September 4: This Day in TV History

[Stanislav]

Just a few random TV related events that happened on September 4. Discuss or comment as you please……

1928: Actor Dick York (Bewitched) is born in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

1951: The first live transcontinental television transmission takes place in San Francisco, California with U.S. President Harry Truman's speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference relayed using AT&T’s “Long Lines” transcontinental coaxial cable and microwave radio relay system. (This preceded by about 2 ½ months the better-known first transcontinental commercial television broadcast via the same system on Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now.)

1953: Actor Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Welcome Back Kotter) is born in New York City.

1953: WGEM-TV (channel 10) goes on the air for the first time in Quincy, Illinois.

1953: WATR-TV signs on the air in Waterbury, Connecticut on channel 53. The second UHF station in the state, it would move to channel 20 in 1962, and change calls to the present WTXX in 1982.

1956: Television is officially launched in Sweden when the Radiotjänst TV service switches on their high-power transmitter. (There had been previous low-power test transmissions, and even earlier some Swedes had been able to receive TV channels from Denmark.) The service, like the BBC, is free from advertising and funded by a license fee.

1966: The final network episode of My Favorite Martian is broadcast on CBS.

1972: A game show trifecta debuts on CBS: The (New) Price Is Right, The Joker's Wild, and Gambit.

1978: The $1.98 Beauty Show, hosted by the irrepressible Rip Taylor, premieres in syndication.

1980: Barnaby Jones ends a 6-season run on CBS.

1986: Trapper John M.D. ends a 7-season run on CBS.

1993: Actor Hervé Villechaize (Fantasy Island) dies in North Hollywood, California of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, aged 50.

1995: Xena: Warrior Princess debuts in syndication.

1998: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? premieres on ITV in the U.K. It would spawn an American version of the game show the following year.

2002: Kelly Clarkson wins the first season of American Idol.

2003: The 1000-foot broadcasting tower leased by WAAY-TV (channel 31 analog, 32 DTV) in Huntsville, Alabama collapses, killing three workers.

2006: Wildlife expert and TV personality Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin dies, aged 44, after being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming in Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

(Just a little featurette I hope to do as time permits…..don’t expect it every single day. It’s an entirely random selection based on a quick Net search, and is not meant to be comprehensive. So, don’t post nasty messages about “you forgot THIS” or “how could you not mention THAT?” Do so, and I’ll just take my keyboard and go home…..)

 

[Corky Marlowe]

1928: Actor Dick York (Bewitched) is born in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
He'd be celebrating his 80th birthday...What a rough time he had the last couple decades of his life, with an ongoing addiction to painkillers and finally having to deal with emphysema. Even when he was practically bedridden, he and his wife still did a lot of volunteer work at homeless shelters.

Also..."Trapper John, MD" was still on in 86? Was anyone watching by then?

 

[stevezodiac]

1951: The first live transcontinental television transmission takes place in San Francisco, California with U.S. President Harry Truman's speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference relayed using AT&T’s “Long Lines” transcontinental coaxial cable and microwave radio relay system. (This preceded by about 2 ½ months the better-known first transcontinental commercial television broadcast via the same system on Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now.)

Anyone know what the picture quality looked like at the end of the line, given the technology of the day?

 

[bpatrick]

Don't know anything about the picture quality (I
hadn't been born yet), but I know it was the first
live coast-to-coast transmission; the coaxial cable
reached every market with a station except Albuquerque.
There were 107 stations on the air (the 108th, WLTV--
now WXIA--Atlanta, would sign on September 30, and thus
all stations on the air or licensed before the "freeze" of
1948 would be broadcasting).

It's also when Douglas Edwards began using his famous
greeting, "Good evening everyone, from coast to coast."

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1958: David Drew Pinsky (Dr. Drew of VH1/MTV infamy--"Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew") is born in Pasadena, CA.

 

[radioman148]

1958: David Drew Pinsky (Dr. Drew of VH1/MTV infamy--"Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew") is born in Pasadena, CA.

He has certainly become a very fast rising star.

 

[mleach]

1928: Actor Dick York (Bewitched) is born in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
He'd be celebrating his 80th birthday...What a rough time he had the last couple decades of his life, with an ongoing addiction to painkillers and finally having to deal with emphysema. Even when he was practically bedridden, he and his wife still did a lot of volunteer work at homeless shelters.

Take this with a grain of salt ( I will get to that later ) but I can remember reading a story on the Scott Michael's "Findadeath" website some years back where for many years after he had left Bewitched, Dick York will still getting some big fat checks for his role as "Darrin Stephens" since according to Findadeath ( and like Bob Crane did with Hogans Hereos) he had own a piece of the show and was to get some good sized profits from syndication. Sadly he never got those checks because the Bewitched people had been sending them to the wrong address. yeah I have my doubts too.

Anyway this was all reported on Findadeath back in 2006. Last night I was checking the Dick York section of that site and I noticed that part of the York story was not there. Not sure why its missing since Scott Michaels over the years has done a good job at checking the facts, maybe he missed the ball on this one but either way as I said..gotta take this with a grain of salt.

 

[mjlarochelle]

1988: CFPL-TV (Channel 10) in London, Ontario and CKNX-TV (Channel 8 ) in Wingham disaffiliate from the CBC network and become independent television stations. On the same date, CBLN-TV (Channel 40) signs on as the new CBC station from London with five rebroadcast stations, which all in turn mostly rebroadcast CBLT from Toronto including all local programming. CFPL and CKNX almost immediately nosedive from a highly respected and profitable operation to a money-bleeding laughingstock in Canadian broadcasting, and are sold to Baton Broadcasting less than four years later. Although CFPL has somewhat but never fully recovered from the move, CKNX fell apart with over 80% of its staff laid off within four years, and more recently has become a full rebroadcaster of CFPL. The move was made the same week a slate of new cable channels debuted, including YTV and The Weather Network, and is considered by some to have been what led to the end of the Blackburn Group's longtime ownership of the London Free Press and CFPL Radio.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Sept. 4 in sports history would eventually have a profound effect on television history:

1950: The first 500-mile NASCAR race, the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, was held.

 

[oldschooler1]

1951: The first live transcontinental television transmission takes place in San Francisco, California with U.S. President Harry Truman's speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference relayed using AT&T’s “Long Lines” transcontinental coaxial cable and microwave radio relay system. (This preceded by about 2 ½ months the better-known first transcontinental commercial television broadcast via the same system on Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now.)

Anyone know what the picture quality looked like at the end of the line, given the technology of the day?

Apparently, it was pretty good:
http://www.corp.att.com/attlabs/reputation/timeline/51microwave.html

 

[bpatrick]

CBS's morning game-show trifecta of Joker/Price/Gambit was the
network's first foray into morning games since the cancellation of
"Video Village" 10 years earlier; it had had afternoon games, such
as "Password" and "To Tell The Truth" in the '60s and had just
canceled "The Amateur's Guide To Love," which aired at 4/3 for
a few months in '72.

Actually, "Price" was supposed to be the lead-off show at 10/9,
since CBS had the highest hopes for it. But Mark Goodson did some
research and found a number of affiliates pre-empting 10 AM (ET) for
syndicated talk shows (I remember WTVT Tampa showing Mike
Douglas from 9-10:30, and WFMY Greensboro showing Merv Griffin
from 9:30-10:30 at that time). Goodson argued that the CBS strategy
would fall apart if "Price" aired at 10; CBS agreed, and put what it
considered the weakest of the three, "Joker's Wild", at 10, and "Price"
at 10:30. "Joker" did have the shortest network life (three years),
although it was a huge hit in syndication (1977-86), "Gambit" ran four
years, was revived on NBC in 1980 as "Las Vegas Gambit," and now airs
in modified form on GSN as "Catch 21." And we all know "Price" is still
calling people to "come on down". Sometimes, even the professional
programmers can use a little outside advice.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

1972: A game show trifecta debuts on CBS: The (New) Price Is Right, The Joker's Wild, and Gambit.

40 years ago today . . . (That is, unless you lived in a market where the CBS affiliate aired the MDA telethon that year, as Sept. 4, 1972 was Labor Day).

And YouTube also has the original commercials from the first TnPIR . . . what a difference from what we see on Price today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfd5CeI0qgs

BTW, not to take this off the subject, but about when did all of the elderly-oriented commercials start to proliferate TPIR?

 

[KML0224]

To update the Connecticut TV reference: That station today is WCCT-TV (CW) channel 20, still licensed to Waterbury, but now has its digital transmitter on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, CT.