July 18: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on July 18. Discuss or comment as you please……

1940: Actor James Brolin (Marcus Welby MD, Hotel) is born (as Craig Kenneth Bruderlin) in Los Angeles.

1952: KFEL-TV (channel 2) begins broadcasting in Denver as Colorado’s first TV station. (Later call changes include KTVR, KCTO, and the current KWGN-TV.) The station would spend 4 years as a primary DuMont affiliate (with some shows from other networks), then almost 40 years as an independent (following DuMont’s demise) before affiliating with The WB in 1995.

1954: WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes the third TV station in the nation with live local color capabilities, inaugurating use this day of a single TK-40A color camera. (FTR, the first two local stations to go color on local broadcasts were WKY-TV Oklahoma City and WBAP-TV Dallas-Ft. Worth.)

1969: Actress Barbara Pepper (Green Acres) dies in Panorama City, California, aged 54. She was the first “Mrs. Ziffel” on the show until heart trouble forced her to retire.

1970: WJCL (channel 22) begins broadcasting as an ABC affiliate in Savannah, Georgia.

1986: KARE (channel 11) in Minneapolis broadcasts 30 minutes of live footage of a tornado from its news helicopter. Caught purely by chance (the pilot and reporter were working on another story when they noted the twister beginning to form), it is the first aerial video footage of a tornado, and is studied intently by meteorologists.

1989: Actress Rebecca Schaeffer (My Sister Sam), aged 21, is murdered by stalker Robert John Bardo, who kills her with a handgun in the doorway of her apartment building. The tragedy leads to new California laws restricting the release of personal information. (Her killer had been able to obtain her home address through the Department of Motor Vehicles.)

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits…..don’t expect it every single day. 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…..)

 

[mleach]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on July 18. Discuss or comment as you please……

1952: KFEL-TV (channel 2) begins broadcasting in Denver as Colorado’s first TV station. (Later call changes include KTVR, KCTO, and the current KWGN-TV.) The station would spend 4 years as a primary DuMont affiliate (with some shows from other networks), then almost 40 years as an independent (following DuMont’s demise) before affiliating with The WB in 1995.

A number of years back KWGN actually showed a film of that first KFEL broadcast when that station turned 50. It was the Fred & Fae show !! Just two people singing and dancing.

1989: Actress Rebecca Schaeffer (My Sister Sam), aged 21, is murdered by stalker Robert John Bardo, who kills her with a handgun in the doorway of her apartment building. The tragedy leads to new California laws restricting the release of personal information. (Her killer had been able to obtain her home address through the Department of Motor Vehicles.)

With the way how so many people can find out personal information about others in this day and age with the internet, this law sadly is dated.

 

[Stanislav]

1952: KFEL-TV (channel 2) begins broadcasting in Denver as Colorado’s first TV station. (Later call changes include KTVR, KCTO, and the current KWGN-TV.) The station would spend 4 years as a primary DuMont affiliate (with some shows from other networks), then almost 40 years as an independent (following DuMont’s demise) before affiliating with The WB in 1995.

A number of years back KWGN actually showed a film of that first KFEL broadcast when that station turned 50. It was the Fred & Fae show !! Just two people singing and dancing.

I imagine many Denver residents were singing and dancing. Denver was one of the largest cities left bereft of TV during the freeze. I've mentioned before that some Denverites had prematurely bought sets, only to find them useless when no station was able to sign-on locally. That is, until they discovered E-skip. They had a telephone chain set up, and when one person noted skip was in, they would start a chain of calls alerting other residents. Then, for a little while at least, they could watch some TV -- a little smeary and fading in and out, and coming from the Midwest or California instead of locally, but TV nonetheless.

 

[oldschooler1]

1952: KFEL-TV (channel 2) begins broadcasting in Denver as Colorado’s first TV station. (Later call changes include KTVR, KCTO, and the current KWGN-TV.) The station would spend 4 years as a primary DuMont affiliate (with some shows from other networks), then almost 40 years as an independent (following DuMont’s demise) before affiliating with The WB in 1995.

A primary DUMONT affiliate? Boy, they must've gotten a sweet compensation deal from that network. Even by then, DuMont was struggling.
Here's an interesting thread: How many primary DuMont affiliates were there? And how many hung on to the bitter end for that network?

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1952: KFEL-TV (channel 2) begins broadcasting in Denver as Colorado’s first TV station. (Later call changes include KTVR, KCTO, and the current KWGN-TV.) The station would spend 4 years as a primary DuMont affiliate (with some shows from other networks), then almost 40 years as an independent (following DuMont’s demise) before affiliating with The WB in 1995.

A primary DUMONT affiliate? Boy, they must've gotten a sweet compensation deal from that network. Even by then, DuMont was struggling.
Here's an interesting thread: How many primary DuMont affiliates were there? And how many hung on to the bitter end for that network?

I recall reading on the DuMont history website (I don't have the address with me right now) that the present KDKA-2 Pittsburgh was basically a primary DuMont affiliate as well in the early '50s (they might have also carried selected CBS, NBC programs as well) before eventually moving to CBS.

 

[bpatrick]

KDKA (then WDTV) was owned by DuMont,
although it did carry shows from the other
networks (for example, the reason CBS's
"Studio One" aired Mondays at 10 was because
that was the only time the station--the only one
in Pittsburgh then--could clear it, and the Pittsburgh-
based sponsor, Westinghouse, didn't want it aired
on delay there). Westinghouse bought the station
when DuMont went out of business; today it is a
CBS o&o.

DuMont also owned WABD (now WNYW), Ch. 5
in New York, and WTTG, Ch. 5 in Washington, DC,
both Fox o&os today.

I think WGN was a primary DuMont affiliate; some
DuMont programs, such as "They Stand Accused" and
"Down You Go," originated there. And I've heard that
DuMont was about to get a primary affiliate in Atlanta,
but that the network went under before the station got
on the air. I've also heard that KTLA was nominally the
DuMont affiliate in Los Angeles but rarely cleared the
network's programs.

 

[Ultimajock]

...for its last months in 1954-55 after WTVW/12 took away the ABC affiliation, WOKY-TV/19 Milwaukee was a primary DuMont affiliate. WOKY-TV was then bought by CBS and merged with the CBS affiliate there, WCAN-TV/25, into WXIX/19 in 1955, and DuMont also went to WTVW...

 

[Tim L]

I read on a WSYX-TV 6 Columbus, Ohio (formerly WTVN) history just last night that it was a primary DuMont affiliate..and that in August 1949 they were one of three primary affiliates of DuMont at the time (other than Owned and Operated stations)..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSYX


WXEL-TV Channel 9 Cleveland was also a primary DuMont affiliate when they signed on in December 1949..Though they carried ABC and even some CBS shows in spite of the fact that WEWS-5 was CBS' primary Cleveland affiliate

 

[KeithE4]

I think WGN was a primary DuMont affiliate; some DuMont programs, such as "They Stand Accused" and "Down You Go," originated there.

WGN-TV was Dumont primary and CBS secondary until 1953, when it lost CBS.

And I've heard that DuMont was about to get a primary affiliate in Atlanta, but that the network went under before the station got on the air.

The only thing I've seen for Atlanta was that WAGA-TV Ch. 5 was a secondary Dumont affiliate (CBS primary).

I've also heard that KTLA was nominally the DuMont affiliate in Los Angeles but rarely cleared the network's programs.

KTSL Ch. 2 was the Dumont affiliate for LA until CBS bought it. It then moved to KTTV Ch. 11 (which had been partially-owned by CBS) for a couple of years, and finally to KHJ-TV Ch. 9. KTLA, along with WBKB Chicago, was owned by Paramount, who owned part of Dumont. Neither Paramount-owned station was ever a Dumont affiliate.

 

[oburn]

kfel tv was a dumont affliate 1952 but at first showed little dumont programming mostly nbc shows

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1934: Darlene Conley (d. 2007)--born in Chicago, IL. Best known as Sally Spectra on "The Bold and the Beautiful." Also appeared on "Young and the Restless," and in many other guest roles on shows including "Cagney and Lacey," "The Jeffersons," "Little House on the Prairie," and "Murder, She Wrote."

1960: Anne-Marie Johnson--born in Los Angeles. Her TV credits include her best-known role as Althea Tibbs on "In the Heat of the Night" (1988-93).

Also from when I thought July 18 was needing a DIY thread last year (back in the days when the search function was on the fritz last summer)--below is my July 18 DIY thread from last year.

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=149045.0

 

[RyanHoward]

1964: Radio personality and current daytime talk host Wendy Williams is born in
Asbury Park, New Jersey.