Retro: New York, Friday, July 26, 1940

[Bob1370]

source; New York Times

W2XBS (NBC-owned), Channel 1 (44-50 mHz)

3:30 PM-Sign-on; film, "Typhoon Treasure" (1938, Australia, action-adventure); Campbell Copelin, Gwen
Monroe (90 min.)
6:45-News (15 min.), Lowell Thomas, anchor and commentator (simulcast of radio network newscast)
9:00-Variety; Yola Galli, songs; Gus Van, novelty music; Dance Congress Stars; John Taylor Arms demonstrates how to make an etching
10:00-Sign-off

This was typical of daily programs on W2XAB, which began each day in mid-afternoon with a movie (invariably a British, Australian or grade-B American theatrical release), a 90 minute pause with no programming, then a newscast, another lengthy pause, and for the concluding program of the day, a 9 PM variety show with different host and guests each evening.

No other stations shown operating on this day.

W2XAB was officially an experimental station, but was the direct predecessor of WNBT (which began licensed commercial operation July 1, 1941 and still operates today as WNBC, channel 4).

There are no television program listings for New York between July 31 of 1940 and February 12 of 1941. During that time the FCC was re-drawing the allocation of the VHF band, finalizing the "standard definition" video signal standards and moving 'Channel 1' to 50-56 mHz. CBS may have been testing its New York transmitter on 60-66 mHz (then designated 'Channel 2'), but according to the Times listings, seems to have offered no programming to the public until it began operating as commercially licensed station WCBW (later renamed WCBS-TV) on the afternoon of July 1, 1941.

 

[wbhist]

I seem to recall that W2XBS was the direct predecessor of WNBT/WRCA-TV/WNBC-TV, while W2XAB was the ancestor of WCBW/WCBS-TV.

 

[oldschooler1]

That is true. W2XBS became WNBT eventually. It may've been a typo on Bob's part. It's easy to remember that W2XBS was NBC's station, because the experimental calls were similar to "CBS", so I use that as a mnemonic to remember that the NBC station had calls that belonged better to "the competition". Goofy, but it works for me.

And this is about the time that the FCC allowed limited advertising, as an experiment -- because Lowell Thomas did the TV newscast w/ a pile of (I think) Sunoco oil cans behind him. So that ol' milestone of July 1, 1941 needs to be deflated a bit -- there were commercials on TV before that date, but just as an experiment.

 

[Bob1370]

Oldschooler1 is correct, the second citiing of the callsign in my original post was a typo. W2XBS was not only the direct ancestor of WNBC, but it was the only NYC station I've been able to find in NY Times listings (which were among the most thorough local broadcast listings in the country) until 7/1/41. That's the day WNBT and WCBW (which was indeed nominally W2XAB before that date but never announced published program schedules--maybe because it had nothing but tests going on) checked in commercially for the first time. It's also the same day Allen DuMont's station (then W2XWV and later WABD, WNEW-TV and now Fox5/WNYW) started showing up with tests and untitled films in the listing--though I can find no actual program titles listed until 1944, when they got their full commercial license and became WABD.

The gist of it all was to show how impromptu and small-scale TV was from before World War II until the late 1940s.

No wonder it was small scale. It would be the middle of 1946 before the total installed receiver base in the COUNTRY topped 100,000. More than half were served by three stations in the greater NYC area. The rest were spread out among the Capital District, Philly, and Chicago, each of which had one fully licensed commercial station on the air, and LA, which had a couple of experimental stations which would go commercial the following year. A couple of years later at the end of 1948 there were a lot more stations serving more cities and finally over a million TV homes nationally, including a half million in the NYC area and substantial numbers in places including Philly, Albany, Boston, DC, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinatti, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, St. Louis and more. That's when you start to see stars like Sullivan, Berle and Godfrey emerge on the tube, and stations and networks really filling their evening schedules and starting to put on some midday and early afternoon programming (aimed at stay-at-home moms and kids) as well.

1949 and 1950 were the years when it really exploded and became a mass medium, and stations started putting out 15 to 19 hours of programming a day and looking more like the news and entertainment platform we all know...but that's another story...