November 2: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on November 2. Discuss or comment as you please……

1936: The BBC begins transmitting public programming from a 405-line station located at the Alexandra Palace in northern London. The British claim this to be "the world's first regular public high definition television service." (Generally true. Though 343 and 441 line images were being transmitted in the U.S. from 1935 to 1938, the service was not yet "regular" or "public" as no TV sets were yet available for sale to the general public. And the Germans had publicly demonstrated a 180 line system, which technically did not qualify as "high definition," then defined as at least 200 lines.)

1948: WAAM (channel 13, now WJZ-TV) begins operating in Baltimore, Maryland. Its first broadcast is the 1948 presidential election returns.

1966: Actor David Schwimmer (Friends) is born in Astoria, Queens, New York.

1981: As the World Turns debuts a new opening sequence and theme song for the first time in its then 25-year history.

1997: A new production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's version of “Cinderella,” starring Brandy Norwood and Whitney Houston, and produced by The Walt Disney Company, airs on ABC.

1998: Becker premieres on CBS.

2003: Arrested Development premieres on Fox.

(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…..)

 

[Davros2006]

Also on November 2...

1982: Channel Four launches in the U.K. and 26 years later is still going strong. Among some of its opening night programs were letter-and-number game show COUNTDOWN (which is still on the air, and was the first TV show aired by the new network) and Liverpool-based soap BROOKSIDE (which enjoyed a 21-year run before going off the air on November 4, 2003). If you look through YouTube and/or DailyMotion, you'll find a video that shows Channel Four signing off for the night after having launched some hours earlier.

 

[johnnyu]

I can't say that I remember when WAAM signed on in Baltimore. However, we got our television in 1949 and I saw a lot of WAAM then. And also WBAL and WMAR.

 

[bpatrick]

Re "As The World Turns" new theme song and
opening (1981), I believe Nov. 2, 1981, is also
the day Dan Region replaced Dan McCullough as
the show's announcer; McCullough, who had held
that job from the beginning in 1956, retired. Region
held the job until Sept. 10, 1998, when Procter & Gamble
let him go in some budget cuts. Since then, there has
been no regular announcer, although various cast members
will say, "As The World Turns is sponsored by..." and give
the name of the product. ("Guiding Light" does the same
thing; its longtime announcer, Alan Berns, was dropped
around the same time as Region.)

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Re "As The World Turns" new theme song and
opening (1981), I believe Nov. 2, 1981, is also
the day Dan Region replaced Dan McCullough as
the show's announcer; McCullough, who had held
that job from the beginning in 1956, retired. Region
held the job until Sept. 10, 1998, when Procter & Gamble
let him go in some budget cuts. Since then, there has
been no regular announcer, although various cast members
will say, "As The World Turns is sponsored by..." and give
the name of the product. ("Guiding Light" does the same
thing; its longtime announcer, Alan Berns, was dropped
around the same time as Region.)

YouTube has a rare ATWT opening video from December 1981 (with the new visuals) that still had McCullough as the announcer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoChg7LNEs8

 

[bpatrick]

That's entirely likely. As I understand it, McCullough
was phasing himself out between November 1981 and
February 1982 in preparation for his retirement. He and
Region apparently traded off the announcing chores, with
Region getting the job fulltime in February 1982.

Slightly off-topic, but I've had a couple of occasions to
email Region for permission to use articles he's written for
his local newspaper in my history classes. I can tell you,
he is one super nice guy.

I miss the announcers on the soaps; not just Region and
Berns but also Bern Bennett (Y&R, B&B, now retired), and
some of the ones who are no longer with us, such as Ken
Roberts ("Love Of Life," "Secret Storm") and, of course, the
one and only Hal Simms ("The EDDDDGGGE of NIGHT").

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

This Nov. 2 historical event would eventually help make possible "radio with pictures":

1920: KDKA in Pittsburgh begins broadcasting as the first commercial radio station in the United States, broadcasting election returns of the presidential election of Republican Warren G. Harding (who won in a landslide) over Democrat James Cox.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Re "As The World Turns" new theme song and
opening (1981), I believe Nov. 2, 1981, is also
the day Dan Region replaced Dan McCullough as
the show's announcer; McCullough, who had held
that job from the beginning in 1956, retired. Region
held the job until Sept. 10, 1998, when Procter & Gamble
let him go in some budget cuts. Since then, there has
been no regular announcer, although various cast members
will say, "As The World Turns is sponsored by..." and give
the name of the product. ("Guiding Light" does the same
thing; its longtime announcer, Alan Berns, was dropped
around the same time as Region.)

YouTube has a rare ATWT opening video from December 1981 (with the new visuals) that still had McCullough as the announcer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoChg7LNEs8

And sadly, that video linked above has since been removed from YouTube.

 

[Ultimajock]

This Nov. 2 historical event would eventually help make possible "radio with pictures":

1920: KDKA in Pittsburgh begins broadcasting as the first commercial radio station in the United States, broadcasting election returns of the presidential election of Republican Warren G. Harding (who won in a landslide) over Democrat James Cox.

...actually, KDKA had already been operating under an experimental license as 8XK as early as 1916, and in fact some claim that the Federal license to operate commercially didn't arrive at the station until that night's broadcast was already underway, thus the station may have signed on the air as 8ZZ...

 

[bpatrick]

1948: Milton Berle's "Texaco Star Theater" is the only
regularly-scheduled program not pre-empted for coverage
of the Truman-Dewey election results. But the real story
is on radio; NBC's H.V. Kaltenborn keeps calling the election
for Dewey, even after it's obvious that the tide has shifted
to Truman. For the rest of his life Truman enjoyed mocking
"Mis-tah Kal-ten-bahn"'s insistent but erroneous call.

 

[Ultimajock]

1948: Milton Berle's "Texaco Star Theater" is the only
regularly-scheduled program not pre-empted for coverage
of the Truman-Dewey election results. But the real story
is on radio; NBC's H.V. Kaltenborn keeps calling the election
for Dewey, even after it's obvious that the tide has shifted
to Truman. For the rest of his life Truman enjoyed mocking
"Mis-tah Kal-ten-bahn"'s insistent but erroneous call.

...and, it should be pointed out, Kaltenborn just as frequently mocked himself for that gaffe. He was no Bill O'Reilly ;-) ...

 

[LKellerIII]

1948: Milton Berle's "Texaco Star Theater" is the only
regularly-scheduled program not pre-empted for coverage
of the Truman-Dewey election results. But the real story
is on radio; NBC's H.V. Kaltenborn keeps calling the election
for Dewey, even after it's obvious that the tide has shifted
to Truman. For the rest of his life Truman enjoyed mocking
"Mis-tah Kal-ten-bahn"'s insistent but erroneous call.

...and, it should be pointed out, Kaltenborn just as frequently mocked himself for that gaffe. He was no Bill O'Reilly ;-) ...

Many of us remember that historical photograph of Truman the day after the election, grinning from ear to ear while holding up the Chicago Tribune with the screaming headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN," So Kaltenborn was not alone in calling it wrong.

The explanation I've heard: the pre-election opinion polls all favored Dewey. But it turned out that those polls were conducted primarily by telephone. In 1948, many people did not yet have phones in their homes. These were presumably lower-income Americans who would be more likely to vote Democrat.


http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/exhibits/elections/images/1948_DeweyDefeatsTruman56976.jpg

 

[bpatrick]

True. The problem was that, when the Chicago Tribune's
first edition was about to go to press, the outcome of the
election was still in doubt; needing a headline, the editors
naturally assumed Dewey was going to win; hence the
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN headline. Truman's holding it
up to the camera is indeed one of the classic photos of American
journalism.

I somehow suspect there were a lot of shocked people in
newsrooms around the country that night.