Retro; New York City, Monday, August 25, 1947

[Bob1370]

Source, NY Times

Stations;

2-WCBS-TV (CBS)
4-WNBT (NBC, now WNBC)
5-WABD (DuMont, now WNYW-Fox)

MORNING

No morning programs on any station; no programs scheduled at all this day on Channel 2

AFTERNOON

2:25
4-Sign-on; Baseball, NY Giants vs. Chicago Cubs from Polo Grounds (sign-off for afternoon following game's end)
3:00
5-Sign-on; news, music

EVENING
6:15
5-News and comment with Walter Compton
7:00
5-Small Fry Club with Bob Emery (children)
7:30
5-Jean Chadwick, news
7:45
5-Film shorts
8:00
4-Sign-on, news
8:10
4-Film; "Breaking The Ice" (Drama, 1938); Bobby Breen, Charles Ruggles
8:30
5-Know Your New York (documentary)
8:45
5-Boxing from Jamaica Arena (Sign-off at conclusion of evening's card)
9:30
4-Trotting from Roosevelt Raceway
10:30
4-Newsreel (Sign-off at conclusion of newscast)

In the summer of 1947 stations did little or no morning telecasting and limited afternoon programming, although this would change during 1948.

Most stations took a day off during a typical broadcast week, as WCBS-TV did on this day.

New York had only three operating stations between 1941 and the spring of 1948. Four aditional stations were under construction at this time. WATV (Channel 13, Newark, later WNET, PBS in New York) signed on early in the spring of 1948. WPIX (Channel 11) was next in the late spring, followed by WJZ-TV Channel 7 (ABC, later WABC-TV) in August of 1948. WOR-TV (Channel 9) was the last of the original group of NYC stations to sign on, in the fall of 1949.

 

[wbhist]

Channel 2 had only been known as WCBS-TV since November of 1946 - the same time that their 880 AM radio outlet (formerly WABC) adopted the same calls.

As for WNBT's test pattern from this very year, which has been circulated around the Web - I don't know whether that particular variation (with the specifications of what each of the wedge calibration dots signified [and their "horizontal resolution" and "freq. in megacycles" designations]) was actually used on air; there was another variation with the exact same typesetting of "NBC" and "WNBT New York," only the grey background was darker (closer to the 25% grey in the five-step "bullseye" at center), and a white "4" filled the black dot in center, as seen in the RCA Pict-O-Guide - Vol. II by John R. Meagher (published 1949).