May 10: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on May 10. Discuss or comment as you please……

1922: Actress Nancy Walker (Rhoda, Macmillan and Wife, “Bounty” commercials) is born (as Anna Myrtle Swoyer) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1930: Sportscaster Pat Summerall is born in Lake City, Florida.

1933: Writer/director/producer Alan Landsburg is born in New York City. He is credited, along with David Wolper, with pioneering the television documentary series format. Among his credits in the genre are Biography, National Geographic Specials, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and In Search of.... He has also been a prolific executive producer of made-for-television movies, many based on true stories and tackling important social themes: Bill, Adam, The Ryan White Story, A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story, and others.

1949: Game show contestant Michael Larson (Press Your Luck) is born (birthplace not recorded). All game show geeks know of his legendary 1984 run on PYL (causing much heartburn amongst the show’s producers and executives, as well as causing the episode to run long), winning $110,237 in cash and prizes due to having memorized the not terribly random patterns used on the game board.

1953: KCBD (channel 11) signs on in Lubbock, Texas, the 2nd TV station in the market.

1956: KFRE-TV (channel 12) launches in Fresno, California. The station would reluctantly move to UHF channel 30 five years later, making Fresno an all-UHF market, and allowing channel 12 to be reassigned to Santa Maria. Calls would change to the present KFSN-TV in 1971.

1959: Actress Victoria Rowell (The Young and the Restless, Diagnosis: Murder) is born in Portland, Maine.

1965: After 10 seasons (on CBS and NBC) and over 360 episodes, the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents airs its final first-run show.

1968: Actor Scotty Beckett (“Our Gang”/The Little Rascals; Rocky Jones, Space Ranger) is found dead two days after checking into a Hollywood nursing home for injuries caused by a recent beating. He is just 38 years old. Sleeping pills and a note are found near his body, but an autopsy rules the cause of death "inconclusive." Beckett was yet another troubled child star whose career fizzled after outgrowing his cuteness. His 1954 role as Winky on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (from which he was fired after being jailed on weapons charges) was his last major acting job. Beckett’s later years had been plagued by a litany of bad checks, failed marriages, violence, frequent run-ins with the police, alcoholism, drug abuse, crippling auto accidents, and suicide attempts.

1975: Actress Andrea Anders (Joey, The Class, Better Off Ted) is born in Madison, Wisconsin.

1983: KCWC-TV (channel 4) signs on in Lander, Wyoming. The launch of Wyoming’s first PBS member station makes the state the next-to-the-last to get a public television station on the air within its borders. (KUSM in Bozeman, Montana would go on the air over a year later.)

1985: Saturday Night's Main Event debuts on NBC. It is the first time that professional wrestling has aired on network television since the 1950s.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits. 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…..)

 

[KML0224]

Ah yes! The first of many semi-monthly WWF (now WWE) specials. Now those were the good ol' days! The oldest show I have in my collection is the show recorded in Hartford, CT and aired on January 3, 1987. Many may remember the infamous Paul Orndorff vs Hulk Hogan steel cage match which initially ended in a "tie". I'm a Connecticut native and it hurt to watch this one in Maine. I wish I could've been here instead.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1985: Saturday Night's Main Event debuts on NBC. It is the first time that professional wrestling has aired on network television since the 1950s.

May 10, 1985 was actually a Friday. Did you mean May 11, 1985 for the date of the first Saturday Night's Main Event?

 

[KML0224]

The show was taped the night before at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. The error is quite possible here.

 

[wbhist]

1965: After 10 seasons (on CBS and NBC) and over 360 episodes, the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents airs its final first-run show.

On this same day in that same year, WNBC-TV (Channel 4) in New York inaugurates the first hour-long early evening local newscast in New York City, the Sixth Hour News. The anchors are Robert MacNeil (later of MacNeil/Lehrer fame) and Gabe Pressman. This newscast replaces the half-hour Pressman/Ryan Report (co-anchored by Pressman and Bill Ryan) that first took to the air in 1963, following the 114-day New York City newspaper strike.

 

[LKellerIII]

1965:

On this same day in that same year, WNBC-TV (Channel 4) in New York inaugurates the first hour-long early evening local newscast in New York City, the Sixth Hour News. The anchors are Robert MacNeil (later of MacNeil/Lehrer fame) and Gabe Pressman. This newscast replaces the half-hour Pressman/Ryan Report (co-anchored by Pressman and Bill Ryan) that first took to the air in 1963, following the 114-day New York City newspaper strike.

The same was true regarding the one hour Sixth Hour News at KNBC in Los Angeles - though possibly not on this same day. I believe KNXT (CBS) was the first in LA to air a one hour news program at 6:00 - The Big News anchored by Jerry Dunphy. KNXT and Dunphy always managed to dominate the the ratings, too - despite the fact that KNBC's news had a more modern "high tech" look, and was in color. KNBC finally became the ratings leader in the late 60s, after bringing in Tom Snyder and Tom Brokaw and re-branding as KNBC News Service.

 

[mleach]

1965:

On this same day in that same year, WNBC-TV (Channel 4) in New York inaugurates the first hour-long early evening local newscast in New York City, the Sixth Hour News. The anchors are Robert MacNeil (later of MacNeil/Lehrer fame) and Gabe Pressman. This newscast replaces the half-hour Pressman/Ryan Report (co-anchored by Pressman and Bill Ryan) that first took to the air in 1963, following the 114-day New York City newspaper strike.

The same was true regarding the one hour Sixth Hour News at KNBC in Los Angeles - though possibly not on this same day. I believe KNXT (CBS) was the first in LA to air a one hour news program at 6:00 - The Big News anchored by Jerry Dunphy. KNXT and Dunphy always managed to dominate the the ratings, too - despite the fact that KNBC's news had a more modern "high tech" look, and was in color. KNBC finally became the ratings leader in the late 60s, after bringing in Tom Snyder and Tom Brokaw and re-branding as KNBC News Service.

Wasn't there another market that had at least one station offering a 60 minute local newscasts even BEFORE NYC and LA? For some reason I am thinking Philadelphia had one first.
Could it been Chicago?

 

[LKellerIII]

1965:

On this same day in that same year, WNBC-TV (Channel 4) in New York inaugurates the first hour-long early evening local newscast in New York City, the Sixth Hour News. The anchors are Robert MacNeil (later of MacNeil/Lehrer fame) and Gabe Pressman. This newscast replaces the half-hour Pressman/Ryan Report (co-anchored by Pressman and Bill Ryan) that first took to the air in 1963, following the 114-day New York City newspaper strike.

The same was true regarding the one hour Sixth Hour News at KNBC in Los Angeles - though possibly not on this same day. I believe KNXT (CBS) was the first in LA to air a one hour news program at 6:00 - The Big News anchored by Jerry Dunphy. KNXT and Dunphy always managed to dominate the the ratings, too - despite the fact that KNBC's news had a more modern "high tech" look, and was in color. KNBC finally became the ratings leader in the late 60s, after bringing in Tom Snyder and Tom Brokaw and re-branding as KNBC News Service.

Wasn't there another market that had at least one station offering a 60 minute local newscasts even BEFORE NYC and LA? For some reason I am thinking Philadelphia had one first.
Could it been Chicago?

You can take it with a grain of salt, but according to Wikipedia, KNXT's The Big News in Los Angeles was the nation's first one hour newscast - beginning in 1960. It's kind of shocking that it was almost 5 years later that New York began its first one hour 'cast. Perhaps Chicago and/or Philly were between those two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCBS-TV

 

[Corky Marlowe]

You can take it with a grain of salt, but according to Wikipedia, KNXT's The Big News in Los Angeles was the nation's first one hour newscast

Did a lot of CBS affiliates call their local news "The Big News"? WANE/15 in Fort Wayne used that name for a number of years.

 

[wbhist]

Did a lot of CBS affiliates call their local news "The Big News"? WANE/15 in Fort Wayne used that name for a number of years.

Certainly CBS's then Philadelphia O&O, WCAU-TV, did. However, it wasn't exclusive to CBS affiliates. In New York, for example, WABC-TV (owned by ABC) called its newscasts The Big News in the early 1960's (alas, one of several failed attempts to compete with WNBC and WCBS before Al Primo brought his Eyewitness News format to the station).

 

[mleach]

You can take it with a grain of salt, but according to Wikipedia, KNXT's The Big News in Los Angeles was the nation's first one hour newscast - beginning in 1960. It's kind of shocking that it was almost 5 years later that New York began its first one hour 'cast. Perhaps Chicago and/or Philly were between those two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCBS-TV

It is interesting that it took almost five years before NYC begin the one-hour local newscast concept. Then again I am not surprised that it was a LA station that did it first since that was the first market to use a chopper ( KTLA ). Not sure when the NYC stations began to use one but down south in the Mid-Atlantic oddly Richmond, Virginia's then WXEX-TV was using one for their news as far as back as 1979 and this was BEFORE the stations in Baltimore and Washington were using them., not sure about Philadelphia though. However by 1985..the WXEX "TV 8 Live in the sky" chopper seemed to had disappeared. Baltimore's WMAR had one somewhat in the early 80s..but I have been told years agy that WMAR more/less used it only for the opening for their 'NewsScene 2" and never really used it for actual news. Just something to "brag" about.

 

[LKellerIII]

You can take it with a grain of salt, but according to Wikipedia, KNXT's The Big News in Los Angeles was the nation's first one hour newscast - beginning in 1960. It's kind of shocking that it was almost 5 years later that New York began its first one hour 'cast. Perhaps Chicago and/or Philly were between those two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCBS-TV

It is interesting that it took almost five years before NYC begin the one-hour local newscast concept. Then again I am not surprised that it was a LA station that did it first since that was the first market to use a chopper ( KTLA ). Not sure when the NYC stations began to use one but down south in the Mid-Atlantic oddly Richmond, Virginia's then WXEX-TV was using one for their news as far as back as 1979 and this was BEFORE the stations in Baltimore and Washington were using them., not sure about Philadelphia though. However by 1985..the WXEX "TV 8 Live in the sky" chopper seemed to had disappeared. Baltimore's WMAR had one somewhat in the early 80s..but I have been told years agy that WMAR more/less used it only for the opening for their 'NewsScene 2" and never really used it for actual news. Just something to "brag" about.

KTLA had a "chopper?" Please...that's Telecopter, buddy. They also had the Telemobile. Independent KTLA was owned by Paramount initially, if I remember correctly. The station was a pioneer in live news remotes and was doing it years before the other LA stations, even the network O&Os. Helicopters became overused on LA TV in the 80s with all those freeway chases.

Nowadays - at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, the TV stations will bring out "Chopper 7" or whatever - on occasion, but I think they probably just charter copters now for the rare big story, I don't think they own or maintain their own.

All the radio stations here talk like they have their own traffic copters, too. But the not-so-secret fact is - "they" are just one chopper - owned by KGO radio, which rents a seat out to Metro Traffic, which in turn, sells their services to various other stations.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1970: Actress Gina Phillips (Ally MacBeal, Boston Public) is born in Miami Beach, FL.