TV History

November 6, 1947…’Meet The Press’ Debuts, NBC This is America’s longest running television program. Almost everyone thinks of it as a Sunday morning show, but when it started, it was a Saturday night show, and hosted by a woman. Her name was Martha Rountree and she started as a reporter at The Tampa Tribune,…

Happy Trails! Colbert’s Gentle Sendoff To John Meiklejohn… One of the best cameramen in the business retired last night, and Stephen gave his 11 year friend this send off. I’ve heard that as far back as 1966, they were telling JMJ stories. This reminds me of the send off David Letterman gave to our…

Inside The BBC’s Huge Studio 1…1974 This is about as full a tour as you could ask for, as we are privy to every element, from the EMI 2001 cameras, to the control room and even a look at the BBC’s biggest crane in action. Thanks to Petter Olden of NRK TV in Norway…

Today, he would have been 100 years old. “Whatever the cost of education, the price is cheap compared with an ignorant nation”. -Walter Cronkite This is Mr. Cronkite in Studio 42 at the CBS Grand Central studios. Source

November 4, 1980…ABC Readies For Election Night, Behind The Scenes This WABC news clip from November 4, 1980 takes us behind the scenes at ABC’s TV 2 studio in New York as network coverage of the Carter, Reagan, Anderson presidential election nears. As you may have read in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times article posted…

HBO’s “Vice” News…Shout Out To Eyes Of A Generation On Wednesday night, this shot of this Facebook page showed up on the HBO nightly news program “Vice”, in a story on the difference between FB desktop and mobile users. This was shot over two weeks ago, since I have changed the headline photo to…

Television’s 1st Prime Time Season; 1948…With My Detailed Notes This is just amazing…what you will see here are some of the first shows to run in the first real TV season, with all four networks in operation…NBC, CBS, ABC and Dumont. Back then, “networks” with live feeds, were basicly a handful of stations in…

November 2, 1959…The Game Show Scandal Breaks Wide Open It was on this day in 1959 that Charles Van Doren admitted before a congressional committee that he had indeed received the answers to the questions on “Twenty One”. Here is Herb Stempel discussing loosing to Charles Van Doren by missing the “Marty’ Question. For…

You Won’t Believe Your Eyes! How To Make Miniature TV Studio A few years back, our friend Jim Wickey made a beautiful, perfectly detailed studio for a real TV show. The RCA TK11 scale models are stunningly realistic, but are made of cardboard. Here are some shots of the finished product, and…his how to…

October 31, 1953 & 1965…Two Color Television Firsts! On October 31, 1953, NBC broadcast the first one hour color program to the full network. The production was a truncated version of the opera, “Carmen”. It was done from NBC/RCA’s only color facility, The Colonial Theater in New York. At the time, the only color…

October 30, 1931…NBC Begins Work On Empire State Tower On this day in 1931, NBC began putting a TV transmitter and antenna on top of the Empire State Building. The first experimental TV broadcast from the building was on December 22, 1931. As you can see in these photos, which were all taken before…

EOAG Exclusive Photos…’The Doctors’, NBC Studio 3B Thanks to Bob Batsche, and Glenn Mack, we have these these rare color photos that they took on the set in 3B, and thanks to Chuck Snitchler, we have a shot of the slate from the first color episode which would air December 4, 1967, but was…

October 25, 1956…NBC’s “Camel New Caravan” Ends From February 16, 1949 until October 25, 1956, John Cameron Swayze hosted the 15 minute, week night NBC network news broadcast. The show was done from Studio C in the NBC Uptown Studios building on 106th Street, near Park Avenue. In this photo from 1949, notice a…

Computers And Automation vs Manpower And Innovation This shot from Houston’s KPRC is a great example of how news graphics were done in the 50s and 60s. Some stations had a nice drum like this, but others had easels, or old music stands. The images were faxed in daily from either AP or UPI.…

The Original Beauty Of The Ed Sullivan Theater…Rare Images From 1927 More of the history of the venue is in the original article below. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee Rare Ed Sullivan Theater Photos…1927 I love it that these rare photos are now pouring in! Take a look! This is the theater as is…

October 24, 1934…”Santa Clause Is Coming To Town”, Recorded Until broadcast radio and talking pictures came along, there hadn’t really been any “popular” or secular Christmas songs…most were still traditional, religious carols. The first recorded version of the song was by banjoist Harry Reser and his band, and was done on October 24, 1934…

October 24, 1980…Letterman Daytime Show Finale & Studio Tour Classic, Classy Letterman! Last day of his NBC morning show. Although it only ran from June 23, until October 24, 1980, a lot of what would come later, in the late night years started here, including Stupid Pet Tricks. From NBC Studio 6A, here is…

October 23, 1956…Videotape Debut Network TV: Setting The Record Straight Most people think the November 30, 1956 time delayed broadcast of “CBS News With Douglas Edwards” was the first use of videotape on network television. That is not correct, but it was the first use of tape as a time-shifter, in that the east…