Retro: Los Angeles o&os Friday, November 22, 1963

[LKellerIII]

Funny how things get off topic....So to get even more off-topic, It's odd to me that so many NBC local affiliates were doing their newscasts in color and the network was not, as seen in the NBC 11/22/63 coverage between WBAP (Ft. Worth) and the network. Why do you suppose the first full color network did not have color newscast?

At the time, only the very well-off NBC affilates were equipped for local LIVE color. News was pretty much a second-thought at the time, even at the O&O's. Since most of the NBC affilates were not equipped for color, yet and since NBC still had quite a few black and white cameras left at 30 Rock, the NBC news department did not think color was a priority. However, that did change for the 1964 Conventions. NBC carried gavel-to-gavel coverage of the 1964 Conventions in color. Within a year or so after 11/22/63, NBC pushed for color for all of the affiliates. By 1966, ALL NBC affilates were equipped for network color. All LOCAL color would still be a couple of years later. Also, make note during the NBC JFK coverage that the studio they used was rather dark. With the way it looked, the color cameras would not work very well in that dark setting. The WBAP feed was in color during the first few breaks from Dallas. But, eventually NBC requested WBAP to remove the color burst signal, which they did. Also, bandwidth for color on AT&Tcircuits was at a premium at the time. Getting a signal from Dallas to New York, never mind sending color, was a miracle considering they had to get that feed within a few minutes time at the time of assassination. This tragic event really changed the course of news programming.

As I've mentioned before, I also believe a lot of news programming at the network level was slow to convert to color because, really, color didn't do a whole lot to enhance the viewing experience of a talking head at a desk, as it did for a movie, variety show, game show, sporting event, etc. News was a much more somber, serious business in those days (unlike the circus it has become) and I think they were far more concerned about the content than about how pretty it looked.

The WBAP footage on 11/22/63 got better with each subsequent switch -- I think the initial gloominess of the set might have had more to do with lights and cameras not getting a full warmup in the haste to get on the air. The same can be seen on NBC when they first switched to David Brinkley in Washington -- the video on that first feed was murky and low in contrast. I figured under ideal non-emergency conditions they would have waited a bit longer, but felt it was important to get some reporting/reaction from the Nation's Capital as soon as possible.

Regarding the gloominess of sets - it reminded me that local news shows in this era in Los Angeles barely bothered with sets. Slap some sort of textured backdrop behind the anchors...maybe some sort of map-thing, then stick the anchor and reporters at a cheap Formica counter, and away you go. I recall reading some reporter's memoir of working for The Big News on KNXT in this era...and his description of the plain and dirty set with litter and cigarette butts all over the floor that the janitor never bothered to sweep up.

The first flashy news program I can remember was KTLA's in the mid 60s - KTLA was the first station in LA to adopt chroma-key technology a year or two ahead of the others; so you'd watch George Putnam standing on the set reading the news in his booming voice with the filmed action moving behind him. He'd introduce the story, the action would start behind him, then they'd slide his image to the right, and off the screen. Very dramatic.

Then things got flashier with "high-tech" looking sets in the late 60s and early 70s.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

KNBC Ch. 4 (NBC)
9 AM Say When!
9:25 NBC News
9:30 Word For Word (COLOR)
10 AM Concentration
10:30 Missing Links (COLOR)
11 AM Your First Impression (COLOR)
11:30 Truth Or Consequences (COLOR)
11:55 NBC News
12 N People Will Talk (COLOR)
12:25 NBC News
12:30 The Doctors
1 PM Loretta Young
1:30 You Don't Say! (COLOR)
2 PM Match Game
2:25 NBC News
2:30 Make Room For Daddy

Just as NBC did later in the '60s, where the half-hour local hole (1 ET/12 CT)
was not offered on the left coast feed, here the one-hour local slot was also
blown off and the daytime programming went straight through.

While mornings (9-12 PT) were on Central zone clock schedule, afternoons
(12-3 PT) were equivalent to Mountain zone clock time. As many of these
shows still came out of NYC (some live, IIRC), Burbank had to do a one-hour
delay for 12-3, unless it was a tape or film show already "in the house."

 

[Rob Jason]

Funny how things get off topic....So to get even more off-topic, It's odd to me that so many NBC local affiliates were doing their newscasts in color and the network was not, as seen in the NBC 11/22/63 coverage between WBAP (Ft. Worth) and the network. Why do you suppose the first full color network did not have color newscast?

At the time, only the very well-off NBC affilates were equipped for local LIVE color. News was pretty much a second-thought at the time, even at the O&O's. Since most of the NBC affilates were not equipped for color, yet and since NBC still had quite a few black and white cameras left at 30 Rock, the NBC news department did not think color was a priority. However, that did change for the 1964 Conventions. NBC carried gavel-to-gavel coverage of the 1964 Conventions in color. Within a year or so after 11/22/63, NBC pushed for color for all of the affiliates. By 1966, ALL NBC affilates were equipped for network color. All LOCAL color would still be a couple of years later. Also, make note during the NBC JFK coverage that the studio they used was rather dark. With the way it looked, the color cameras would not work very well in that dark setting. The WBAP feed was in color during the first few breaks from Dallas. But, eventually NBC requested WBAP to remove the color burst signal, which they did. Also, bandwidth for color on AT&Tcircuits was at a premium at the time. Getting a signal from Dallas to New York, never mind sending color, was a miracle considering they had to get that feed within a few minutes time at the time of assassination. This tragic event really changed the course of news programming.

As I've mentioned before, I also believe a lot of news programming at the network level was slow to convert to color because, really, color didn't do a whole lot to enhance the viewing experience of a talking head at a desk, as it did for a movie, variety show, game show, sporting event, etc. News was a much more somber, serious business in those days (unlike the circus it has become) and I think they were far more concerned about the content than about how pretty it looked.

The WBAP footage on 11/22/63 got better with each subsequent switch -- I think the initial gloominess of the set might have had more to do with lights and cameras not getting a full warmup in the haste to get on the air. The same can be seen on NBC when they first switched to David Brinkley in Washington -- the video on that first feed was murky and low in contrast. I figured under ideal non-emergency conditions they would have waited a bit longer, but felt it was important to get some reporting/reaction from the Nation's Capital as soon as possible.

Regarding the gloominess of sets - it reminded me that local news shows in this era in Los Angeles barely bothered with sets. Slap some sort of textured backdrop behind the anchors...maybe some sort of map-thing, then stick the anchor and reporters at a cheap Formica counter, and away you go. I recall reading some reporter's memoir of working for The Big News on KNXT in this era...and his description of the plain and dirty set with litter and cigarette butts all over the floor that the janitor never bothered to sweep up.

The first flashy news program I can remember was KTLA's in the mid 60s - KTLA was the first station in LA to adopt chroma-key technology a year or two ahead of the others; so you'd watch George Putnam standing on the set reading the news in his booming voice with the filmed action moving behind him. He'd introduce the story, the action would start behind him, then they'd slide his image to the right, and off the screen. Very dramatic.

Then things got flashier with "high-tech" looking sets in the late 60s and early 70s.

Let us not forget a HUGE reason for not doing news in color -- it required using color film from the field, as well...Which took more money to process.

 

[bpatrick]

On the subject of performers not remembering something
they did, Dick Cavett used to say that he would go home
and watch the show he'd taped earlier that evening, and
not remember what certain guests said. The reason, he
said, was that he was concentrating on other things, like
breaking for commercials at precisely the right time.

 

[danderson6500]

NBC did the one minute updates, at least before "Sale of The Century" and "Santa Barbara," but if i saw any other shows have the updates, i don't remember.

 

[johnothy]

Why was it that KNXT didn't become KCBS until 1984? It just seems odd when the other stations had been KABC and KNBC for several years in LA and the New York station WCBS had those call letters since the 1940s.

 

[blackgold]

The news broke at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time about President Kennedy's shooting; by 11 a.m. Pacific Time, the L.A. TV stations were broadcasting the tragic news. There were contributions from the West Coast including a Requiem Mass in Los Angeles on CBS, and reaction from San Francisco on NBC.

 

[onairb2014]

Why was it that KNXT didn't become KCBS until 1984? It just seems odd when the other stations had been KABC and KNBC for several years in LA and the New York station WCBS had those call letters since the 1940s.

I don't know what specific rule changed in the '80s to allow the use of the same call letters on stations with the same owner in different markets, but Channel 2 in Los Angeles went along with its radio predecessor, KNX-AM. KCBS, then and now, resided with the network O & O radio station in San Francisco.