Retro; New York Ciry, July 25, 1941

[Bob1370]

Here's what was on TV 70 years ago, in the first weeks of commercial TV in America. Source; NY Times

Stations;
Ch.
1-WNBT (NBC; now WNBC ch.4)
2-WCBW (CBS, now WCBS-TV
4-W2XWV (DuMont; now WNYW-Fox, ch. 5)

No Morning Programming On Any Station

Aftenoon

12:00
4-Selected films and tests (to 8 PM Signoff)
1:30
1-Sign-on, test pattern to 2:30
2:00
2-Sign-on, test pattern
2:30
1-Wings Over America air show from LaGuardia Field (to 3:30)
2-News
2:45
2-Test pattern
3:15
2-Children's stories
3:30
1, 2-Sign-off

EVENING

7:30
2-Sign-on, test pattern
8:00
1-Sign-on, test Pattern
4-Sign-off
2-News
8:15
2-Test pattern
9:00
1-Ed, Jack and Betty, Roller Skaters
2-Sports with Bob Edge (to 10 PM)
9:10
1-Civil Defense Program
9:30
1-Songs with Harvey Harding
9:45
1-Stories with Ireene Wicker
10:00
2-Sign-off
10:15
1-News Analysis with Sam Cuff

Programming was sparse in the opening weeks of commercial TV in New York, the only multi-station city at the dawn of television. It was the same in the few other markets with an operating TV station with any kind of regular schedule; only Albany/Schenectady (WRGB) and Philadelphia (WPTZ) were running regularly scheduled programming that amounted to more than sporadic tests.

The names of program participants are also largely unfamiliar and don't show up in the program listings of the postwar TV boom, with the exception of Ireene Wicker, who was a children's radio star in the '30s, and became a children's television pioneer, blazing a trail later followed by stars from Buffalo Bob and Bob Emery to Captain Kangaroo, Shari Lewis and Fred Rogers. Wicker hosted the children's TV story show you see listed on WNBT in 1941, and appeared frequently on postwar commercial network TV in the late 1940s and early 1950s before being wrongly blacklisted in the McCarthy scare of the early '50s. She made a TV comeback on ABC in 1953 after she was found to have been among many performers erroneously accused, and the McCarthy madness blew over...she continued to appear on ABC and later on public TV and radio, won a Peabody award in 1961, and retired in 1975, 12 years before her passing at the age of 86.
She was one of a handful of prewar TV performers who became prominent in postwar TV, along with actor Norman Lloyd (co-star in NBC's pioneering drama shows in 1939-41, later co-starring in NBC's "St. Elsewhere" in the 1980s and still appearing occasionally today at the age of 97).

 

[mbayus]

So how many people had tvs in 1941? And who was watching?

 

[visaman]

So how many people had tvs in 1941? And who was watching?

According to some sources, there were around 1000 televisions in use in the United States. How many viewers is unknown. The average price would have been $4,500 in 2011 dollars!

 

[radioman148]

So how many people had tvs in 1941? And who was watching?

According to some sources, there were around 1000 televisions in use in the United States. How many viewers is unknown. The average price would have been $4,500 in 2011 dollars!

Wow--more for a TV then a car in 1941.

 

[mbayus]

That's more than I thought. As to why a TV set would cost so much more than a car, Think about it, a car is something we needed, a TV would have been something we wanted. And, I don't think a lot of us new about TV back then, and most of us watch the radio.

 

[Tim L]

Another thing..There werent many companies producing TVs..RCA, DuMont..Possibly Philco..There were'nt many TV's to buy to begin with..Then you had WWII..After the war, probably by late 1947-early 48 TVs were more mass produced, and eventually prices went down..

 

[KeithE4]

So how many people had tvs in 1941? And who was watching?

According to some sources, there were around 1000 televisions in use in the United States. How many viewers is unknown. The average price would have been $4,500 in 2011 dollars!

My guess is that most, if not all of those 1000 TVs were owned by engineers and executives of the companies that owned the stations, and bars.

 

[bpatrick]

Another thing..There werent many companies producing TVs..RCA, DuMont..Possibly Philco..There were'nt many TV's to buy to begin with..Then you had WWII..After the war, probably by late 1947-early 48 TVs were more mass produced, and eventually prices went down..

I think there were possibly two things that sparked an increase in set sales. One was the 1947 World Series, which was carried in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Most people watched in bars or in front of appliance store windows. The other was Milton Berle, whose Tuesday-night show starting in 1948 brought throngs out to stand in front of those appliance store windows or go to other public places where a set was available, or visit neighbors' homes; there is the legendary-but-true story of the laundromat owner in Brighton Beach who put in a set and a sign, "Watch Berle while your clothes whirl." In both cases, people who didn't already own a set decided they had to have one; also, a number of cities began receiving television in '47 and '48 and it was a big deal; the Atlanta Journal even counted down the days until WSB's sign-on on Sept. 29, 1948.

But as for 1941, there's obviously not much memorable there--certainly not the big radio stars who wouldn't make the move to television until the early '50s--and there'd be less after Pearl Harbor: some sports (boxing and wrestling, mainly), news (a lot of newsreel footage), and lots of civil-defense shorts for the duration.

 

[mbayus]

My folks went next door to the Subolishs to watch.

 

[trusty]

So how many people had tvs in 1941? And who was watching?

According to some sources, there were around 1000 televisions in use in the United States. How many viewers is unknown. The average price would have been $4,500 in 2011 dollars!

Wow--more for a TV then a car in 1941.

That's 2011 dollars. The average sticker price of a car in 1941 was approx. $600-$1,000. Do the math for a TV. (The really hefty price increase were for 1954 color sets.)

Also, people were waiting it out; the war caused some of the delay, but the year 1941 was the year the 441-line standard was replaced by 525 lines @ 30 fps by the NTSC.

 

[oldschooler1]

Some other moves that led to 1948 being the "breakout year" for TV:

-The musicians union settled with the networks for broadcasting live performances in 1948
-The FCC stopped dragging its feet on a move by CBS to put all TV on UHF (a stall tactic, to catch up with RCA)
-Postwar supplies and factories truly gearing up from the wartime manufacturing mode, to a consumer economy

 

[Tim L]

Another thing..There werent many companies producing TVs..RCA, DuMont..Possibly Philco..There were'nt many TV's to buy to begin with..Then you had WWII..After the war, probably by late 1947-early 48 TVs were more mass produced, and eventually prices went down..

a number of cities began receiving television in '47 and '48 and it was a big deal; the Atlanta Journal even counted down the days until WSB's sign-on on Sept. 29, 1948.

I know that for WEWS sign on in December 1947, there was a huge section in the Cleveland Press dedicated to Channel 5 (They were co-owned)..The other papers wrote it up big as well.

 

[Bob1370]

One of those "what-ifs" that people often wonder about is, "what would have happened to TV development in the US if it hadn't been interrupted by World War II?"

This New York City listing from mid-1941 certainly showed programming in its infancy, with few stations, and fewer hours of operation with sparse (and often very cheaply produced) program offerings. I saw an estimate of a 1000-set installed base nationwide and I think that's too low. Wartime trade papers estimated that over a thousand sets were offline and awaiting repairs during the war in New York alone because parts were short and so many repair technicians were in uniform, while many more remained in use watching the few hours of programming still telecast each week by the three licensed stations there. There were also single stations still on the air with a regular weekly schedule in Albany (WRGB), Philly (WPTZ), LA (KTSL) and Chicago (WBKB). So that means there must have been several thousand sets in New York and hundreds still in use in each of the other cities with TV between 1941 and 1946.

Would more sets have been made and sold in a continued peacetime market if such a thing had existed in 1942 and beyond? Probably...and the prices would have come down too. An installed base of thousands of additional receivers, growing into the millions by 1946, would have generated more ad revenue, and freed up more money for program development and production, a lot sooner as well. It also would have frozen a lot of the technical standards sooner as well, including perhaps the channel lineup. There were a total of 18 VHF channels avaiolable for assignment in 1941-45, which was reduced after the war in the re-aliognment of the VHF band. But some of those channels might have remained on the dial, meaning no freeze in 1948 to sort out the mess that was emerging from a constricted TV band

Overall, imagine a TV service that had grown by 1946 to reach millions of homes. It would have been as big a part of American life in 1946 as it ultimately became in 1950 and beyond.