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Retro: Boston/Manchester - Monday March 29, 1954

M

MCarney

Source: Nashua Telegraph

WMUR started operations the day before. According to some newspaper stories at the time, they planned to air ABC and CBS programming not being cleared by the Boston stations.

Telegraph listings started at 4pm.

4 – WBZ Boston (NBC)
04:00p Welcome Travelers
04:30p On Your Account – Win Elliot
05:00p Pinky Lee Show – Barbara Luke, Molly Bee
05:30p Howdy Doody
06:00p Science Sketches; Jonathan Karas “The Future”
06:15p News – Victor Best
06:30p Hopalong Cassidy “Hidden Gold”
07:00p Best From Broadway
07:15p Nightly Newsteller
07:30p Arthur Murray Dance Party – Audrey Meadows
07:45p John Cameron Swazye, News (NBC)
08:00p Name That Tune – Red Benson, Vicki Mills, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong
08:30p Voice of Firestone – Mildred Miller and essay “I Speak for America”
09:00p Dennis Day Show
09:30p Robert Montgomery Presents “My Little Girl”
10:30p Mr. and Mrs. North
11:00p News
11:10p Dangerous Assignment
11:40p Night Owl Theater “Pittsburgh Kid”

7 – WNAC Boston (CBS/ABC/DuMont)
04:00p Barker Bill’s Cartoons
04:15p The Secret Storm
04:30p You Are What You Eat
04:35p Movie Quick Quiz
04:50p Song Shop
05:00p Yankee Goes Calling: Museum of Fine Arts; Bill Hahn, host “Exploring Forgeries in Art”
05:45p Songs of the West
06:00p Kit Carson “Trouble at Ft. Mohave”
06:30p Gene Autry Show “Rio Renegades”
07:00p I Lived Three Lives
07:30p Douglas Edwards, News (CBS)
08:00p George Burns and Gracie Allen
08:30p Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts – Marilyn Tate, vocalist; Don Adams, comedian (later of “Get Smart” fame); musical comedy group
09:00p I Love Lucy “Two Maids from Mars”
09:30p Red Buttons Show – Frank McHugh, Huntz Hall, Betty Garde, Lynn Loring
10:00p Studio One “Paul’s Apartment” starring Eva Gabor and Richard Kiley
11:00p News, Weather
11:05p Feature Theater “Voice in the Wind”

9 – WMUR Manchester (ABC/CBS/DuMont)
04:00p Test Pattern
05:00p Adventure Theater
05:55p Crusader Rabbit
06:00p Guest House
06:15p Channel 9 Headlines
06:20p Guest House
06:30p Weatherscope
06:35p Guest House
07:00p News Digest
07:10p Spotlight on Sports
07:15p John Daly, News (ABC)
07:30p Something New and Different
08:00p Square Dance Nite
08:30p The Big Picture
09:00p Junior Press Conference
09:30p Travel Corner
10:00p Half Hour Theater
10:30p News, Sports, Weather
10:40p Queen City Playhouse
 
ABC would not get a full-time affiliate in Boston until November, 1957 so WMUR-9 was the default ABC station for Boston. And with a good antenna, it's analog signal reached Boston and even penetrated a little south of Route 128. With an outdoor antenna at my location in Norwood, Massachusetts, I got a decent (but not as strong as Channels 2, 4, 5, and 7 from Boston or Channels 10 and 12 from Providence) analog signal from WMUR with (in the 1970's and 80's) good color.

In Boston itself and the northern suburbs, WMUR's signal was even better with a clear picture, including color once that came in.

I would think that at least a couple of prime-time programs Maureen Carney posted for WMUR from the Nashua Telegraph's listings that were in fact on ABC.

(Among them would be "Big Picture", which actually ran on ABC for a time in the early-to-mid 1950's; and "Junior Press Conference", which ABC found as a cheap "throwaway" against the top-rated "I Love Lucy")

I don't think WMUR carried CBS shows that were cleared by the old WNAC-7; in fact, I thought that WMUR in its early years may even have cleared a couple of NBC shows that WBZ-4 did not.
 
From the Boston Globe, here are listings for March 29th, 1954 from 4 P.M. onward (since the Nashua listings posted at the beginning of this thread began at 4 P.M.) of Boston's one UHF station at the time (the late WTAO-56) and the only VHF in Providence at the time, WJAR-10 (both of whose signals likely couldn't be received in Nashua):

WJAR Channel 10 (NBC/CBS/ABC)

4:00 Welcome Travelers (NBC)
4:30 On Your Account (NBC)
5:00 New England Talent Club (local)
5:15 Children's Theatre
5:30 Howdy Doody (NBC)
6:00 The Adventures of Superman (syndicated)
6:30 Jo Stafford Show (CBS, delayed from previous Tuesday at 7:45 P.M.)
6:45 Peter Carew Show (local?)
6:55 Weather; News (maybe the weather was at 6:55 and the news at 7?)
7:15 TV Sports Page (with Warren Walden; local)
7:30 Madison Square Garden (films of sporting events taking place there; syndicated)
7:45 NBC News, John Cameron Swayze
8:00 Name That Tune (NBC)
8:30 Make Room For daddy (ABC)
9:00 Outlet Company Jubilee (local special probably celebrating the store's anniversary; Outlet was the original owner of WJAR)
9:30 Robert Montgomery Presents (NBC)
10:30 City Detective (syndicated)
11:00 Local News
11:10 Main Event Wrestling (likely on kinescope, probably syndicated although DuMont did carry some wrestling until 1955)

WTAO Channel 56 (DuMont/ABC)

5:45 Sign-On/Captain Video (DuMont; delay from 7 P.M. sometime during the previous week)
6:00 Local news with Ken VanWart
6:15 What's Your Trouble? (syndicated religious show with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale)
6:30 Deadline Edition (I have seen this title listed for local newscasts in various New England markets. Maybe it was a regional newscast---apparently originated from WHYN Springfield and fed to stations by stations rebroadcasting the signals of other stations carrying it)
6:45 What One Person Can Do (I suspect this was a syndicated public-service type program)
7:00 Locker Room, with Herb Ralby (local; Ralby was a longtime sportswriter in Boston)
7:15 Marge and Jeff (DuMont; one of it's stars was a young Jess Cain who a few years later would become morning man at WHDH-850)
7:30 From Little Wings (aviation film?)
8:00 Front Page Detective (although starting on DuMont; the show ended in first-run syndication in 1953)
8:30 Wedding Morning ( a short film of some sort)
9:00 Movie: "Honeymoon Limited" (I found a 1935 film with this title on IMDB; running 74 minuets, meaning about 20-25 minutes of the film had to be cut due to the network program following at 10 P.M.; see below)
10:00 Professional Boxing: Middleweight bout between Bobby Dykes and Ralph Jones at Eastern Parkway Arena in Brooklyn (DuMont)
11:00 News (likely local, followed by sign-off)
 
And here's a listing from about a year later, showing a little more of what WMUR was broadcasting.

Nashua Telegram, Thursday March 24, 1955

4 – WBZ Boston (NBC)
04:00p At Four, On Four
04:30p World of Mr. Sweeney NBC
04:45p Modern Romances NBC
05:00p Pinky Lee Show NBC
05:30p Howdy Doody Time NBC
06:00p Lady on the Bookshelf
06:15p Wonder World
06:30p Victor Best, News (this may have been the Esso Reporter)
06:45p Armchair Adventure
07:00p Mayor Hynes Address (John B. Hynes, mayor of Boston; he was the father of long-time Boston anchor Jack Hynes)
07:15p (Shawmut Bank) Nightly Newsteller
07:30p Dinah Shore Show NBC
07:45p (Plymouth) News Caravan NBC
08:00p You Bet Your Life NBC
08:30p Justice NBC
09:00p Dragnet NBC
09:30p Ford Theater “Garrity’s Sons” starring Rory Calhoun and May Wynn NBC
10:00p (Lux) Video Theater “Shadow of Doubt” starring Frank Lovejoy and Barbara Rush NBC
11:00p News
11:10p Janet Dean, Registered Nurse
11:40p Tonight – Steve Allen NBC

7 – WNAC Boston (CBS/ABC/DuMont)
04:00p The Brighter Day CBS
04:15p The Secret Storm CBS
04:30p On Your Account
05:00p New England Matinee
05:30p Flash Gordon
05:45p News and Weather
06:00p Sports Parade
06:30p The Lone Ranger ABC (delayed from Thursday @ 7:30p)
07:00p News and Weather
07:15p Art Linkletter and the Kids
07:30p News – Douglas Edwards CBS
07:45p Jane Froman Show CBS
08:00p Meet Mr. McNulty (aka The Ray Milland Show) CBS
08:30p Climax “Darkest Hour” starring Joanne Dru and Zachary Scott CBS
09:30p Four Star Playhouse “Night at Lark Cottage” starring Charles Boyer and Beverly Garland CBS
10:00p Public Defender CBS
10:30p Name That Tune – Bill Cullen, host CBS
11:00p News and Weather
11:05p The Vise ABC (delayed from Friday @ 9:30p)
11:35p Dollar A Second – Jan Murray ABC (delayed from Friday @ 9p)
12:05a Theater “Malaya Incident”

9 – WMUR Manchester (ABC/CBS/DuMont)
04:00p Our Faith
04:15p Western Theater
05:15p Cartoon Theater
05:30p Donn Tibbetts Show
06:00p Guest House
06:15p Channel 9 Headlines
06:20p Guest House
06:35p Weatherscope
06:40p Sports
06:50p News Digest
07:00p Kukla, Fran and Ollie ABC
07:15p News – John Daly ABC
07:30p Gadabout Gaddis
07:45p Circle M. Ranch – Boys
08:00p Soldier Parade
08:30p Treasury Men in Action ABC
09:00p Star Tonight
09:30p Something New and Different
10:00p Ringside with Rasslers
11:00p News, Sports, Weather
11:10p Queen City Playhouse
 
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