Retro: Indiana Mon, June 13, 1955

[Bluenoser]

from TV Guide-Indiana edition
all listings CDT

WCIA 3-CBS/NBC/DuMont Champaign
7:00 Morning Show (magazine cartoonist Robert Barnes does a cartoon for viewers; musical performers the Redheads and Jose Melis)
8:25 Good Morning
8:30 Morning Show
9:00 Film Feature
9:15 Garry Moore
9:30 Film Feature
9:45 Concerning Miss Marlowe
10:00 Arthur Godfrey
10:30 Strike It Rich
11:00 Valiant Lady
11:15 Love of Life
11:30 Search for Tomorrow
11:45 Guiding Light
noon News/Markets
12:10 Weather
12:15 Road of Life
12:30 Welcome Travelers
1:00 Robert Q. Lewis
1:30 Linkletter's Party
2:00 Big Payoff
2:30 Bob Crosby
3:00 Brighter Day
3:15 Secret Storm
3:30 On Your Account
4:00 Happy Home
4:30 Storytime
4:45 Movie: TBA (listed as Western)
5:45 Cartoon Time
6:00 Superman
6:30 News (Fred Sorensen)
6:45 Sports (Jack Prowell)
7:00 Burns & Allen
7:30 Damon Runyon Theater "It Comes Up Money" (delayed from Sat 9:30)
8:00 I Love Lucy
8:30 December Bride "Lily Hires a Maid"
9:00 Playhouse of Stars "O'Connor and the Blue-Eyed Felon"
9:30 Cavalcade of America "The Palmetto Conspiracy" (Allan Pinkerton foils a 1861 assassination attempt on President Lincoln)
10:00 News
10:05 Weather (Jack Roberts)
10:10 Sports
10:15 Bob Cummings "Uncle Bob-Bob"
10:45 It's a Great Life "The Baby Sitters"
11:15 News (Bob Watson)

WTTV 4-NBC Bloomington
6:50 Cartoons
7:00 Today (included is a remote from Washington where VP Nixon presents AMVET's annual scholarships to the children of deceased veterans)
9:00 Ding Dong School
9:30 Cartoons
9:45 Sheilah Graham
10:00 Home (topics include summer fashions in lingerie (Natalie Core), family responsibilities (Mark McCloskey), restoration of a 1632 Virginia church (film), a portable house (Paul McAlister in Chicago), and how to swim (also from Chicago))
11:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford
11:30 Feather Your Nest
noon Cartoons
12:15 RFD No. 4
12:45 Les' Cartoons
1:00 Movie Matinee
1:30 Indiana University
2:00 Ted Mack
2:30 Greatest Gift
2:45 Concerning Miss Marlowe
3:00 Hawkins Falls
3:15 Musical Billboard
3:30 Mr. Sweeney
3:45 Modern Romances
4:00 Pinky Lee
4:30 Howdy Doody
5:00 Little Rascals
5:30 Western Ledger
6:00 News
6:15 Weather
6:20 Community (Marvin Alinsky)
6:30 Tony Martin
6:45 Camel News Caravan
7:00 Sid Caesar (joining Sid: Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Virginia Curtis, and Ellen Parker)
8:00 Medic "General Practitioner"
8:30 Robert Montgomery Presents "Second Chance"
9:30 Theater "One Man Missing"
10:00 Inner Sanctum "The Yellow Parakeet"
10:30 Little Rascals
10:55 Sports (Charlie Powell)
11:00 Tonight Show (from Niagara Falls: a re-enactment of the Maid of the Mist legend, using flowers instead of a maid; re-enacting Magna Carta day with a torchlight parade of Mounties, USAF, and US Army personnel; Steve Allen interviewing Jean LeSieur, the last guy who went over the falls in a barrel)
mid. News (Charlie Powell)

WFBM 6-ABC Indianapolis
8:00 Open House
10:15 Famous Playhouse "Yang, Ying and Mrs. Wissell"
10:45 Kitchen Window
11:30 Jonathan Story
11:45 Hymn Time
noon Market Report
12:10 Farm News (Harry Martin)
12:30 Laugh Time "Blue Blazes"
12:45 News (Gilbert Forbes"
1:00 Channel 6 Playhouse "Women in War"
2:15 Billie Lawrence
2:30 Cinderella Weekend
3:00 Matinee Theatre "Thumbs Up"
4:00 What's Your Bid?
4:30 Laugh Time (replay from 12:30)
4:45 Cartoons "The Jungle Fool"
4:50 Cartoon Club "The Masquerade Party"
5:00 Chuckwagon Tales "Doomed at Sundown"
6:00 Weather (Bill Crawford)
6:10 Johnny Winn Trio
6:35 Sports (Tom Carnegie)
6:45 Eye-Witness (Alan Dale)
6:50 News (Gilbert Forbes)
7:00 TV Reader's Digest "Mr. Pak Takes Over"
7:30 Concert (guest performer Robert Merrill)
8:00 Showcase "Red Balloon"
8:30 Man Behind the Badge "Pot of Gold"
9:00 Royal Theater "I Saw It Happen"
9:30 Star Theater "The Other Woman"
10:00 Weather
10:10 Sports
10:15 News
10:30 30 Minute Theater "Exit for Margo"
11:00 Sports (Tom Carnegie)
11:05 Wrestling (Hollywood)

WISH 8-CBS/NBC/DuMont Indianapolis
7:00 Morning Show
9:00 Garry Moore
9:30 Arthur Godfrey
10:30 Strike It Rich
11:00 Valiant Lady
11:15 Love of Life
11:30 Search for Tomorrow
11:45 Guiding Light
noon News
12:10 Weather
12:15 Farm News
12:30 Welcome Travelers
1:00 Robert Q. Lewis
1:30 Linkletter's Party
2:00 Big Payoff
2:30 Bob Crosby
3:00 Brighter Day
3:15 Secret Storm
3:30 On Your Account
4:00 Chapel Door
4:15 Cartoons
4:30 Sweet Time
4:45 Children's Museum
5:00 Early Show "All for Love"
6:15 Weather
6:20 News (Vince Leonard, who would head to WRCV Philly in 1958; he would leave the station in 1980, landing at KPNX Phoenix, retiring in 1989)
6:30 CBS News
6:45 Perry Como
7:00 Burns & Allen
7:30 Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts
8:00 I Love Lucy
8:30 December Bride "Lily Takes a Maid"
9:00 Studio One "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
10:00 News
10:15 I am the Law "The Train to Auburn"
10:45 Late Show "Double Profile"

WTHI 10-CBS/ABC/DuMont Terre Haute
4pm Education on Film
4:30 Studio 10
5:30 Wild Bill Hickok "The Maverick"
6:00 You (Nancee South)
6:15 News
6:25 Weather
6:30 CBS News
6:45 Perry Como
7:00 Burns & Allen
7:30 Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts
8:00 I Love Lucy
8:30 December Bride "Lily Hires a Maid"
9:00 Eddie Cantor "The Suspicious Husband"
9:30 Wabash Valley Jamboree
10:00 News
10:15 Weather (Mike O'Neil)
10:20 Sports (Bob Forbes)
10:30 Late Show "Once a Thief"

WINT 15-CBS/ABC Fort Wayne/Waterloo
7:00 Morning Show
9:00 Columbia City Review
9:15 Morning Matinee "Ellis Island"
10:30 Strike It Rich
11:00 Valiant Lady
11:15 Love of Life
11:30 Search for Tomorrow
11:45 Guiding Light
noon Inner Flame
12:15 Road of Life
12:30 Welcome Travelers
1:00 Robert Q. Lewis
1:30 Afternoon Show
2:00 Big Payoff
2:30 Bob Crosby
3:00 Brighter Day
3:15 Secret Storm
3:30 On Your Account
4:00 Afternoon Adventure "Shadow of the Eagle"
4:30 Down Homers
5:00 Bar 15 Ranch "Sing, Cowboy, Sing"
6:00 News
6:10 Weather (Don Hoyle)
6:15 Sports
6:25 Telequiz
6:30 CBS News
6:45 Perry Como
7:00 Burns & Allen
7:30 Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts
8:00 I Love Lucy
8:30 December Bride "Lily Hires a Maid"
9:00 Studio One "The Incredible World of Horace Ford"
10:00 I Led Three Lives
10:30 Big Picture "The Work Horse of the Western Front" (following the 30th Infantry Division)
11:00 Columbia City Review

WKJG 33-NBC/DuMont Fort Wayne
7:00 Today
9:00 Ding Dong School
9:30 Page 33
10:00 Home
11:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford
11:30 Feather Your Nest
noon News
12:10 Weather
12:15 Farm News
12:30 Matinee Theater "Revenge of the Zombies"
1:25 Faith to Live By
1:30 Here's Charlie
2:00 Ted Mack
2:30 Greatest Gift
2:45 Concerning Miss Marlowe
3:00 Dave Lee
3:15 Musical Memo
3:30 Mr. Sweeney
3:45 Modern Romances
4:00 Pinky Lee
4:30 Howdy Doody
5:00 Two Gun Playhouse "Diamond Trail"
6:00 Sports (Hilliard Gates)
6:15 News
6:30 Tony Martin
6:45 Camel News Caravan
7:00 Sid Caesar
8:00 Medic "General Practitioner"
8:30 Robert Montgomery Presents "Second Chance"
9:30 Man Behind the Badge "Pot of Gold"
10:00 Weather
10:10 Sports
10:15 News
10:30 It's a Great Life "Easy Chair"
11:00 Armchair Theater "Up in the Air"

WLBC 49-NBC/CBS/ABC/DuMont Muncie
7:00 Today
9:00 Ding Dong School
9:30 Melody Ranch
9:45 Sheilah Graham
10:00 Home
11:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford
11:30 Feather Your Nest
noon Movie: TBA (Western)
1:00 Robert Q. Lewis
1:30 This is the Life
2:00 Ted Mack
2:30 Greatest Gift
2:45 Variety Theater (Bob Powers)
3:00 Hawkins Falls
3:15 What's Your Trouble?
3:30 Mr. Sweeney
3:45 Modern Romances
4:00 Pinky Lee
4:30 Howdy Doody
5:00 Movie: TBA (Western)
6:00 News
6:15 Sports
6:25 Weather
6:30 Monday Hoedown
6:45 Camel News Caravan
7:00 Sid Caesar
8:00 I Love Lucy
8:30 All Star Theater "Lucky Tommy Jordan"
9:00 Wrestling (Chicago)
10:00 Weather
10:15 News
10:30 Movie: TBA

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Interesting that WTTV, Channel 4, was then an NBC affiliate. It later became an independent.

I take it Channel 13, WLW-I, wasn't on the air yet.

 

[KeithE4]

Interesting that WTTV, Channel 4, was then an NBC affiliate. It later became an independent.

They became an indie after spending a year or so as the ABC affiliate, swapping with WFBM-TV 6 in 1956. NBC was not happy that they were just barely viewable on the more-wealthy north side of the city and northern suburbs. WFBM had lost its primary CBS affiliation to WISH-TV 8 in 1955 (it had been ABC/Dumont when it started up in 1954).

WTTV transmitted from Cloverdale IN, about halfway between Indianapolis and Terre Haute, at that time, and was considered the NBC affiliate for both markets. Trouble was, its city of license was (and is) Bloomington, 50 miles SSW of Indy, and was required to put a city-grade signal there. They moved the transmitter to Trafalgar, about halfway between B'town and Indy, just before they lost ABC to WLWI in 1957. WTTV never had full-market coverage of Indianapolis, which is why they bought WWKI/29 Kokomo and made it a satellite of WTTV, as WTTK, in the late '80s.

I take it Channel 13, WLW-I, wasn't on the air yet.

Channel 13 started up in October 1957, after a long legal battle between Crosley (who eventually got the license) and WIBC radio owner Faribanks, who bought WLWA Channel 11 Atlanta from Crosley as part of the settlement. IIRC, the battle started in the late '40s or early '50s, when both companies applied for the pre-freeze Channel 12 allocation, which was moved to 13 in 1952.

ABC immediately moved there from WTTV despite Channel 13 having a horrible signal in the southern part of the market for decades. WTTV kept a secondary ABC affiliation for several years, but I don't remember it ever carrying ABC shows after '57 other than news coverage of JFK's assassination in '63.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Wow, less than 2 years after WKJG (now WISE) signed on in FW, and about 9 months after WINT (soon to change their calls to WANE) signed on, still listing Waterloo (a little town just north of FW in DeKalb County) as their secondary city of license. WPTA wouldn't come along for another year, so WINT still was ABC secondary, I'm guessing for the purpose of carrying ABC's few hits of the day such as "Disneyland" and "Make Room For Daddy". WKJG was DuMont secondary; by that time DuMont was down to not much more than boxing, wrestling, and maybe some NFL. Wonder when WKJG picked up the Tonight show?

Looking through these listings, I see 2 hall of fame sportscasters; Tom Carnegie, the longtime voice of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway ("Annnnd...Heeeeesssss...On It!"), and Hilliard Gates on WKJG, who did sports there for years, was their GM for a long time too, and even did the Rose Bowl a few times for NBC Radio, and can be seen for a couple seconds in the movie "Hoosiers" calling the state title game.

 

[KeithE4]

Looking through these listings, I see 2 hall of fame sportscasters; Tom Carnegie, the longtime voice of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway ("Annnnd...Heeeeesssss...On It!"), and Hilliard Gates on WKJG, who did sports there for years, was their GM for a long time too, and even did the Rose Bowl a few times for NBC Radio, and can be seen for a couple seconds in the movie "Hoosiers" calling the state title game.

Tom Carnegie was the main sportscaster at WFBM/WRTV for decades before retiring in the '80s (he died in 2011 at age 91).

Hilliard Gates took over IU and Purdue basketball PxP from WTTV's Chuck Marlowe (Corky, are you any relation?) in the mid '70s - not sure of the exact year.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Nope, no relation...I do remember Chuck Marlowe and John Laskowski doing IU games on TV for a number of years. Marlowe's great claim to immortality is hosting Bobby Knight's weekly show, in particular the episode when Bobby brought on the "Purdue spokesman" (the donkey wearing the Purdue hat). "His first name is Jack...I'll let you figure out his last name."

 

[KeithE4]

Nope, no relation...I do remember Chuck Marlowe and John Laskowski doing IU games on TV for a number of years. Marlowe's great claim to immortality is hosting Bobby Knight's weekly show, in particular the episode when Bobby brought on the "Purdue spokesman" (the donkey wearing the Purdue hat). "His first name is Jack...I'll let you figure out his last name."

Unless Marlowe subbed for Gates on occasion, they couldn't have been paired. Gates took over for Marlowe sometime around 1973 or '74 (when I left Bloomington in '73, Marlowe was the play-caller; when I moved to Chicago in '75 after two years in AZ, Gates was calling the games).

Laskowski played for IU from 1971 to 1975, then was with the Chicago Bulls for two seasons. IIRC, he joined the IU broadcast team in 1977 or '78. I forget how long he stayed on the broadcast team.

John Ritter (the ex-IU basketball player, not the actor) also served as an IU/Purdue analyst in the mid '70s. Laskowski replaced him.

 

[bpatrick]

It's likely that Crosley would have sold Ch. 11 in Atlanta to
Richard Fairbanks anyway; Crosley's three NBC stations (Cincinnati,
Columbus, Dayton) were doing just fine in 1962, but the two ABC
stations (Atlanta and Indianapolis) were doing little or nothing to help
the company's bottom line. Given the choice of selling one, Crosley
decided that all of its stations should be in the same region, so Indianapolis
stayed and Atlanta went to Fairbanks, who owned it for six years.

And what goes around, comes around sometimes: Ch. 6 in Indianapolis
was an ABC affiliate in 1955; it's an ABC affiliate today. (I always liked
WTHR's promotional campaign when the two stations swapped networks
in the late '70s: "We're graduating. We've mastered our ABCs. Now we're
graduating to NBC.")

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Kind of interesting that WTTV, Channel 4, has been noted as not covering certain portions of the Indiana area. It is the one Indianapolis-area station that could usually be received in this region although having a good antenna aimed in that direction or at least being in a good location, was important.

 

[KeithE4]

I take it Channel 13, WLW-I, wasn't on the air yet.

Channel 13 started up in October 1957, after a long legal battle between Crosley (who eventually got the license) and WIBC radio owner Faribanks, who bought WLWA Channel 11 Atlanta from Crosley as part of the settlement. IIRC, the battle started in the late '40s or early '50s, when both companies applied for the pre-freeze Channel 12 allocation, which was moved to 13 in 1952.

Per the 2/2/48 Broadcasting Magazine, Crosley first applied for Channel 8, but stated their intention to change it to Channel 12 in the future. Which of course they did.

The 10/11/48 issue of Broadcasting Magazine (PDF file linked from DE's site) shows the following stations in Indiana. Channel numbers in parentheses next to the city are the allocations.

Bloomington (10)
10 WTTV (CP) - Sarkes & Mary Tarzian (Air date 11/49, moved to Channel 4 in 1953)
Evansville (2, 11)
11 ---- (App) - Trans-America TV Corp.
Ft. Wayne (2, 4, 7, 9)
4 ---- (App) - Northeastern Indiana BC Co,
4 ---- (App) - Farnsworth TV & Radio Corp. (Yes, that Farnsworth)
Indianapolis (3, 6, 8, 12)
3 WUTV (CP) - Wm H. Block Co. (Never made it to air)
6 WFBM-TV (CP) - WFBM, Inc. (Air date 5/49, now WRTV)
8 ---- (App) - Indianapolis BC Company
8 ---- (App) - Universal BC Company
12 ---- (App) - Crosley BC Corp. (Became WLWI Ch. 13, air date 10/57, now WTHR)
12 ---- (App) - Indiana BC Co.
South Bend (13)
13 ---- (App) - South Bend Tribune (Originally for Channel 1. Became WSBT-TV 22, air date 12/52 on Ch. 34)

The applications for Channels 8 & 12 in Indy were in hearings at that time.