Retro: Milwaukee, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 1957

[DM601]

(source: The Sheboygan, Wis., Press)

WTMJ-TV 4 (NBC)
AM
6:45 Farm Report
7 Today
9 Arlene Francis
9:30 What’s New In The Kitchen
10 Price Is Right
10:30 Truth Or Consequences
11 Tic Tac Dough
11:30 It Could Be You
PM
12 Weather (C)
12:05 Hot Shots (C)
12:30 Man Next Door (C)
12:45 News (C)
1 Woman’s World
1:30 Bride And Groom
2 Matinee Theater (C)
3 Queen For A Day (45 minutes?)
3:45 Modern Romances
4 Comedy Time
4:30 Afternoon Theater
6 News (C) – no mention of Huntley-Brinkley on schedule
6:30 Big Issue
7 Festival of Stars (reruns of Loretta Young show without Loretta, per Brooks-Marsh)
7:30 Panic
8 Meet McGraw
8:30 Summer Playhouse
9 Nat King Cole
9:30 State Trooper (syndicated)
10 News (C)
10:15 Patti Page
10:30 Big Moment (delayed from 8:30 CT Friday)
11 Tonight

WITI 6
PM
3 Playtime Parade (C)
3:30 Romper Room
4 TBA
4:30 Life With Elizabeth
5 Liberace
5:30 Around Town
5:45 News (C)
6 Range Rider
6:30 Combat Sergeant
7 Molly
7:30 Janet Dean
8 Errol Flynn
8:30 Racket Squad
9 City Detective
9:30 Inner Sanctum
10 $6 Million Movie

WISN-TV 12 (ABC)
PM
1:45 Devotions
1:55 News
2 Susie
2:30 My Little Margie
3 Matinee
3:30 Chuck Wagon
4 Gretchen --- (last name illegible, looks like Colmk???)
4:15 Uncle Hugo
5 Mickey Mouse Club
6 News
6:15 ABC News-John Daly
6:30 Cheyenne
7:30 Wyatt Earp
8 Broken Arrow
8:30 Telephone Time
9 Men Of Annapolis
9:30 Kingdom of Sea
10 News
10:15 Documentary 12
10:30 Headline (syndicated title for ‘Big Town’ reruns)
11 Sherlock Holmes

WXIX 19 (CBS)
AM
6:45 Give Us This Day
7 Jimmy Dean
7:45 CBS News
8 Captain Kangaroo
8:45 Milwaukee Newsreel
9 Garry Moore
9:30 Arthur Godfrey
10:30 Strike It Rich
11 Hotel Cosmopolitan
11:15 Love Of Life
11:30 Search For Tomorrow
11:45 Guiding Light
PM
12 News
12:10 Stand Up And Be Counted
12:30 As The World Turns
1 Our Miss Brooks
1:30 House Party
2 Big Payoff
2:30 Verdict Is Yours
3 Brighter Day
3:15 Secret Storm
3:30 Edge Of Night
4 Panorama Milwaukee
4:30 (illegible but looks like Electrical Living)
4:35 Early Show
6 News
6:15 CBS News-Doug Edwards
6:30 Name That Tune
7 Phil Silvers
7:30 Private Secretary
8 To Tell The Truth
8:30 Spotlight Theater
9 $64,000 Question
9:30 TBA
10 Whistler
10:30 News
10:50 Late Show

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

DM601 takles us back to September, 1957 in The City That Made Beer Famous:

> WTMJ-TV 4 (NBC)

> PM
> 12 Weather (C)
> 12:05 Hot Shots (C)
> 12:30 Man Next Door (C)
> 12:45 News (C)

WTMJ was one of the first local TV stations to get live color cameras. Chances are, this block of color programming was deliberately scheduled for the noon hour to get people to come into their local appliance store during lunch to see television in full color!

> 3 Queen For A Day (45 minutes?)

Yes, indeed! "Queen" finally went on network TV in early 1956, and became an immediate hit, so much so that NBC had the program expanded to 45 minutes. I believe it went back to a half-hour when it moved to ABC in 1960.

> 6 News (C) – no mention of Huntley-Brinkley on schedule

I suspect that there was a fifteen-minute local newscast in color at 6, then "Huntley/Brinkley"---which would remain in black-and-white until the Fall of 1965---at 6:15. BTW, it was that very month (Septemebr, 1957), maybe even that very week, that NBC moved it's evening newscast out of it's longtime 6:45-7 P.M. CT (7:45-8 P.M. ET) slot and into an earlier hour (CBS had done something similar with the "Evening News", then anchored by Douglas Edwards, two years earlier). Although the network probably told affiliates and the public that they were making the switch to allow local NBC stations to run "H/B" immediately before or after the early-evening local news, the real reason was to compete against ABC and CBS during the 6:30-7 P.M. CT (7:30-8 ET) half-hour with entertainment programming.

> 10 News (C)

Given that the studio segments of WTMJ-4's local news were in color this far back, I wonder if the station shot any news film back then, and if so, whether it was in color. I had always thought that it wasn't until the mid 1960's that a lot of local TV stations began shooting local newsfilm in color.

> 11 Tonight

Jack Paar had taken over two months earlier; WTMJ only showed the final hour of what was then an hour-and-45-minute show. I suspect that before too long, WTMJ began airing the entire "Tonight" show, given how popular it was becoming.

> WITI 6
> PM
> 5:45 News (C)

I didn't think WITI had local news in color that soon. Maybe they had just one TK-40/41 color camera that could get a shot of an announcer reading news.

> 6:30 Combat Sergeant
> 7 Molly
> 7:30 Janet Dean
> 8 Errol Flynn
> 8:30 Racket Squad
> 9 City Detective
> 9:30 Inner Sanctum

I knew that Milwaukee had a couple of UHF's go on the air prior to WITI's debut. I had always thought that CBS sold-off their Milwaukee "U" around the time WITI signed-on and that WITI began life as a CBS affiliate.

> WISN-TV 12 (ABC)
> PM
> 6:15 ABC News-John Daly

Although best known for hosting "What's My Line?", Daly was not only anchor of ABC's evening newscast for most of the 1950's, but for much of the decade, he also was President of ABC News as well.

> WXIX 19 (CBS)
> PM
> 12 News

Does anyone know if this was local or network??

> 9 $64,000 Question

Remember, this week's contestants were given the questions they would be asked on tonight's show and the answers to those questions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's quite interesting that Milwaukee had a VHF independent and a CBS O&O on the UHF dial. I'd like to know how competitive that VHF indie was. I would guess that WITI probably drew more viewers in any given time period than WXIX.

I'm also curious as to the penetration of UHF in Milwaukee, given that what was the number-one network nationally had an O&O on UHF.

I would guess, however, that most people in Milwaukee and points to the south (especially with outdoor TV antennas) would tune-in WBBM-2 in Chicago to watch CBS programs. Even on sets that had UHF, people probably got a better picture on WBBM (despite it being some 70-80 miles away) than on WXIX!

Ironically, CBS today is back on UHF in the Beer City.

 

[Nitelinger]

> WISN-TV 12 (ABC)
> PM

> 4 Gretchen --- (last name illegible, looks like Colmk???)

The correct spelling is Gretchen Colnik. She was the Martha Stewert of her time!

 

[techboywi]

> It's quite interesting that Milwaukee had a VHF independent
> and a CBS O&O on the UHF dial. I'd like to know how
> competitive that VHF indie was. I would guess that WITI
> probably drew more viewers in any given time period than
> WXIX.
>


I believe ch. 6 got CBS a few years later, they also spent a brief time as an ABC affiliate when ch 6 and ch 12 swapped, I believe ch. 6 went back to CBS in apprx 1977, till 1994 when the whole big change happend that made FOX what it is today. There is a very interesting site all about Milwaukee's tv history at <a target="_blank" href=http://www.milwaukee-horror-hosts.com/MilwTV.html>http://www.milwaukee-horror-hosts.com/MilwTV.html</a>. A very interesting read if you got a few mins to kill!

 

[Nitelinger]

>
> I didn't think WITI had local news in color that soon. Maybe
> they had just one TK-40/41 color camera that could get a
> shot of an announcer reading news.

When they went on the air on 21 May 1956, they had installed in their original studios the first Du Mont Vitascan color system. I don't know how long they used it, but it may have been into 1957 - and perhaps as far as 1959 when the affiliated with CBS. (I'm trying to find out from some of the folks who worked there back then.)


> I knew that Milwaukee had a couple of UHF's go on the air
> prior to WITI's debut. I had always thought that CBS
> sold-off their Milwaukee "U" around the time WITI signed-on
> and that WITI began life as a CBS affiliate.

No, it was an independent. The call letters stand for Independent Television, Inc., the original owners. Storer Broadcasting bought the station on 22 December 1958 (after FCC approval) specifically to affiliate with CBS. (Interesting that, as supposedly WISN radio had at one time a clause in its contract giving it right of first refusal for the CBS affiliation should it ever operate a TV station in MKE. Hearst wound up buying WTVW after it had been on the air for only a few months, but CBS had purchased WOKY-TV and the WCAN-TV facilities before that.)

Storer affiliated WITI with CBS on 1 April 1959.


> It's quite interesting that Milwaukee had a VHF independent
> and a CBS O&O on the UHF dial. I'd like to know how
> competitive that VHF indie was. I would guess that WITI
> probably drew more viewers in any given time period than
> WXIX.

> I'm also curious as to the penetration of UHF in Milwaukee,
> given that what was the number-one network nationally had an
> O&O on UHF.


The reason was that CBS could buy a UHF station much more quickly. They bought WOKY-TV at the same time that WTVW (ch. 12) went on the air. WTVW took over the ABC/Du Mont affiliations from WOKY-TV. Hearst didn't purchase the station until a few months later. What triggered the purchase wa the FCC's change in its multiple-ownership rules, which allowed an entity to then own five (5) VHF and two (2) UHF stations.

Channel 6 was an addition to Milwaukee's channel assignments (proposed by Hearst, who applied for the channel) which was bitterly opposed by WCAN-TV and the Ultra High Frequency television Association. There were three applicants, Hearst, Cream City Broadcasting, Inc. (WMIL radio, which had been granted a CP for channel 31, but turned it in and applied for channel 6 instead), and later Independent. Hearings before the FCC were still going on at the time CBS purchased WOKY-TV.

Somewhere around here I have an estimate of the UHF conversion percentage estimated by WCAN-TV (something like 150,000 sets after its first five weeks on the air). They did extensive promotion and fought the addition of another VHF to the city tooth-and-nail.

By the time CBS sold WXIX, it estimated that only 20% of households could receive UHF, but I'm not sure how good that estimate was, as WCAN-TV's owner (He held the CP until late 1966, almost a dozen years after the station went dark in February of 1955.) sued CBS.

It is interesting that in 1959 things shook out to where the networks were all on VHF, as was the only educational station, and the sole independent was the only UHF. There were several CP's issed for UHF's between the mid-50's and 1973, but only one went on the air - an educational in early 1963. The foloks who rceived the CP for channel 24 in 1973, didn't go on the air (as WCGV-TV) until 1980.

For a few years, Milwaukee was the primary battleground in VHF vs. UHF.

Details can be found on the Milwaukee TV history side page of my website:

http://www.milwaukee-horror-hosts.com/MilwTV.html

 

[Nitelinger]

> There is a very interesting site all about
> Milwaukee's tv history at
> http://www.milwaukee-horror-hosts.com/MilwTV.html. A very
> interesting read if you got a few mins to kill!


Thanks for your kind words about my site!

 

[Nitelinger]

> Given that the studio segments of WTMJ-4's local news were
> in color this far back, I wonder if the station shot any
> news film back then, and if so, whether it was in color. I
> had always thought that it wasn't until the mid 1960's that
> a lot of local TV stations began shooting local newsfilm in
> color.


I'll have to check the late Arthur Olszyk's book to see if they shot color film. They did shoot newsfilm, and had since the 40's. They did not process their own film. One of their original (and award winning) news photographers was the late Charlie Sciurba, who opened Central Film Labs in downtown Milwaukee, and processed WTMJ-TV's film - as well as that of others. By the way, the first 16mm dupe of Thomas Edison's version of "Frankenstein" (1910) was made in 1975 at Central Film Labs. It was shot frame-by-frame from the 35mm nitrate print, which had shrunk in places, necessitating an adjustable sprocket.