January 1: This Day in TV History

[Ultimajock]

RE: Cigarette ads...actually cigarettes still advertise on TV, radio and print...just now its indirectly.

...and not so indirectly in Tucson, as it turns out. One of the big TV and radio advertisers here is a shop called Tobacco Barn, which heavily plugs its smokes (generically, not by brand name) in all of its ads. Since moving here in August I've been wondering how the hell the place gets away with doing all this TV and radio advertising without the FCC lowering the boom on the stations...

 

[mleach]

RE: Cigarette ads...actually cigarettes still advertise on TV, radio and print...just now its indirectly.

...and not so indirectly in Tucson, as it turns out. One of the big TV and radio advertisers here is a shop called Tobacco Barn, which heavily plugs its smokes (generically, not by brand name) in all of its ads. Since moving here in August I've been wondering how the hell the place gets away with doing all this TV and radio advertising without the FCC lowering the boom on the stations...

About 10 years ago when I working in radio in Virginia, our competition was airing spots for a now defunct local tobacco shop called "Cigar Haven". Even though they sold cigarettes, they never did mention anything in their ads about those but they sure did promote the heck out of the other products they did sell like cigars and smokless tobacco..even mentioning the brand names too. I remember one ad ( in a southern twang ) saying "..hey pardner...we are having a dipping of a sale on SKOAL..fresh tastin tobacca !!!".

Even though everyone knows that cigarette ads had already been banned nationally since 1971, but oddly for years afterward cigars and products like Skoal and chewing tobacco like Red Man were allowed to air their ads on TV. I am not 100% sure when cigar ads were taken off ( I would like to say 1980 but I am not sure ) but I do remember when ads for Skoal and Copenhagen were banned. That was in 1986. I believe what got those ads taken off was a direct result of a lawsuit thanks to a teenager in some southern state who had developed mouth cancer and died thanks to his 2 can a day Copenhagen habit. Before then, a lot of people really did believe there were no cancer risk associated with smokess/chewing tobacco. Heck, I still remember our high school football team back then ..all of them did Skoal on the field during the game and during practice too. Of course dittos with our baseball team too.

Going back to that radio ad, our then-sales manager called up our competition and reminded them that cigar and smokless tobacco ads were just as illegal to run as cigarette ads were. They got the message and we never did hear anymore "Cigar Haven" spots.

 

[ixnay]

One night in 1980 at work (washing dishes in a restaurant) I had some Red Man or Mail Pouch. Man, it burned. It was my only dabbling with chewing or smokeless tobacco.

ixnay

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1944: Professional wrestling manager (and musician) Jimmy Hart is born in Jackson, MS. Before his WWF/WWE career made him a household name in the 'rasslin world, Hart was a vocalist in the band The Gentrys, who biggest hit was 1965's "Keep on Dancin'." He's also made appearances on VH1's Hogan Knows Best, and on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling.

YouTube has a clip of The Gentrys' appearance on Shindig performing "Keep on Dancin'":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2apM0DAe1g

 

[mjlarochelle]

1982: CHCH-TV (channel 11) becomes a Canada-wide superstation as Cancom begins feeding the independent station and three others to cable television operators in remote regions of the country that had previously had access only to the CBC.

I believe the other stations uplinked at that time were CHAN/8 Vancouver, CFCF/12 Montreal, and CITV/13 Edmonton. Many small-town cable systems to this day carry CHCH and ITV, and in some remote communities ITV is the only Global station offered.

 

[bpatrick]

1944: Professional wrestling manager (and musician) Jimmy Hart is born in Jackson, MS. Before his WWF/WWE career made him a household name in the 'rasslin world, Hart was a vocalist in the band The Gentrys, who biggest hit was 1965's "Keep on Dancin'." He's also made appearances on VH1's Hogan Knows Best, and on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling.

YouTube has a clip of The Gentrys' appearance on Shindig performing "Keep on Dancin'":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2apM0DAe1g

The Gentrys made their television debut on "Ted Mack's Amateur Hour" shortly before releasing "Keep On Dancin'."
The group was, of course, a one-hit wonder. I believe it was Jerry "the King" Lawler who encouraged Hart to
get into wrestling; the two had been friends since their schooldays, IIRC.

 

[easttxtv]

1940: The Tournament of Roses parade from Pasadena, California is televised for the first time by Don Lee’s W6XAO in Los Angeles.

1948: The Rose Bowl is telecast for the first time (locally in Los Angeles on KTLA).

1954: The Tournament of Roses parade from Pasadena, California is telecast in color by twenty-one stations of NBC's first coast-to-coast color network. This marks the first use of NBC's new mobile color TV unit, the first West-to-East transcontinental transmission of color television, and the first coast-to-coast broadcast of a network color program. 200 RCA “Model 5” color TV receivers (the prototype of the venerable CT-100) had been shipped to RCA distributors and NBC affiliates for public demonstrations.

1962: The 1962 Rose Bowl game on NBC is the first coast-to-coast color television broadcast of a college football game in the United States.

Interesting that each event took 14 years between original B&W broadcast and first national (or semi-national) color broadcast. It kinda seems to me that there would be enough local support for both events that they would make their TV debuts closer together than 8 years--I guess there's a local angle as to why.

1976: Oopsie! NBC replaces its classic “peacock” logo with a modernistic “N” made up of two trapezoids. Unfortunately, it turns out to be virtually identical to that used by the Nebraska Educational Television network, leading to an embarrassing (and costly) lawsuit.

Here's an online comparison in case (somehow) anyone has not seen the 2 together:
http://burncreative.com/uploaded_images/nbc_logo-772776.jpg

 

[LKellerIII]

1940: The Tournament of Roses parade from Pasadena, California is televised for the first time by Don Lee’s W6XAO in Los Angeles.

1948: The Rose Bowl is telecast for the first time (locally in Los Angeles on KTLA).

1954: The Tournament of Roses parade from Pasadena, California is telecast in color by twenty-one stations of NBC's first coast-to-coast color network. This marks the first use of NBC's new mobile color TV unit, the first West-to-East transcontinental transmission of color television, and the first coast-to-coast broadcast of a network color program. 200 RCA “Model 5” color TV receivers (the prototype of the venerable CT-100) had been shipped to RCA distributors and NBC affiliates for public demonstrations.

1962: The 1962 Rose Bowl game on NBC is the first coast-to-coast color television broadcast of a college football game in the United States.

Interesting that each event took 14 years between original B&W broadcast and first national (or semi-national) color broadcast. It kinda seems to me that there would be enough local support for both events that they would make their TV debuts closer together than 8 years--I guess there's a local angle as to why.

1976: Oopsie! NBC replaces its classic “peacock” logo with a modernistic “N” made up of two trapezoids. Unfortunately, it turns out to be virtually identical to that used by the Nebraska Educational Television network, leading to an embarrassing (and costly) lawsuit.

Here's an online comparison in case (somehow) anyone has not seen the 2 together:
http://burncreative.com/uploaded_images/nbc_logo-772776.jpg

The 14 year thing is merely a coincidence. I'm sure the long stretch of time between the first B&W and first color broadcast of the Rose Bowl had a lot to do with the fact that the adoption of the TV medium itself was seriously delayed due to a minor inconvenience called World War II.

You'll note that the first broadcast of the parade (1940) was on Don Lee's experimental station. The second was 8 years later on KTLA, which was the first licensed TV station in the Western US - in 1947. The station was originally owned by Paramount Studios. It only took KTLA a year or less to get around to broadcasting the Tournament of Roses Parade.

In fact, due to the war effort, the parade itself was seriously scaled back in 1942, and not held at all in 1943. I'm not sure about 44 and 45.

American industry was totally concentrated on the war effort from the beginning of 1942. (Pearl Harbor was 12/7/41) until September 1945, when Japan surrendered. No cars were built in America from model year 1942 through 1945 either. Tanks, air planes, ships, Jeeps, and bombs - yes. Cars and TV - no.

 

[easttxtv]

Um, ouch. No, I wasn't around for the "minor inconvenience". Yes, I have heard of the reason for the "minor inconvenience".

I was only pointing out the dates as a coincidence that I had not paid close attention to before now.

Oh, and Happy New Year (speaking of important dates)!!

 

[dave73]

I'm jumping the gun on this one:

2011: Tribune Broadcasting launches classic TV network Antenna TV

 

[LKellerIII]

Um, ouch. No, I wasn't around for the "minor inconvenience". Yes, I have heard of the reason for the "minor inconvenience".

I was only pointing out the dates as a coincidence that I had not paid close attention to before now.

Oh, and Happy New Year (speaking of important dates)!!

Sorry - no ouch intended. Lest others think I'm ancient - I'll add that I was also not around for WW2, but heard a lot about it from my parents, given that it was a seminal event in their lives. Also, I grew up watching the 20th Century on Sunday evenings (narrated by Walter Cronkite) in which WW2 was generally the subject, given that there was so much filmed war footage for the first time in history.