"Today" on the West Coast in the early years

[Ultimajock]

...I just came across a videotape I have of the kinescope of NBC's election night 1960 coverage, on which Dave Garroway, Frank Blair and Jack Lescoulie interrupt Chet Huntley and David Brinkley's unfinished work of reporting the returns at 7:00 the following morning. That reminded me of something I've always been curious about -- how did stations in the Mountain and Pacific time zones handle NBC's "Today" show in the days when Garroway, Lescoulie and Blair were starting out on that series? Certainly, they weren't takingit live from New York, as at 5:00 in the morning in the ountain zone and 4:00 in the Pacific, the stations were very unlikely to even be on the air. Was it played back on a hot kinescope filmed off the network line at NBC Hollywood or San Francisco in those pre-videotape days?...

 

[hubcity]

When I was young, I remember asking why the clocks on the Today Show only showed the minute hand, and why, when they did a time check, it was always "22 after the hour" rather than "22 after 7"...my father explained that it was because the hours change in different time zones, but the minutes don't.

For some reason, at the time, I thought they kept going with a live broadcast for the morning clearances on the west coast...is that true?

 

[KML0224]

Well the minutes could change...but that show didn't go to Newfoundland, did it?

 

[oldiesfan6479]

I can't really speak for the pre-video tape era as I haven't
come across enough information, other than a snippet or
two and one guess-hazarding.

Didn't Garroway et al do a third live hour (9-10 ET) early on
primarily to accommodate the Central time zone?

The left coast (here's the "hazard a guess") may well have
suffered through yet another kinnie-a-day for a few years.

Mountain? Good luck. They were always the red-headed
stepchild of time zones. Here, take the feed from New York
and run it live real early, or only take one hour.

In the '60s and (probably most of the) '70s, NBC ran live for
two hours 7-9 ET then refed the first hour on tape 9-10, so
Central zone affiliates aired the show 7-9 CT with the second
hour first, Mountain could run it 6-8 in the same flip-flop way,
Burbank played it back in order 7-9 PT.

 

[Stanislav]

In the '60s and (probably most of the) '70s, NBC ran live for
two hours 7-9 ET then refed the first hour on tape 9-10, so
Central zone affiliates aired the show 7-9 CT with the second
hour first, Mountain could run it 6-8 in the same flip-flop way,
Burbank played it back in order 7-9 PT.

I believe that is still the practice. They also have the option of covering the taped news segments with live updates if there have been developments on a story, or scrapping the tape entirely and staying live if something really big is in progress.

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

I believe that is still the practice. They also have the option of covering the taped news segments with live updates if there have been developments on a story, or scrapping the tape entirely and staying live if something really big is in progress.

Sort of, yes. The affiliates usually opt to simply tape delay the first hour to run at 7am, covering up the live second hour feed (which is then tape delayed to the 8:00am hour). Of course, with the 4-hour length of the show currently, the affiliates end up airing the tape-delayed previous hour over the live feed.

For several years after CBS first expanded its morning program to two hours (late 80s, most likely), a lot of CBS affiliates simply aired the show live from 6:00 - 8:00am because they already had profitable syndicated fare in the 8:00 - 9:00 hour (which had a few years before displaced "Captain Kangaroo in that hour). Once local morning newscasts became the norm, these affiliates joined the rest of their competition in airing the show on a one-hour delay to accommodate their local morning shows.

 

[ercjncpr]

...I just came across a videotape I have of the kinescope of NBC's election night 1960 coverage, on which Dave Garroway, Frank Blair and Jack Lescoulie interrupt Chet Huntley and David Brinkley's unfinished work of reporting the returns at 7:00 the following morning. That reminded me of something I've always been curious about -- how did stations in the Mountain and Pacific time zones handle NBC's "Today" show in the days when Garroway, Lescoulie and Blair were starting out on that series? Certainly, they weren't takingit live from New York, as at 5:00 in the morning in the ountain zone and 4:00 in the Pacific, the stations were very unlikely to even be on the air. Was it played back on a hot kinescope filmed off the network line at NBC Hollywood or San Francisco in those pre-videotape days?...

Any chance that this videotape could be placed on You Tube at some point?

 

[hipman2]

In San Diego, KFMB aired SunUp for the longest time from 8-9am. Captain Kangaroo aired on 6 for a few years in the mid 70s. When CBS decided to do a two hour morning news show, KFMB aired it from 6-8am until 1986,
then moved it to the 7am-9am slot, bumping SunUp to the 9-10am slot, which pre-empted the first hour of the CBS daytime lineup, which oddly enough, was seen on KGTV, an ABC affilliate.

Weird affilliates, eh?

 

[newsmark]

The affiliates usually opt to simply tape delay the first hour to run at 7am, covering up the live second hour feed (which is then tape delayed to the 8:00am hour).

Actually the affiliates don't have to do the delay. The networks do the delay and offer a 7 a.m. start time in every time zone. The stations just have to tune to the right transponder.

That also gives the nets the option to break in to their own program with breaking news.

They don't break in often, though. sometimes it can be a real mess watching them switch back and forth between a live program and the delayed version. And sometimes, if they break in at, say, 8:15 Eastern/7:15 Central, you'll see the very same coverage again at 8:15 Central.