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May 15: This Day in TV History

Just a few random TV related events that happened on May 15. Discuss or comment as you please……

1948: WATV (channel 13) signs on in Newark, New Jersey. It would later become WNTA-TV, change to non-commercial status as WNDT, then later change calls to the current WNET.

1954: WBAP-TV (channel 5, now KXAS-TV) in Fort Worth, Texas, makes its first local colorcast. They are the 2nd TV station in the U.S. to have local color capability (the first, Milwaukee’s WTMJ-TV, had made its first local color broadcast about 5 weeks before).

1954: KGLO-TV (channel 3, now KIMT) begins broadcasting in Mason City, Iowa.

1970: Actress Lynda Day marries actor Christopher George (she would thereafter be known as Lynda Day George). They would remain married until the sudden death of Christopher in 1983. Lynda would work only sporadically thereafter, re-marry in 1985, and retire from acting in the late 1980s.

1977: The cast of Father Knows Best reunites for the first of 2 TV-movies.

1979: The last first-run Starsky and Hutch airs on ABC.

2007: Evangelist Jerry Falwell (The Old-Time Gospel Hour) dies due to a cardiac arrhythmia in Lynchburg, Virginia, aged 73.

2008: Composer Alexander Courage dies in Pacific Palisades, California, aged 87. He is probably best known for writing the theme music for the original Star Trek series (and some incidental music as well), but he also worked as a composer on such TV shows as The Brothers Brannagan, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Judd for the Defense, Daniel Boone, and The Waltons.

(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…..) ;)
 
1972: After the last few years of faltering ratings against both WABC-TV's Eyewitness News with Roger Grimsby & Bill Beutel and WCBS-TV's Six O'Clock Report with Jim Jensen, WNBC-TV (Channel 4) unveils a major overhaul of its Sixth Hour News, with a new news set (designed by Robin Wright who also did the set design for Jesus Christ, Superstar) and a new anchor team (former Cleveland, OH mayor Carl Stokes and former Los Angeles TV news anchor Paul Udell). Meant to jolt the 6 P.M. edition's ratings, instead the ratings fall even further - to such an extent that WNBC's audience figures were represented by an asterisk (*) in lieu of a number figure. The Stokes/Udell team is found to have little chemistry (especially at the outset), and Stokes in particular is not exactly beloved by some of his new colleagues (most notably NBC Nightly News anchor John Chancellor). This overhaul, within a month, costs the station longtime reporter (and former anchor) Gabe Pressman, who joins WNEW-TV (Channel 5) and remains there until 1980 when he returns to WNBC. This ratings low point is the trigger that, two years later, leads to the development and debut of the two-hour NewsCenter4. DYK: (1) This was during WNBC's first use of the News 4 New York umbrella that would later be used in its 1980-95 glory period (and, more recently, since 2008); and (2) The only surviving evidence of the Stokes/Udell team on tape is, ironically, the first two minutes of the Aug. 17, 1972 edition of the Eleventh Hour News (the only place where WNBC performs well on par with WABC in the ratings); they were filling in for then-regular anchor Jim Hartz who was on vacation. The top story is read by Udell, and pertains to a meeting between Presidential adviser Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu. This clip has been put online.
 
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