Retro: New York City Wed, May 15, 1963

[Bluenoser]

from TV Guide-New York Metro edition
Not listed: WNYC 31-New York, programs air 9am-11pm

WCBS 2-CBS New York
5:45 Previews
5:50 Give Us This Day
5:55 News
6:00 College of the Air "American Economy"
6:30 Summer Semester
7:00 News/Weather
8:00 Captain Kangaroo
9:00 Life of Riley
9:30 Our Miss Brooks
10:00 Calendar (guest is Christian Dior rep Marc Bohan)
10:30 I Love Lucy
11:00 (Real) McCoys
11:30 Pete & Gladys
noon Love of Life
12:25 CBS News
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
12:45 Guiding Light
1:00 Burns & Allen
1:30 As the World Turns
2:00 Password
2:30 House Party (guest George Cukor)
3:00 To Tell the Truth
3:25 CBS News
3:30 Millionaire
4:00 Secret Storm
4:30 Edge of Night
5:00 Love That Bob!
5:30 Early Show "The Affairs of Martha"
6:45 News (Robert Trout)
7:10 Weather (Carol Reed)
7:15 CBS News
7:30 CBS Reports "The Great Farm Vote of '63" (Harry Reasoner narrates this program on next Tuesday's vote by farmers on the Administration's program of stricter controls on wheat production)
8:30 Dobie Gillis "There's a Broken Light for Every Heart on Broadway"
9:00 Beverly Hillbillies
9:30 Dick Van Dyke "Oh, How We Met on the Night That We Danced"
10:00 US Steel Hour "Don't Shake the Family Tree"
11:00 News (Douglas Edwards, who also anchored the daytime network updates)
11:15 Weather (Carol Reed)
11:20 Late Show "Desire"
1:10 News
1:15 Late Late Show "Broadway Melody of 1938"
3:25 Movie "Three Strangers" (even back then, ch 2 did drive-by sign-offs; the movie ended at 5:15, with sign-on 30 min later)

WTIC 3-CBS Hartford
5:55 Town Crier
6:00 College of the Air "American Economy"
6:30 International Zone "Inside the House" (touring UN HQ)
7:00 Family Living "Resolving Family Conflicts"
7:30 RFD #3
7:55 Let's Talk About "A Jungle Caravan"
8:00 Captain Kangaroo
9:00 Hap Richards
9:15 Debbie Drake
9:30 Millionaire
10:00 Calendar
10:30 Movie "Devil's Henchman"
noon Love of Life
12:25 CBS News
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
12:45 Guiding Light
1:00 Movie "Lillian Russell" (pt 3)
1:30 As the World Turns
2:00 Password
2:30 House Party
3:00 Edge of Night
3:30 To Tell the Truth
3:55 CBS News
4:00 Ranger Andy
4:30 News
4:45 Movie "Beginning of the End"
6:25 Weather
6:30 News (Bruce Kern)
6:40 Sports (Bob Steele)
6:45 CBS News
7:00 Probe "The Blind Ones"
7:30 CBS Reports "The Great Farm Vote of '63"
8:30 Dobie Gillis "There's a Broken Light for Every Heart on Broadway"
9:00 Beverly Hillibillies
9:30 Dick Van Dyke "Oh, How We Met on the Night That We Danced"
10:00 US Steel House "Don't Shake the Family Tree"
11:00 News/Sports
11:10 Weather
11:15 Movie "The Captain's Paradise"
12:50 News/Weather

WNBC 4-NBC New York
6:00 Continental Classroom "Atomic Age Physics" (bw)/"American Government" (c)
7:00 Today (guests the Muppets)
9:00 Birthday House
9:30 Dr. Joyce Brothers "Things You Should Know About Sex"
9:55 News (Bob Wilson)
10:00 Say When
10:25 NBC News
10:30 Play Your Hunch (c)
11:00 Price is Right (c)
11:30 Concentration
noon Your First Impression (c)
12:30 Truth or Consequences
12:55 NBC News
1:00 Afternoon Drama "City in Flames"
1:55 News (Bob Wilson)
2:00 Ben Jerrod (c)
2:25 NBC News
2:30 Doctors
3:00 Loretta Young
3:30 You Don't Say! (c)
4:00 Match Game
4:25 NBC News
4:30 Make Room for Daddy
5:00 Movie "Raiders of Old California"
6:15 News (Pressman/Ryan)
6:40 Weather (Pat Hernon)
6:45 NBC News
7:00 Death Valley Days
7:30 Virginian "Woman from White Wing" (c)
9:00 Bob Hope (season finale with guests Patti Page, Arnold Palmer, and Fred McMurray)
10:00 Eleventh Hour "Pressure Breakdown"
11:00 News (John K.M. McCaffery)
11:10 Weather (Tex Antoine)
11:15 News (Merrill Mueller)
11:30 Tonight Show (c/guests Zsa Zsa Gabor, Allan Sherman, Howard Duff, and Ida Lupino)
1:00 News (Bill Rippe)
1:05 Headline "Hurricane"
1:35 13th Hour
2:05 Sermonette

WNEW 5-Ind New York
7:05 Call to Prayer
7:15 News
7:30 Columbia Seminar "The Economics of Order"
8:00 Sandy Becker
9:25 News (Sandy did that too)
9:30 Topper
10:00 Movie "Breaking the Ice"
11:25 News
11:30 Romper Room
12:30 Cartoons (Fred Scott, with Ed Ladd taking over at 1)
1:25 News
1:30 Movie (repeated from 10am)
2:55 News
3:00 Doorway to Destiny "Death is a Red Balloon"
3:30 Texan "24 Hours to Live"
4:00 Felix & the Wizard
5:30 Sandy's Hour
6:30 Mickey Mouse Club
7:00 Bourbon Street Beat "Interrupted Wedding"
8:00 Danger Man "Bury the Dead"
8:30 Call Mr. D "Body of the Crime"
9:00 Movie "Fighter Squadron"
11:00 News
11:10 Movie "The Foxes of Harrow"
12:50 News
1:00 Movie "Battles of Chief Pontiac"

WABC 7-ABC New York
7:25 News
7:30 Early Bird Cartoons
8:00 Tommy Seven
8:30 Little Rascals
9:00 Susie
9:30 Gale Storm "Happily Unmarried"
10:00 Answering Service (guests are Robert Reed and diabetes specialist Dr. Winifred Loughlin; news break at 10:25)
11:00 December Bride
11:30 Seven Keys
noon Tennessee Ernie Ford
12:30 Father Knows Best
1:00 General Hospital
1:30 Girl Talk (guests include Sigyn Lund and Betty Bruce)
2:00 Day in Court
2:25 ABC News
2:30 Jane Wyman
3:00 Queen for a Day
3:30 Who Do You Trust?
4:00 American Bandstand
4:30 Discovery '63
4:55 American Newsstand
5:00 I Married Joan "Money in the Shotgun"
5:30 Highway Patrol
8:00 News (Beutel/Burnes)
6:15 Weather (Suzannah Gillden)
6:20 Sports (Howard Cosell)
6:30 ABC News
6:45 Focus on the News
7:00 Rebel "Gold Seeker"
7:30 Wagon Train "Alias Bill Hawks"
8:30 Going My Way "The Father"
9:30 Our Man Higgins "Love is Dandy"
10:00 Naked City "One, Two, Three, Rita Rakahowski"
11:00 ABC News
11:10 Weather (Bob Young)
11:20 Movie "The Gypsy and the Gentleman"
12:25 Movie "Wagons West"

WNHC 8-ABC New Haven
6:40 News/Weather
6:45 Library Resources
7:15 People Speak
7:30 Mr. Goober
9:00 Jack LaLanne
9:30 Best of Groucho
10:00 Who Do You Trust?
10:30 Day in Court
11:00 Jane Wyman
11:30 Seven Keys
noon Tennessee Ernie Ford
12:30 Father Knows Best
1:00 General Hospital
1:30 Movie "The Secret Place"
3:00 Queen for a Day
3:30 Discovery '63
4:00 American Bandstand
4:30 Admiral Jack
5:00 Press Conference (ABC News VP James C. Hagerty holds a conference for high school and college newspaper editors; pre-empts the last half-hour of Admiral Jack)
5:30 Rocky & His Friends (Bullwinkle)
6:00 News (Salmona)
6:10 Weather (Ed Blessington)
6:15 ABC News
6:30 87th Precinct "Line of Duty"
7:30 Wagon Train "Alias Bill Hawks"
8:30 Going My Way "The Father"
9:30 Our Man Brooks "Love is Dandy"
10:00 Naked City "One, Two, Three, Rita Rakahowski"
11:00 ABC News
11:10 Weather (Carole Wilson)
11:15 News (Thompson)
11:25 Sports (Ed Blessington)
11:30 Movie "A Tale of Two Cities"
1:00 News

WOR 9-Ind New York
9:10 Farm News
9:15 News/Weather
9:25 Almanac Newsreel
9:30 Jack LaLanne
10:00 Movie "The Purple Plain"
11:30 Playhouse 30
noon Fireside Theater "Last Stop"
12:30 Memory Lane (Joe Franklin welcomes columnist Nick Kenny)
1:30 Star & Story
2:00 Of Men & Motives "The Powerful Consmuer"
2:30 Movie (repeat from 10am)
4:00 Buccaneers "Hand of the Hawk"
4:30 Chubby Jackson
5:00 Zoorama
5:30 Movie "The Seven Warriors"
7:00 Merrytoon Circus
7:30 Million Dollar Movie "Queen of Outer Space" (c)
9:00 Big Preview "Lucy Gallant" (c)
11:00 Million Dollar Movie (c/repeat from 7:30)
12:30 Almanac Newsreel
12:35 News/Weather

WPIX 11-Ind New York
8:30 Encounter
9:00 Operation Alphabet
9:30 Ed Allen
10:00 Movie "Circle of Danger"
11:30 Superman "The Magic Necklace"
noon Merry Mailman
12:30 Rocky & His Friends (Bullwinkle)
12:45 Merry Mailman
1:00 Ramar of the Jungle "Jungle Vengeance"
1:30 Sportsman's Club
1:40 Red Barber
1:55 Baseball: the Yankees host Minnesota (Mel Allen/Phil Rizzuto/Jerry Coleman/Red Barber; usual line-up: Bold Journey at 1:30, Divorce Court at 2, How to Marry a Millionaire at 3, Best of Groucho at 3:30, and Big Bozo Circus at 4)
4:45 Red Barber
5:00 Dick Tracy
5:25 Rocky & His Friends
5:30 Three Stooges/Popeye
6:30 Brave Stallion "White Wonder Horse"
7:00 News (Kevin Kennedy, with John Tillman at 7:10)
7:25 Weather (Gloria Okon)
7:30 Honeymooners "The Deciding Vote"
8:00 Bold Journey "Destination Malaya"
8:30 Silents Please
9:00 M Squad "The European Plan"
9:30 Wanted: Dead or Alive "Detour"
10:00 You Asked for It
10:30 Steve Allen (guests Joanie Sommers, Frank Gorshin, and Andre Tahon)
11:00 News (Kevin Kennedy)
11:10 Steve Allen
12:10 TBA

WNDT 13-Edu New York
8:55 Dateline: New Jersey
9:00 Profile: New Jersey
9:30 Parlons Francais I
9:45 Where Does It Come From? (Leah Brittman)
10:05 Issue & the Challenge "The United Nations: The Silent Successes" (Irwin Grossbard)
10:45 Parlons Francais I
11:00 Wonder of Words (Elise Goodman)
11:20 Issue & the Challenge (repeat from 10:05)
11:40 Tri-State Focus (Salvatore Lipari)
noon Russian for Beginners
12:30 Eastern Wisdom & Modern Life "Buddhism and Christianity" (Alan Watts)
1:00 Fun at One (Miss Eppie/Miss Mary Ellen)
1:30 Spotlight on Art (Grace George Alexander)
1:50 Issue & the Challenge (repeat from 10:05am)
2:10 Science Corner (Barbara Yanowski)
2:30 Where Does It Come From?
2:50 Music Interlude
3:30 Television for Teachers "Evolution: Current Ideas on Variation in Animals"
4:00 Television for Teachers (Ruth Myers)
4:30 American Economy
5:00 Once Upon a Day
6:00 What's New "International Magazine" (a look at youth in Eurovision countries)
6:30 Profile: New Jersey
7:00 Russian for Beginners
7:30 Drawing from Scratch (Arthur Stern)
8:00 Heifetz Master Class
8:30 Court of Reason
9:30 Face to Face (BBC reporter John Freeman interviews Otto Klemperer)
10:00 World at Thirteen
10:30 Harry Belafonte (from WGBH Boston, local drama critic Elliot Norton interviews the singer)
11:00 Reflections

 

[benale]

Thanks for posting these. I was 14 in 1963 and I can remember just about every single program on the air in New York. All through my childhood I remember buying TV Guide every week. 15 cents. Since they went to the full size national edition I haven't bothered.

I noticed Steve Allen on Channel 11. This is some six years after he left The Tonight Show. Bob Wilson who did five minute newscasts on Channel 4 was one of the first radio news men I ever heard working with Bill Cullen on "Pulse" on WRCA in the late fifties.

Great nostalgia.

 

[FredLeonard]

Douglas Edwards did the Late News on WCBS-TV, while he was still doing "Douglas Edwards with the News" on the network (after the suicide death of Don Hollenbeck). Also note Bob Trout on the early news.

At this point in time, CBS News still produce the local news broadcasts for WCBS-TV and other owned and operated stations. In a move depicted in the movie "Network," a year or so later, corporate management moved the local stations and the radio network to separate divisions. Each local station produced its own local news with no involvement from the CBS News division (except for using stories taken off the network feed). This was the start of the decline and fall of local news on CBS stations (and all others). ABC followed suit, although NBC News continued to produce local news for its owned stations.

Calendar was great news magazine show, which never got much traction. CBS O&Os and smaller market affiliates carried it but otherwise stations mostly stuck a re-run or a local cooking show in the time slot. Harry Reasoner and actress Mary Fickett hosted. A year or so later, CBS put the first iteration of the CBS Morning News (with Mike Wallace) in the time-slot, before later moving it to go against The Today Show (then hosted by Who and Baba).

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Faith 7/Mercury-Atlas 9 (Was: Re: Retro: New York City Wed, May 15, 1963)

Many of the listed programs on WCBS-2, WNBC-4, and WABC-7 on this date were pre-empted for live coverage of the launch and flight of Faith 7, (official mission designation: Mercury-Atlas 9), flown by Gordon Cooper and the final flight in the pioneering series of Mercury space missions.

If my memory serves me correct (I was a youngster then), the networks went on the air at 7 A.M. EDT with the launch taking place at 9:04 A.M. EDT (only about four minutes behind schedule; supposedly, the only reason the countdown was halted was because Cooper had fallen asleep in his capsule!). I saw the launch on TV in school, and I believe the networks stayed on the air until early afternoon, then had frequent progress reports and a few specials throughout the nearly 36-hour mission, along with two or three hours of live coverage the next day for the final orbit, splashdown, and recovery.

In the May 14th New York Times (the launch was originally scheduled for that date; it was postponed a day), there was an NBC ad noting that the "Today Show" would be expanded to eight hours from 1 to 9 A.M. EDT.

While the ad suggested that much of the content of this marathon "Today Show" would be related to the Faith 7 mission, I suspect the reason NBC did this was so that the network and it's affiliates would on the air in case of trouble that would have had to end the mission early.

(BTW, there was serious trouble near the end of the mission: A power inverter failed, but it was so close to the end of the flight that Cooper was allowed to complete his 22-orbit, 34-hour flight as scheduled)

 

[FredLeonard]

I'm not sure which mission it was, but NBC was doing combined Today Show and launch coverage. They were working out of Studio 8-H (now home to SNL, but back then used for elections and other major event coverage with a large set). The Today Show set was at one end of the studio and the launch coverage, with Frank McGee anchoring, was at the other end. One control room handled both. Who and Baba were hosting the Today Show and at one point Who says something like "let's go to Frank for a news update", meaning Frank Blair. Instead, the control room punched up a camera on the launch set and showed Frank McGee, profile to the camera, picking his nose. After several seconds, apparently Frank McGee realized he was on and gently lowered his hand and said, "I think he meant Frank Blair."

 

[bpatrick]

Douglas Edwards did the Late News on WCBS-TV, while he was still doing "Douglas Edwards with the News" on the network (after the suicide death of Don Hollenbeck). Also note Bob Trout on the early news.

At this point in time, CBS News still produce the local news broadcasts for WCBS-TV and other owned and operated stations. In a move depicted in the movie "Network," a year or so later, corporate management moved the local stations and the radio network to separate divisions. Each local station produced its own local news with no involvement from the CBS News division (except for using stories taken off the network feed). This was the start of the decline and fall of local news on CBS stations (and all others). ABC followed suit, although NBC News continued to produce local news for its owned stations.

Calendar was great news magazine show, which never got much traction. CBS O&Os and smaller market affiliates carried it but otherwise stations mostly stuck a re-run or a local cooking show in the time slot. Harry Reasoner and actress Mary Fickett hosted. A year or so later, CBS put the first iteration of the CBS Morning News (with Mike Wallace) in the time-slot, before later moving it to go against The Today Show (then hosted by Who and Baba).

In North Carolina "Calendar" aired on WFMY Greensboro, WBTV Charlotte, and WNCT Greenville/New Bern/Washington, but Raleigh/Durham's WTVD, which had a primary CBS and secondary NBC affiliation (and carried Cronkite, BTW), opted for NBC's game shows in the morning (the exception: they carried "I Love Lucy" instead of "Play Your Hunch" at 10:30; WRAL, the ABC affiliate, with no ABC feed at that time, picked up "Hunch"). It would also be about another year before WTVD would start carrying "Search For Tomorrow" and "Guiding Light" in the 12:30-1 slot; they had "Truth Or Consequences" at 12:30 against, first, "Camouflage," then "Father Knows Best" on WRAL.

Yet TVD went straight down the line with CBS from 1:30 on: "As The World Turns," "Password," "Art Linkletter's House Party," "To Tell The Truth," CBS's 3:25 newscast, "The Millionaire," "Secret Storm," and "Edge Of Night." (They also carried "Love Of Life" and CBS's 12:25 newscast.)

WRAL picked up a few NBC shows in the afternoons at the time: "The Doctors," Loretta Young, and "You Don't Say!" ("Who Do You Trust?" finally got the 3:30 slot that fall; I remember watching it after school and my mom's complete disdain for Woody Woodbury and his off-color remarks, which went over my head.)