When did TV coverage of Times Square on New Year's Eve began? Perhaps one or more of the early (pre-1947) TV stations in New York City covered it with network coverage maybe coming by the late 1940's. Anyone know?
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TV Coverage - Times Square
- Thread starter Cincinnati Kid
- Start date
B
Bob1370
Guest
New York Times TV listings from the '40s help us out with the answer. It all started back on New Year's Eve 1941, when WNBT. the NBC O&O then in its first year of licensed commercial telecasting, did a New Year's Eve special from the Rainbow Room at 30 Rock with remote shots from Times Square. CBS' Channel 2 was also in operation then, but they shut down for the night on December 31 at the end of their last local news at 9:30. The NBC programming could even have been networked to WPTZ in Philadelphia and WRGB in Schenectady/Albany, since those three cities were connected to the NBC network from the beginning.
Nothing during the war years 1942-44 from any of the three stations in New York (NBC, CBS or DuMont).
The New Year's Eve specials resume after the war on December 31, 1945 when WNBT does a thing called "Year-End Varieties; Pickups from Times Square" starting at 10:30 and going past midnight. This show was definitely sent to the small eastern NBC network. That started an annual tradition which turned into a four-hour special on WNBT, now on Channel 4, in 1946. Same in 1947 when WNBT does another evening-long special from Manattan. Du Mont's WABD did someting different by airing New Year's parties fed by their affiliates in Washington and Philadelphia.
By 1948, NBC has plenty of company in and around Times square; WCBS-TV channel 2, WABD channel 5 (the DuMont flagship), and WJZ-TV channel 7 (the ABC flagship we now know as WABC-TV) are all doing their own variety specials revolving around Times Square coverage. And all four of them are feeding their special programs out to their respective networks by 1948, the year when everyone with a TV whose home town had an affiliate hooked up to one of the networks got an invitation to the party. From 1948 on, the familiar all-network celebrations we know were an annual tradition that continues today.
Nothing during the war years 1942-44 from any of the three stations in New York (NBC, CBS or DuMont).
The New Year's Eve specials resume after the war on December 31, 1945 when WNBT does a thing called "Year-End Varieties; Pickups from Times Square" starting at 10:30 and going past midnight. This show was definitely sent to the small eastern NBC network. That started an annual tradition which turned into a four-hour special on WNBT, now on Channel 4, in 1946. Same in 1947 when WNBT does another evening-long special from Manattan. Du Mont's WABD did someting different by airing New Year's parties fed by their affiliates in Washington and Philadelphia.
By 1948, NBC has plenty of company in and around Times square; WCBS-TV channel 2, WABD channel 5 (the DuMont flagship), and WJZ-TV channel 7 (the ABC flagship we now know as WABC-TV) are all doing their own variety specials revolving around Times Square coverage. And all four of them are feeding their special programs out to their respective networks by 1948, the year when everyone with a TV whose home town had an affiliate hooked up to one of the networks got an invitation to the party. From 1948 on, the familiar all-network celebrations we know were an annual tradition that continues today.
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searadiofreak
Guest
Today, it is has evolved to the Anderson Cooper/Kathy Griffin show on CNN. The most entertainining new years show on the air, IMO.
Can anyone do a synopsis on Guy Lombardo in regards to New Year's Eve specials??
I remember near the ends of Lombardo's run of NYE specials, his special guest was Aretha Franklin. Even though they were miles apart music and culture-wise, they seemed to get along smoothly. He always did his NYE shows from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria.
I'm thinking his show was syndicated early on and then was picked up by CBS.
For a time, his show ran on CBS concurrently with the early days of Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve on ABC and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC. When Carson was based in New York, his NYE shows were live and Ben Grauer reported from Times Square. When he was in Burbank, I'm not sure I remember how his NYE shows worked.
I remember near the ends of Lombardo's run of NYE specials, his special guest was Aretha Franklin. Even though they were miles apart music and culture-wise, they seemed to get along smoothly. He always did his NYE shows from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria.
I'm thinking his show was syndicated early on and then was picked up by CBS.
For a time, his show ran on CBS concurrently with the early days of Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve on ABC and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC. When Carson was based in New York, his NYE shows were live and Ben Grauer reported from Times Square. When he was in Burbank, I'm not sure I remember how his NYE shows worked.
Interesting to learn how Johnny was part of NYE coverage back then. When he moved to Burbank(and possibly even before he left New York), The Tonight Show adopted the familiar same-day taping schedule, and, for a little while in the '70s, switched to taping a day in advance of airing. With that in mind, maybe they decided to drop New Year's Eve coverage on the Carson show.timmyb said:
Interesting to learn how Johnny was part of NYE coverage back then. When he moved to Burbank(and possibly even before he left New York), The Tonight Show adopted the familiar same-day taping schedule, and, for a little while in the '70s, switched to taping a day in advance of airing. With that in mind, maybe they decided to drop New Year's Eve coverage on the Carson show.onairb said:
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Well, in what was the last time for both of them, the 1976-77 ball drop on Guy Lombardo's broadcast was covered by Ben Grauer. Here's that video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMIdvk6ySzs
And I could swear that, at least once between 1970 and 1972, Dick Clark did the New Year's ball drop cutaway on The Tonight Show, but I might just be misremembering. I can't find anything on the web corroborating it...
I had to look this up in Wikipedia, but the first two New Year's Rockin' Eve specials for 1973 and 1974 were actually on NBC, before moving to ABC for 1975. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Clark's_New_Year's_Rockin'_Eve_with_Ryan_Seacrest#Early_years
anotherguy said:
Doubtless, on the first NYRE special (fronted by Three Dog Night on Dec. 31, 1972/Jan. 1, 1973), the countdown was not watched over by Ben Grauer, despite 1972's being the last full year he was an NBC staff announcer.
But it was also because of this factor of NBC airing the first two such specials, that clips from same were not included in that 40th anniversary retrospective.
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