RETRO: KFAR-TV, Fairbanks, Alaska (April 4, 1968)

[johnnya2k6]

Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Here was what KFAR's schedule was like 40 years ago today when Martin Luther King was assassinated:

4:30-The Dating Game
5:00-Peyton Place II
5:30-Heritage of Alaska
6:00-The Big 30 (Bob Parsons?)
6:30-Alaska Highlights
6:45-Hometown Reporter (Maury Smith)
7:00-Daniel Boone
8:00-Ironside
9:00-I Spy
10:00-The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Part 3)
11:30-The Huntley-Brinkley Report (same-day delay)
12:05 AM-Weather Wrap-Up

Friday Daytime (April 5):
10:00 AM-Instructional Television (provided by the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District)
11:30-The Honeymoon Race
Noon-The Family Gane
12:30 PM-Everybody's Talking
1:00-Donna Reed
1:30-The Fugitive
2:30-The Newlywed Game
3:00-Dream Girl '67
3:30-General Hospital
4:00-Dark Shadows

I don't have KTVF's schedule, as they stopped printing theirs daily some time after the '67 flood.

Jonathan Allen

 

[Stanislav]

Being that this was well before any live network connection in the 49th state, I would assume that any bulletins regarding the MLK shooting were generated locally, no? (I would think that any such major breaking news was handled by local cut-ins back in the day, probably just rip-and-read off the wires?) That night's Huntley-Brinkley would certainly have dealt heavily with the assassination, but by the time it aired in AK, most would already be long aware of the incident, and maybe even have heard newer developments from radio, etc.

 

[Ultimajock]

That night's Huntley-Brinkley would certainly have dealt heavily with the assassination, but by the time it aired in AK, most would already be long aware of the incident, and maybe even have heard newer developments from radio, etc.

...that would be assuming there was a special West Coast edition that KFAR would run. Photographer Joe Loew, who was also staying at the Lorraine Motel that night, reported that he had just switched the TV off after "Huntley-Brinkley" ended when the shot rang out...

 

[Stanislav]

That night's Huntley-Brinkley would certainly have dealt heavily with the assassination, but by the time it aired in AK, most would already be long aware of the incident, and maybe even have heard newer developments from radio, etc.

...that would be assuming there was a special West Coast edition that KFAR would run. Photographer Joe Loew, who was also staying at the Lorraine Motel that night, reported that he had just switched the TV off after "Huntley-Brinkley" ended when the shot rang out...

I forgot the shooting took place so late in the day, but it makes sense when you remember that MLK and his people were about to go to dinner when it happened. Actually, if KFAR normally got HBR on tape from Seattle or another West Coast source, chances are that by the time HBR would have aired in that time zone, they were probably doing breaking coverage of the assassination rather than a rebroadcast or reedit of HBR.