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July 20, 1969 Moon Landing question....

A

arnoldevns

I was but a fetus swimming around in my mother's belly with my twin sister when the moon landing happened.. but I have some questions about what this event was like.

I see reports of 600 million watching worldwide. I'm curious to know if PBS (or NET as I think it was then called) carried it live in the US? Did many or most independent stations carry it live somehow? Did they counter-program it somehow?

How many people in the US watched the landing/moon walk? I would imagine this was likely the most-watched event as a percentage of the US population of any event ever on television... but I could be wrong.
 
I cannot answer fully, but it was still NET until 1 year later....I doubt they had the dough to do anything else but counter-program.

Whoever can put up a retro schedule for that day, for any region with an NET outlet, would answer.*

cd

[*although I suppose that the moon landing was what TV Guide would call a "last-minute change" that stations have the right to make. :) ]
 
I checked the Chicago Tribune historical archive but didn't see anything. Did they even know when exactly it would land on the moon?
 
Most certainly. NASA had a timetable prepared well before the mission. Limited fuel, moving target, etc. Everything had to "add up." "Line up", even.
 
I was 8 years old at the time, and I recall being awakened in the late late evening hours to witness the
event on TV. The missions to the moon were carried on network affiliated stations only in Chicago.
That was WBBM CBS ch 2, WMAQ NBC ch5 and WLS ABC ch 7.
It was always fun in the old days to see who had the clearest picture of the three, compare chroma, etc.
 
I was 7 years old at the time and remember watching the first moon landing live. Here in San Antonio TX, Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the surface of the moon were carried 'live', in living black and white, by the big, or only 3 networks at that time, NBC, CBS and ABC. We had a PBS station, that we shared with Austin back then, but since the transmitter was located somewhere halfway between SATX and Austin, most of us couldn't see it. It was later revealed, decades later, that the TV transmissions from the moon were delayed by several minutes, just in case something unusual happened up there. I also remember that it seemed as if the whole world stopped whatever they were doing to watch Neil Armstrong climb down the LEM's ladder and step into history. Then we all went outside to look at the full moon, just like everyone in our neighborhood. Some of our neighbors were looking through bioculars and telescopes, just to see if they could catch a glimpse of the astronauts. It was an histoic event that I will never forget.
 
cd637299 said:
I cannot answer fully, but it was still NET until 1 year later....I doubt they had the dough to do anything else but counter-program.

Whoever can put up a retro schedule for that day, for any region with an NET outlet, would answer.*

cd

[*although I suppose that the moon landing was what TV Guide would call a "last-minute change" that stations have the right to make. :) ]
Click to expand...

I have a Los Angeles TV Guide from that week; the listings were all regular programming with a note that "the networks" and KTTV would break in for moon landing coverage. NET was never mentioned as far as coverage.
 
Michigan State U's NET/PBS station WKAR-TV23 , when it was then WMSB-TV sharing Channel 10 with NBC station WILX-TV, then based in Jackson,MI.let WILX-TV have Channel 10 that day,July 20th for NBC News continuing coverage of Apollo 11. WMSB-TV would also let WILX-TV interupt their programming for several days during the spaceflight, during the regular WMSB-TV airtime of 9:30 am -2pm daily 7pm-7:30pm (or 8pm) nightly and 9 am-2pm Saturdays and 1pm-5pm and 11pm -sign off on Sundays, whether local or NET for bulletins from NBC News on Apollo 11.

And yes, no mention of Apollo 11 is complete without mentioning Cronkite saying "Go Baby Go", and being all excited when Armstrong and Aldrin landed. I have Cronkite and CBS Appollo 11 coverage on tape from a retrospect, and a piece on Walter that day on a CBS TV 50th Anniversary CD. And I also have a retrospect of NBC's Appollo 11 coverage from A&E with Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Frank McGee, Jim Hartz and others and new intros by Edwin Newman.
 
Wao....I'd sure love to see and/or hear WILX's switch to WMSB & vice versa! Especially during that week, when it kept bouncing back and forth!

That shoulda confused ANY viewer!

cd
 
I had just turned 10, so my memories are mostly clear. However, still young enough to have a babysitter. (Not sure where my parents were during this historic event, but that' s another story). In Seattle, all the affiliates of course had it covered. In that part of the country it was still light outside, and at ten, wasn't that impressed, as I had no frame of reference. I just thought it was another "space" event that we had watched throughout grade school. Desite that, I will always remember it, not because I understood its importance, but more because of the way the newscasters described it, and the way my babysitter, and later, my parents reacted to it. At that age, my frame of reference was from others, not myself. An interesting time to be 10 years old.
 
A check of the NY Times archives shows links to a couple of interesting stories I don't plan to pay for. One says 3 Metromedia stations (including NYC's ch. 5, WNEW) planned moonwalk coverage.
Another says an arrangement was being made to broadcast a live feed of the moonwalk in Anchorage, Alaska (where the networks had not previously been able to deliver live feeds to their affiliates -- the network shows, including the nightly news shows, were always delivered a day late by plane).

I don't remember what NET did (I was 9 at the time). But I don't really recall Public TV really making an effort to cover regular news events at all until the Watergate hearings -- they hired Paul Duke away from NBC to be the anchorman.

A couple of things I do remember:
NBC signed on at 11 am EDT on the 20th for 31 hours of continuous coverage, and CBS followed suit at noon for 30 hours. Both networks basically covered everything from the start of the lunar module descent all the way until it redocked with the command module. ABC wasn't quite as extensive, but was wall-to-wall for the afternoon landing until at least the moonwalk was over.
Interestingly, the moonwalk wasn't supposed to start until 2 am EDT. Instead, NASA announced in the early evening that the moonwalk would be moved up, which put the moon walk at the end of prime time in the East and the heart of prime time in the West.
 
I think you'll find that many folks watched whatever station Cronkite was on in their respective cities
 
FRR said:
I think you'll find that many folks watched whatever station Cronkite was on in their respective cities.
Click to expand...

Yes, Cronkite and CBS were tops in Apollo 11 coverage, because on NBC Chet and David had casual interest in the space program, that is they would come on,introduce coverage and they'd throw it to Frank Mc Gee or Jim Hartz and often Frank or Jim would send it back to Huntley or Brinkley.

ABC had Frank Reynolds and science reporter Jules Bergman doing coverage, and ABC did not have as many stations then as NBC or CBS.
 
We were a Huntley-Brinkley family and watched NBC for any big news coverage (space shots, election nights). Chet and David were great because they kept a respectful distance from the story. Walter was an unrepentant cheerleader for the space program; some clips show him practically gushing on the air. Two very different styles -- each had its merits. My dad always complained that CBS News (Cronkite, Sevareid, Schorr) was always trying more than the other networks at the time to dictate to people what to think. In hindsight, he was right.
 
Wow I thought for sure that the landing was around 4:30 pm Eastern! I was age 10 at the time. I am sure I was watching it. However I don't remember the Cronkite-gush, but it would not surprise me. ISTR Cronkite saying that the story is up there with Columbus' discovery of America.

Possibly the 4:30 was the start time of *coverage*.

I have on DVD (poorly because it's dubbed from SLP VHS) A&E's 20th anniversary coverage, a rebroadcast of the NBC account.

cd
 
I was really little then and recall that my parents pulled me out of bed to see the event. This I was happy to do as (like most little boys at the time) I was fascinated with anything related to astronauts, rockets, etc. If memory serves, we watched ABC back then with Jules Bergman and Frank Reynolds. My dad wasn't a Cronkite fan as of the date that he declared the Vietnam war to be a lost cause.

And (as an aside) it was a VERY exciting time when our level of national optimism was very high.

About NET, my guess would be that they did nothing. For one thing, a solid percentage of their affiliates wouldn't have even been on the air at that late hour. Many were on only part of the day. Secondly, they had almost no resources. Folks at NET were probably watching the moon landing on one of the 3 networks just like everyone else.
 
cd637299 said:
Wow I thought for sure that the landing was around 4:30 pm Eastern! I was age 10 at the time. I am sure I was watching it. However I don't remember the Cronkite-gush, but it would not surprise me. ISTR Cronkite saying that the story is up there with Columbus' discovery of America.

Possibly the 4:30 was the start time of *coverage*.

I have on DVD (poorly because it's dubbed from SLP VHS) A&E's 20th anniversary coverage, a rebroadcast of the NBC account.

cd
Click to expand...

The landing WAS as you remembered, 4:17 p.m. EDT to be exact. Armstrong stepped off the lunar module onto the surface at 10:56 p.m. after a couple of hours of preparation for the walk. The original plan was for Armstrong and Aldrin to sleep first, and for Armstrong to step out after 2 am on the 21st.
 
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