Retro: San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1953

[DM601]

From the Hayward Review, a somewhat barebones schedule:

KRON-TV 4 (NBC)
AM
9 Matinee
10 Ding Dong School
10:30 Glamour Girl
11 Hawkins Falls
11:15 The Bennetts
11:30 Three Steps To Heaven
11:45 Follow Your Heart
PM
12 Kitchen
12:30 Playhouse
1 Kitchen
1:30 Playhouse
2 Leisure Designs
2;30 Marge Trumbull
3 Kate Smith
4 Welcome Travelers
4:30 On Your Account
5 Atom Squad
5:15 Gabby Hayes
5:30 Howdy Doody
6 Peanut Circus
6:15 Adventure Time
6:30 Crusader Rabbit
6:45 News
7 Science in Action
7:30 Dinah Shore
7:45 Camel News Caravan
8 Bob Hope
9 Fireside Theatre
9:30 Circle Theatre
10 Judge for Yourself
10:30 Mystery
11 Owl Theatre (guessing this is actually "Night Owl Theatre")

KPIX-TV 5 (CBS, Dumont)
AM
9:30 Kitchen
10:30 Sandy Spillman
11 Double or Nothing
11:30 Art Linkletter
PM
12 Big Payoff
12:30 Del Courtney-Movie
2 Strike It Rich
2:30 Arthur Godfrey
3:30 Garry Moore
4 Bride & Groom
4:15 Guiding Light
4:30 Love of Life
4:45 Search for Tomorrow
5 Captain Video
5:15 Deputy Dave
5;30 Captain Fortune
6 Shooting the Breeze
6:15 KMA 438
6:30 News
6:45 Your Music
7 Range Rider
7;30 See It Now
8 Hidden Talent
8:30 Red Skelton
9 Wrestling
10 Danger
10:30 William Winter
10:45 Public Prosecutor
11 The Web
11:30 Late Show

KGO-TV 7 (ABC)
AM
9:45 Jack LaLanne
10 Cookbook
10:30 Judy Denne
PM
12:15 Mr. Blaze
1:15 Movie
2:30 Chef Cardini (originator of the Caesar salad)
3:15 Shopping
3:30 Western
4:30 Les Malloy
6 Movie
6:15 Treasure Time
6:30 Wild Bill Hickok
7 Cavalcade
7:30 Name's the Same
8 Success Story
8:30 Boston Blackie
9 Danny Thomas
9:30 Movie
10:30 Chevron Theater
11 Bob Fouts Eagle Theater (These were run together in the original listing. Possibly a Bob Fouts sportscast followed by a movie?)

 

[onairb]

I'm assuming KRON had 'Today' prior to 9 AM, and KPIX likely had some network programming then as well(but not Captain Kangaroo, who was a year away, and was only on Saturdays at the beginning) but it's possible that KGO didn't even sign on until then.
As a Bay Area native, seeing listings that predate KQED 9 (1954) and KTVU 2 (1958) is a bit surreal!

 

[Gregg]

Makes you wonder why Channel 2 took so long to go on the air. Wouldn't the channels be filled starting with the lowest? San Francisco and Denver may be the only large markets I can think of where Channel 2 was an independent for so long. In other cities, the Independent stations usually were higher on the dial, or on UHF. I suppose they signed on later, after the earlier stations got to be major network affiliates.

I notice KPIX doesn't carry the CBS Evening News. And I also see KRON carries their own news at 6:45 but waits till 7:45 for the NBC John Cameron Swayze news. KGO runs no news, not their own, not ABC News with John Daly, who also hosted What's My Line for many years. Even in 1953, you'd think a major market station like KGO-TV would run some news, at least a guy reading wire copy for 15 minutes, to keep the FCC happy. Was KGO-AM-TV owned by ABC in 1953? Does this pre-date the ABC TV News Department?

Any idea what "KMA 438" is on Channel 5 at 6:15? That's an odd name for a TV show, unless the newspaper got it wrong.
And I guess they used the name "Kitchen" for any cooking show. Kitchen is listed twice on the KRON schedule, once on KPIX. I also see Red Skelton is only 30 minutes on KPIX. I guess it would be later that he'd get an hour long variety show.

 

[LKellerIII]

A little Googling provides the answer to the meaing of "KMA 438." This from the SFPD's Pofice Officer's Association website (an edited excerpt):

"In the 1940s, the FCC assigned designators for law enforcement to use to distinguish themselves from all the other agencies. Every police department had to apply for a license/designator and was assigned one by the FCC. Back then radio communications were on an AM band and were receiving only, no two-way radio (except, of course, for Dick Tracy). The FCC required an all-broadcast every half hour for all agencies with an FCC license, with the addition of Morse Code broadcast to follow. This allowed the FCC to know who was using their license. If there was no use after a certain time period of time, the call-sign (band width) would be given to another entity. Hence we had “This is the San Francisco Police Department, KMA 438.”

I remember you'd hear TV cops like Sgt. Joe Friday say "KMA" when he was on the 2 way radio. So perhaps this program was some kind of local informationshow about law enforcement, or police activities - kind of like the old "Police Blotter" columns in newspapers that would summarize the crimes and arrests of the previous day or week.

 

[onairb]

Makes you wonder why Channel 2 took so long to go on the air. Wouldn't the channels be filled starting with the lowest? San Francisco and Denver may be the only large markets I can think of where Channel 2 was an independent for so long. In other cities, the Independent stations usually were higher on the dial, or on UHF. I suppose they signed on later, after the earlier stations got to be major network affiliates.

...
I also see Red Skelton is only 30 minutes on KPIX. I guess it would be later that he'd get an hour long variety show.

Google couldn't find anything specific about why the Bay Rea got channel 2 os 'late', compared to other markets. I've seen contradictory accounts describing the penertration of the channel 2 signal as being wither very strong, or problematic.
At the time channels 4, 5 and 7 went on the air in the late 40s, the FCC had not cleared anything higher than channel 7 for the VHF band.

As for Red Skelton, his show was a half-hour until 1962.

 

[Ultimajock]

I'm assuming KRON had 'Today' prior to 9 AM, and KPIX likely had some network programming then as well(but not Captain Kangaroo, who was a year away, and was only on Saturdays at the beginning) but it's possible that KGO didn't even sign on until then.

...I'm fairly positive that Today didn't air any further west than the Mountain Time Zone this early in the series' run; in fact, CBS' 1950s competition to Today, The Morning Show, never ran on the West Coast, which instead got the Hollywood-based Panorama Pacific with Red Rowe each weekday morning...