New York TV- Fall 1947

[highwayman128]

NEW YORK TV

FALL 1947

Wednesday November 5, 1947

From the NY Times


WCBS-TV Channel 2
8pm- Film Short
8:30- Feature Films

WNBT-TV Channel 4
7:30- Drama: On Stage
8:30- In The Kitchen- (with Alma Mitchell
8:45- Governor Dewey at Forbes Magazine Dinner (from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel)

WABD Channel 5
6:35- Film Shorts
6:45- News- (with Walter Compton)
7pm- Small Fry Club
7:30- Variety Show
8pm- Film Shorts
8:15- Sylvie St. Claire, Songs
8:30- Film Shorts
8:45- Know Your New York

 

[4dude]

Very interesting lineup!!

Anyone have anymore classic lineups?? (From 1947 or earlier)

 

[KeithE4]

Very interesting lineup!!

Anyone have anymore classic lineups?? (From 1947 or earlier)

Considering there were a total of 18 stations (16 commercial, 2 experimental) on the air in 11 cities as of the end of 1947, there probably aren't too many available.

 

[RicoGregg]

Very interesting lineup!!

Anyone have anymore classic lineups?? (From 1947 or earlier)

Uh, listings before 1947 would probably fall under the category of something called "radio".

 

[KeithE4]

This probably sums up TV in 1947:

2:00 PM - Test Pattern
4:00 PM - Cooking Show
4:30 PM - Cartoons
5:00 PM - Film
5:30 PM - Film
6:00 PM - News
6:15 PM - Film
6:30 PM - Local variety show
7:00 PM - Wrestling
8:30 PM - Boxing
10:00 PM - News
10:05 PM - Test Pattern
10:15 PM - Sign off

Network programming (just NBC & Dumont then - CBS & ABC didn't start their TV networks until 1948), was sparse. Neither network had a daily schedule as yet.

 

[visaman]

Too bad video tape had not been invented yet, it would have been interesting to see what the TV signal was like back then. What films did they show back then? I wonder what would they have looked like on the TV screen, as they were picked up by the camera on the ancient film chains.

 

[mleach]

Too bad video tape had not been invented yet, it would have been interesting to see what the TV signal was like back then. What films did they show back then? I wonder what would they have looked like on the TV screen, as they were picked up by the camera on the ancient film chains.

I would imagine within New York City the singal was good.

Believe it or not, about ten years BEFORE these listings, NBC-TV in its experimental days aired a play . The play wasn't much but someone, somewhere did film the play right off the TV set as it was airing live. The film ( no sound BTW ) is available at the Museum of TV & Radio in New York City and from what I heard the picture quality was fantastic and we are talking the late 30's here !!!

 

[4dude]

Excellent!

 

[wbhist]

What films did they show back then?

Basically, B-grade Westerns and other Poverty Row films; back then, the major studios avoided television like the plague.

 

[w9wi]

Believe it or not, about ten years BEFORE these listings, NBC-TV in its experimental days aired a play . The play wasn't much but someone, somewhere did film the play right off the TV set as it was airing live. The film ( no sound BTW ) is available at the Museum of TV & Radio in New York City and from what I heard the picture quality was fantastic and we are talking the late 30's here !!!

OK, here's what I think may be the most bizarre story in TV history:

In 1936, the BBC began testing TV broadcasts from London.

RCA got wind of the tests and decided it would be interesting to see if they could receive the BBC telecasts in New York. They built a BBC-standards TV receiver & began monitoring.

In 1938, they succeeded.

And they filmed their trans-Atlantic TV reception.

You can view the film online.

http://www.apts.org.uk/recording.htm - 1938 BBC TV, recorded in New York!

 

[KeithE4]

What films did they show back then?

Basically, B-grade Westerns and other Poverty Row films; back then, the major studios avoided television like the plague.

Other than Paramount, who owned WBKB Chicago (having bought Balaban & Katz) and KTLA Los Angeles, as well as part of Dumont, which as we all know, totally screwed Dumont over with the FCC.

They even tried to start their own network in the late '40s but it never really got off the ground - 5 shows (the best-known being A Time for Beany, the original puppet version of Beany & Cecil) to 40 stations in 1950 was its peak.

 

[Tim L]

One wonders what might have happened if it werent for World War II..Television development might have been accelerated on both sides of the Atlantic..And Maybe hastened the demise of Network radio as it was known then..Shows and talent might have migrated to TV earlier..Not to mention stations built sooner in more cities..Interesting possibilites..

 

[bpatrick]

I don't have any local schedules pre-1947 but I will
give you the network lineups for the fall of 1946.
Primetime ended at 11 PM, and the only daytime
programming was college football on CBS and NBC
on Saturdays.

From "The TV Schedule Book" by Castleman and Podrazik
(new shows in CAPS):


MON DUMONT 8:30 BOXING FROM JAMAICA ARENA

NBC 7:45 Your Esso Reporter
8 PM Televiews
8:30 Gillette Cavalcade Of Sports

TUE ABC 8 PM Play The Game (nothing after 8:30)

DUMONT 9 PM Serving Through Science (nothing before 9
or after 9:30)

WED ABC 9 PM Wrestling From Chicago

DUMONT 8 PM Magic Carpet
8:30 (Local)
9 PM FARAWAY HILL (considered to be the
first TV soap)
9:30 BOXING FROM JAMAICA ARENA

THU ABC 8 PM CHARM SCHOOL
8:30 (Local)
9 PM Ladies Be Seated
nothing after 9:30

CBS 8:15 CBS News
8:30 Judge For Yourself (not the 1953 Fred Allen
show)/There Ought To Be A Law
9 PM SPORTS FROM MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

DUMONT 9 PM Cash And Carry (DuMont's only offering on
Thursday--nothing before 9 or after 9:30)

NBC 7:30 In Town Today
7:45 Your Esso Reporter
8 PM Hour Glass (variety show said to have inspired
"The Ed Sullivan Show")
9 PM (Local)

FRI DUMONT 8:30 WRESTLING FROM JAMAICA ARENA

NBC 8 PM Friday Quarterback
8:15 YOU ARE AN ARTIST/LET'S RHUMBA
8:30 I LOVE TO EAT
8:45 The World In Your Home
9 PM Gillette Cavalcade Of Sports

SAT CBS 8:15 Week In Review
8:30 SATURDAY REVUE (variety)
9 PM King's Party Line (one of several game
shows hosted by John Reed King)
9:30 (Local)

SUN CBS 8:15 CBS News
8:30 Shorty (some sort of comedy show)
8:45 SPORTS ALAMANAC
9 PM SPORTS FROM MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

NBC 8 PM Face To Face (game)
8:15 Geographically Speaking (travelogue)
8:30 BROADWAY PREVIEWS
9:30 (Local)

I feel certain that all of these programs were seen in New York.

 

[KeithE4]

I don't have any local schedules pre-1947 but I will give you the network lineups for the fall of 1946. Primetime ended at 11 PM, and the only daytime programming was college football on CBS and NBC on Saturdays.
.
.
.
I feel certain that all of these programs were seen in New York.

In the case of CBS, that would be only New York, since CBS didn't start feeding programs to other stations until 1947, and the CBS Television Network didn't formally start until the spring of 1948.

 

[oldschooler1]

Too bad video tape had not been invented yet, it would have been interesting to see what the TV signal was like back then. What films did they show back then? I wonder what would they have looked like on the TV screen, as they were picked up by the camera on the ancient film chains.

I would imagine within New York City the singal was good.

Believe it or not, about ten years BEFORE these listings, NBC-TV in its experimental days aired a play . The play wasn't much but someone, somewhere did film the play right off the TV set as it was airing live. The film ( no sound BTW ) is available at the Museum of TV & Radio in New York City and from what I heard the picture quality was fantastic and we are talking the late 30's here !!!

I have seen that film. I viewed it at the MTR. It is fascinating and dissappointing at the same time. There is no sound, but the picture quality is as good as any post-war kinescope. Dissappointing, in that you would hope to see more---like, the pre-and post-broadcast stuff---mainly, station ID (if such a thing existed).

Yes, it would be very cool to see what a broadcast day actually looked like in the late 40's---to see the commercials, the station breaks, all the continuity between shows...The kinescope process was not perfected until 1947, so films of TV broadcasts from before that are very rare. And at that time, TV people didn't even think what they were doing was worth saving, much less the "continuity" of a typical broadcast day.

Anyone know where we can view such material? There is a 1955 kinescope of a WLWT weather forecast on Youtube, which shows a couple commercials, a station ID slide, then the 5-minute forecast...That's the closest I've come to seeing a portion of a broadcast day from that era.

There's also a Youtube link to the final Howdy Doody episode---the original network broadcast. It includes a mid-show net ID slide for station break, plus at the end of the show, the network promo (just a couple slides) for the movie "International Velvet" that aired the following Sunday night. "Eight eastern and pacific, 7 central, on NBC!" Good stuff!

 

[bpatrick]

Are you sure it wasn't a promo for the series
"National Velvet"? In its first season (1960-61)
it aired on NBC Sundays at 8/7 Central, moving
to Mondays at the same hour for 1961-62.

And to the poster who commented on the 1946
schedule: CBS's programs would have been seen
only in New York. NBC had three stations (New
York, Philadelphia, and Schenectady; I'm not sure
if Washington was on the air yet). DuMont had
New York and Washington; ABC, to my knowledge,
had no television affiliates (New York's Channel 7
didn't go on until 1948), at least not hooked into
the coaxial cable. IIRC, ABC produced its shows
at either DuMont's facilities or at WRGB.

I do know that the second Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight
was televised that year by NBC, but since Washington
didn't have an NBC affiliate at the time of the fight,
WTTG carried it there. (ABC carried it on radio to
a record--for ABC, if not for radio--168 stations.)

 

[Tim L]

Here is a post I did a month ago for the "Bill Randle Show..On WEWS-TV 5.There's a link to the only surviving audio of this show..March 4, 1956..

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,102015.msg800143.html#msg800143

Unfortunately nothing before or after the show..

 

[oldschooler1]

Are you sure it wasn't a promo for the series
"National Velvet"? In its first season (1960-61)
it aired on NBC Sundays at 8/7 Central, moving
to Mondays at the same hour for 1961-62.

And to the poster who commented on the 1946
schedule: CBS's programs would have been seen
only in New York. NBC had three stations (New
York, Philadelphia, and Schenectady; I'm not sure
if Washington was on the air yet). DuMont had
New York and Washington; ABC, to my knowledge,
had no television affiliates (New York's Channel 7
didn't go on until 1948), at least not hooked into
the coaxial cable. IIRC, ABC produced its shows
at either DuMont's facilities or at WRGB.

I do know that the second Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight
was televised that year by NBC, but since Washington
didn't have an NBC affiliate at the time of the fight,
WTTG carried it there. (ABC carried it on radio to
a record--for ABC, if not for radio--168 stations.)

Ah. Did not know it was the TV show. I sit corrected! BTW...Those promo slides I spoke of were in color, too (makes sense, since Howdy Doody was in color).

And ABC, knowing it would sooner or later get into the TV business, rented out studios before it's network flagship station -- WJZ NYC--went on the air in 1948, so its personnel could get the feel for producing TV.

 

[wbhist]

There's also a Youtube link to the final Howdy Doody episode---the original network broadcast. It includes a mid-show net ID slide for station break, plus at the end of the show, the network promo (just a couple slides) for the movie "International Velvet" that aired the following Sunday night. "Eight eastern and pacific, 7 central, on NBC!" Good stuff!

The mid-show I.D. on that Howdy Doody series finale was voiced by Bill Hanrahan, who within a few years became the "Voice of NBC News." The promo for the upcoming National Velvet series was V/O'd by the late Bob Waldrop - who one night in 1960 after the network's New York flagship changed call letters from WRCA-TV to WNBC-TV did a sign-off that was recorded by one Jerry Immel, and is now on J. Alan Wall's TV Signoffs site in a section dealing with audio-only sign-offs of TV stations from the mid-to-late 1950's to early '60's.

 

[KeithE4]

And to the poster who commented on the 1946 schedule: CBS's programs would have been seen only in New York.

As I said earlier, CBS didn't begin feeding programs to other stations until 1947. Per CBS's own website, those cities were Philly (WPTZ 3 or WFIL-TV 6), Washington (WMAL-TV 7), and Baltimore (WMAR-TV 2). The stations are my guesses as CBS doesn't mention the actual stations, but those were on the air in '47 and not owned by NBC or Dumont. They don't call this the beginning of their official network, however.

Per their website, WCAU-TV 10 Philly was the first "official" CBS-TV Network affiliate (other than WCBS-TV of course) when it formally began in '48.

NBC had three stations (New York, Philadelphia, and Schenectady; I'm not sure if Washington was on the air yet). DuMont had New York and Washington;

WNBW Ch. 4 Washington went on the air on 6/27/47.

ABC, to my knowledge, had no television affiliates (New York's Channel 7 didn't go on until 1948), at least not hooked into the coaxial cable. IIRC, ABC produced its shows at either DuMont's facilities or at WRGB.

WJZ-TV Ch. 7 hit the air in August 1948. WENR-TV Ch. 7 Chicago went on about a month later. Before that, what few ABC network shows existed were produced by Dumont (but used ABC personnel, IIRC) and aired on their stations in NYC and Washington, plus WFIL-TV Philadelphia.

I do know that the second Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight was televised that year by NBC, but since Washington didn't have an NBC affiliate at the time of the fight, WTTG carried it there. (ABC carried it on radio to a record--for ABC, if not for radio--168 stations.)

For the record, this fight was on June 19, 1946 at Yankee Stadium. If it was broadcast in Washington, it would have had to have been on WTTG.