Today Show cut-ins at 7:25 and 8:25: history wanted

[Mike Stroud]

To take up a different discussion from the thread on the historically poor performance of CBS news programming in the morning, I'd like to bring up the background of NBC affiliates' practice of running newscasts during the five-minute station breaks at 7:25 and 8:25 of the Today show. (Of course, nowadays, all the Big Three allow for cut-ins at the end of every half hour.)

What are the memories of some of you about your local stations and when they started doing news cut-ins? Did they help or hurt Today's ratings in particular areas? And what about the odd stations in small markets (often UHFs) that didn't really have news departments? What did they fill the time with if that was the case? This would be in the time range of roughly the late Fifties until the early Eighties or so.

"Ask and ye shall discover ..."

 

[Bob1370]

Local news cut-ins have been a part of the Today Show clock at 7:25 and 8:25 as long as I can remember, and that's back to my childhood in the late 50s and early 60s. In Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester the respective NBC affiliates at the time (WGR-TV ch. 2 Buffalo, WROC-TV ch. 5 and later ch. 8 Rochester, and WSYR-TV then on ch.3 in Syracuse) had both radio and TV news departments and used them to staff the newscasts. They'd often use their morning drive radio newscasters to step in front of the camera for a few minutes and deliver the same newscast they'd either just read at the top of the hour, or were about to read at the bottom of the hour, minus whatever local sound the radio side was using.

These days the call letters and even in some cases the channel position has changed (NBC is now on WHEC/Ch. 10 in Rochester, and Syracuse's Channel 3, while still NBC, is now WSTM while the WSYR-TV call belongs to the ABC affiliate on Channel 9). But the 7:25 and 8:25 approach is a lot the same. This time the hosts and weathercasters of the 5-7 AM local news block on each of the stations appear to deliver a short live newscast at 25 past each hour. Production values are more elaborate now (plenty of weather animation and graphics, the top story may get a short package) but it's still done much the same way now as then--only the production is fancier because of the same technology that makes every local newscast higher in visual dazzle.

And now the competing CBS and ABC stations do it the same way on their own cut-in segments within CBS This Morning and Good Morning America.

 

[OldNumber7]

I'm old enough to remember when the Today show scrolled a list of affiliates with that day's weather outlook for each market ("KXXX-TV, ANYTOWN, Sunny, High 70"). during the local commercial breaks (smaller markets often had no local spots to run). In the 60s, it was a typed paper rolling in front of the camera; in the 70s it was a scrolling chyron over a general US weather map.
I was surprised in the 80s when I visited a small market with no local news to see the Today crew sitting on the couch bantering during a :25 break. Did they always offer a network filler segment, or was that a later addition? When did they stop? Anyone?

 

[therealjm12]

I worked at WKTV in Utica in the 70's. They've been NBC since day one. They've always used the :25 cut ins. In my day a " booth announcer" would read news from the teletype or off a script left over from the night before. One studio camera was fired up. Sometimes they would use film from the night before if the "announcer" felt so motivated. Since it was done by staff announcers they went by the announcer schedule so it was pretty much a different news reader every day. Now days they have a full crew in the morning and not only do the cut ins but do a local pre Today show 6 -7 and actually do an hour newscast at noon and weekend morning news as well. Pretty sophisticated for such a small market.

 

[borderblaster]

I remember the paper scrolling on NBC. I worked at a CBS affiliate in the 90s, and CBS offered fill from the show for any affiliates not breaking away (we had a 7:25 news but no 8:25)

 

[oldiesfan6479]

And remember, back in the day, in the Central time zone, Today's second hour ran first
(live 7-8 CT) followed by the network re-feed of the first hour (9-10 ET/8-9 CT).

On CBS, WBBM-TV Chicago re-fed the 7-8 AM morning news to the midwest 7-8 CT.
(Which partially explains the second feed of Capt. K--for the CT zone--from 9-10 ET.)

Any ABC experts know how AM America/GMA was fed in its early days?

 

[Groove1670]

In the 60s, it was a typed paper rolling in front of the camera;

Can anyone remember a station(s) using (panning) analog weather dials during the breaks.

 

[borderblaster]

As I recall the death of Pope John Paul I after a papacy that lasted a little over a month was the catalyst for the change to running the hours in order in the Central Zone. In CST land apparently, at 7:30 the Pope was dead, and at 8am the Pope was in serious condition.

Seems I read that at least in the early days, Captain Kangaroo was performed live twice.

Anyone remember Mr. Mayor on CBS Saturday mornings?

 

[charlestondxman]

I'm not that old, but they've been doing cut-ins every 30 minutes in the Charleston area at least since the early 90s. WCIV had a morning news at 6:30am, with cut-ins done by those anchors, and when WCBD went to NBC, they started morning news at 5:30am.

 

[Stanislav]

As I recall the death of Pope John Paul I after a papacy that lasted a little over a month was the catalyst for the change to running the hours in order in the Central Zone. In CST land apparently, at 7:30 the Pope was dead, and at 8am the Pope was in serious condition.

It wasn't the Pope, I don't believe, but I think there was some other notable world figure about whom this faux pas occurred. (Pope JPI died in his sleep, unless you believe the conspiracy theorists, and was found in that state when they went to wake him, so there never was a point at which he would have been reported as being in serious condition.)

Anyone remember Mr. Mayor on CBS Saturday mornings?

IIRC, wasn't there a dispute between Keeshan and CBS over who had the rights to the CK character, and Mr. Mayor was Keeshan's way of proving that he could carry on successfully in the guise of a non-CK character if he wanted to?

 

[firepoint525]

I remember on a Christmas Day a year or two ago, channel 4 here in Nashville filled the entire 7:25 break with commercials and promos!

 

[Mike Stroud]

I remember on a Christmas Day a year or two ago, channel 4 here in Nashville filled the entire 7:25 break with commercials and promos!

Yeah, that figures. I'll bet you even money many other affils did the same, especially outside the top ten markets or so. Decided to give the news department the morning off, apparently. Wonder what the second-stringers who HAD to show up to do the news at 6 and 10 thought about that?

 

[radiophiler]

I remember the "fill" at :25 with the Today hosts on the couch chatting.

WBRE, NBC in Scranton, PA, in the 70s used to run commentaries from Congressman Dan Flood during the :25 breaks in the Today show. It was just the Congressman sitting at a desk in his office reading his commentary. Ugh.

I seem to remember a camera panning over weather dials, too, but can't recall what station did that.

 

[Mario500]

WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama used to broadcast a local segment titled "Coffee with the Parson" at 8:25 AM (Central time) between segments of "Today" by 1971. The name of the parson was Robert (Bob) Barker, who worked at the Hunter Memorial Baptist Church in Mobile from 1937 to 1944 and the First Baptist Church of Chickasaw (Alabama) from 1944 to 1978. He was the interim pastor for other local churches. He died in 1994 at 78 years of age.

"Coffee with the Parson" was first broadcast by WALA-AM in 1938 and last broadcast by WALA-TV sometime during the late 1980s (WALA-AM became WUNI-AM in 1963, WMML-AM in 1984, WLVV-AM in 1991, and WNGL-AM in 12009). According to the local TV listings in my collection, "Coffee with the Parson" was broadcast at 5:55 AM in September 1984 before “NBC News at Sunrise” and at 5:10 AM in September 1987 before “Before Hours” at 5:15 AM, “NBC News at Sunrise” at 5:30 AM, and WALA-TV's local newscast ("The News 10 Today") at 6:00 AM.

 

[pqgeorge]

I'm old enough to remember when the Today show scrolled a list of affiliates with that day's weather outlook for each market ("KXXX-TV, ANYTOWN, Sunny, High 70"). during the local commercial breaks (smaller markets often had no local spots to run). In the 60s, it was a typed paper rolling in front of the camera; in the 70s it was a scrolling chyron over a general US weather map.
I was surprised in the 80s when I visited a small market with no local news to see the Today crew sitting on the couch bantering during a :25 break. Did they always offer a network filler segment, or was that a later addition? When did they stop? Anyone?

I recall back in the late 60's, WCSH-TV (Channel 6/Portland, ME) used to run that weather filler provided by the network (NBC) since they did not have a local break at the time. Usually it was the scroll over a national map with instrumental music behind it for about 3 or 4 minutes. You would see a lot of different call-letters with local conditions/forecasts. Toward the end the break, the music would fade out while the picture of the national map would dissolve out into the "Today" logo slide. The bigger markets generally would run their own local news breaks.

 

[imhomerjay]

I remember on a Christmas Day a year or two ago, channel 4 here in Nashville filled the entire 7:25 break with commercials and promos!

Oh the great horror. :