• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Knoxville, TN - November 26, 1963 (EVENING)

K

KnoxvilleTVFan

Guest
From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

WATE-TV 6 [NBC], owned by Paul Mountcastle
4:00pm - 4:30pm Match Game
4:30pm - 5:00pm Make Room For Daddy
5:00pm - 5:30pm Mickey Mouse
5:30pm - 6:00pm Yogi Bear
6:00pm - 6:30pm Dateline '63 (WATE's 6pm newscast)
6:30pm - 7:00pm The Huntley-Brinkley Report
7:00pm - 7:30pm Lawman
7:30pm - 8:30pm Mr. Novak
8:30pm - 9:00pm Redigo
9:00pm - 10:00pm UT Playback (UT vs. Kentucky)
10:00pm - 11:00pm Andy Williams (color)
11:00pm - 11:30pm WATE News Central (WATE's 11pm newscast)
11:30pm- 1:15am The Tonight Show

WBIR-TV 10 [CBS], owned by Multimedia
4:00pm - 4:30pm The Secret Storm
4:30pm - 6:00pm Early Show (movie not listed)
6:00pm - 6:15pm Three Stooges
6:15pm - 6:30pm News
6:30pm - 7:00pm CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkie
7:00pm - 8:00pm Maverick
8:00pm - 9:00pm Red Skelton
9:00pm - 9:30pm Petticoat Junction
9:30pm - 10:00pm The Jack Benny Show
10:00pm - 11:00pm Garry Moore
11:00pm - 11:15pm News and Weather
11:15pm- 12:30am Late Show ("Ride Out For Revenge" with Lloyd Bridges)

WTVK-TV 26 [ABC], owned by South Central
4:00pm - 5:00pm Trailmaster
5:00pm - 6:45pm Five-Star Movie
6:45pm - 7:15pm Medic
7:15pm - 7:30pm News (ABC? local?)
7:30pm - 8:30pm Combat
8:30pm - 9:00pm McHale's Navy
9:00pm - 10:00pm Greatest Show
10:00pm - 11:00pm Murphy Martin
11:00pm - 11:15pm News (ABC? local?)
 
KnoxvilleTVFan said:
WBIR-TV 10 [CBS], owned by Multimedia
Click to expand...

Let me correct the previous post...WBIR was, in 1963, owned by the News-Piedmont Company of Greenville, South Carolina.
 
Wouldn't this have been the first day that the networks returned to normal programming following the JFK assassination? I'm guessing that everything shown here aired as scheduled, but we all know about that "subject to change" disclaimer.
 
KnoxvilleTVFan said:
From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:
11:00pm - 11:30pm WATE News Central (WATE's 11pm newscast)
11:30pm- 1:15am The Tonight Show
Click to expand...
firepoint525 said:
Wouldn't this have been the first day that the networks returned to normal programming following the JFK assassination? I'm guessing that everything shown here aired as scheduled, but we all know about that "subject to change" disclaimer.
Click to expand...

That was a Tuesday night. This also begs a couple of questions concerning Channel 6 and NBC:

1. I see that News Central aired from 11 to 11:30. They must have been a station that blew off the first 15 minutes of the Tonight Show, and picked it up at 11:30. How many stations did that? I recall reading that the 15 minute segment from 11:15 to 11:30 was dropped around 1965 because a lot of stations did this. It got to the point that Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson handeled that part of the show, and that Johnny didn't come out to do a monologue until 11:30 because of this.

2. Does anyone recall what the Tonight Show was like on that first night back for Johnny after the shootings (JFK and LHO)? He must have at least mentioned the mood of the country at some point during the show.

It's sad that we can't see that tape because of NBC's ludicrous policy of erasing videotape so frequently back then.
 
There was also the possibility that Johnny was in reruns that evening? (Also noting that the show was an hour and 45 minutes back then! not counting that first 15 minutes that you referred to)

I recall that on the evening of January 28, 1986, Joan Rivers (subbing for Johnny that evening) did not do a monologue, out of respect for the astronauts who had been killed in the Challenger shuttle explosion earlier that same day.
 
My understanding was that the 11:15-11:30 segment of the Tonight Show was to fill the slot for stations that only wanted o run a 15 minute newscast. The "real" show started at 11:30
 
F.M.Hertz said:
I see that News Central aired [on WATE] from 11 to 11:30. They must have been a station that blew off the first 15 minutes of the Tonight Show, and picked it up at 11:30. How many stations did that? I recall reading that the 15 minute segment from 11:15 to 11:30 was dropped around 1965 because a lot of stations did this. It got to the point that Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson handeled that part of the show, and that Johnny didn't come out to do a monologue until 11:30 because of this.
Click to expand...

Actually, it was February 1965 when it was decided that Ed and Skitch would handle the first 15 minutes with Johnny coming on at 11:30 when the whole network was with the show. The first 15 minutes was eliminated entirely in December 1966.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tonight_Show_Starring_Johnny_Carson
 
I'm wondering if there's an error on WTVK's listing. "The Fugitive"
aired on ABC Tuesdays at 10 at the time, followed by Murphy Martin's
newscast (network) from 11-11:10. Unless something with Martin
pre-empted "The Fugitive" that night, that should be what was scheduled.
WTVK signed off right after Martin's newscast.
 
Wow! The night after JFK's funeral, the TV stations were back to business as usual-not, because his death was really weighing heavy on the nation. The next day, President Johnson would make a special speech. I wonder if you have listings for later in the week.
 
IIRC, the filmed series on local and network schedules were back in their normal patterns on the 26th, which was the day after JFK's funeral, but the same-day-taped variety and comedy shows took another day off to make room for continued news updates and coverage. Wednesday, the 27th was the day everything finally went back to norrmal pattern, although as I recall it Johnny Carson's show was a subdued affair for a while longer.

That wasn't the last time Carson toned down his show in response to a national story--he did no monologue on the night of Martin Luther King's death, which happened just as he was ready to go to tape in New York, and the show dispensed with its normal light tone to hold a serious discussion of how the country should respond. Then the night Bobby Kennedy was killed, at just about the time the Tonight Show would have gone to air (11:30 in the east), the network pulled it completely and went to wall to wall news--no Carson at all. The other network affiliates also scrapped whatever they were doing and took network news feeds (in most cases, for CBS and ABC stations that meant pre-empting local late movies). Don't know if the Tonight show taped for air that night was ever shown at a later date or was scrapped...probably depended on whether a lot of jokes which would have proven insensitive in light of the tragedy had to be cut.

Does anyone know what independent stations without regular network affiliations did in response to any of these events--especially outside the biggest cities where they'd have probably had big enough news departments to put together continuous coverage of their own?
 
Actually, it would have been Joey Bishop who would have been
pre-empted on ABC the night of RFK's murder. But I thought that
happened around midnight Pacific time (he had just won the California
primary); somebody correct me on that because it leads to a question:
did Joey air in the Eastern and Central time zones? If so, it would have
been about three hours before Bobby Kennedy was shot.

As for Martin Luther King's assassination, I remember the first bulletin
just before 7:30 PM (ET), and I think that at the time Carson began
taping at 8 or 8:30, so I can see why he was subdued that night.
Bishop went on live at 8:30 (PT), so I'm sure he was subdued, if he
was even on that night.
 
As for when everything "returned to normal" following the JFK assassination, I can't really say, but I can offer some anecdotal evidence.

On the morning of November 22, 1963, whatever passed for CBS' morning show at the time aired a piece on the British Beatlemania phenomen, which was still new to most Americans, since the Beatles hadn't really broken through stateside just yet. They had planned to air it again that evening, but of course, that didn't happen, due to the JFK assassination. That piece didn't air on the evening news until December 10th.

Of course, we should also keep in mind that whatever passed for "normal" prior to the JFK assassination never really returned. That is where the "new normal" came in.
 
What "passed" for CBS's morning show was the "CBS Morning News
With Mike Wallace" at 10 AM (ET). Not only did CBS eventually show
the clip, Jack Paar had one of the Beatles in concert in Bournemouth,
England, which he showed on Jan. 31, 1964, nine days before their
first live U.S. appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
 
KnoxvilleTVFan said:
From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

WTVK-TV 26 [ABC], owned by South Central
7:15pm - 7:30pm News (ABC? local?)
11:00pm - 11:15pm News (ABC? local?)
Click to expand...
That would probably have been ABC News on channel 26 at the time. WTVK-TV 26 didn't have a local newscast until 1975 or so and only at 5:30 PM, with ABC National news at 6:00 PM. They didn't even do an 11:00 PM newscast for at least a few years and it was the early '80s before they did a weekend newscast. Iirc, Randy Pruitt was the first anchor and David Shirck and Jim Hess did the sports.
 
bpatrick said:
What "passed" for CBS's morning show was the "CBS Morning News
With Mike Wallace" at 10 AM (ET). Not only did CBS eventually show
the clip, Jack Paar had one of the Beatles in concert in Bournemouth,
England, which he showed on Jan. 31, 1964, nine days before their
first live U.S. appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
Click to expand...
Didn't Johnny Carson also show a clip of them? I believe his airing of the clip was a little earlier than Paar's.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom