getting good enough ratings, assigned others to that duty.
I wish I could pinpoint dates accurately, but the Vanderbilt TV News Archive does not have any listing for NBC's Saturday newscasts in the late 1960s. This is because local affiliate WSM-TV in Nashville (from which these archives were--and are--taped) preempted the 5:30 CT slot for years with syndicated country-music shows on Saturdays until sometime in the late 1970s. And those archives only go back to August 1968, so there are no records of any NBC weekend newscasts prior to that time except from newspaper and TV Guide listings from that period. I only have a few TVGs from the 1960s, and I recall seeing only the "Frank McGee Report" listed. For one thing, I do not know when McGee started his show.
Another thing to take into consideration is that few stations bothered to produce even LOCAL newscasts on weekends until the 1970s or so, so it stands to reason that relatively few would be interested in clearing a network newscast when they could get far more money running, say, an old movie, before network prime time. When one thinks about it, it may well be amazing that NBC's launches on Saturdays in '69 and Sundays in '70 took off and have remained to this day.
Do any of you have listings from the 1960s that could answer some of these questions? I think the Wikipedia article could well use some updating if there is any firm info about starting dates and anchors and so on.