TV History

Now This Is Interesting! Both cameras in this 1949 photo from KLEE in Houston (now KPRC) are GE models. The one on the left is the older of the two and looks almost exactly like the Dumont 124B, complete with the power supply riding on the tripod base. No one seems to know the…

The Ampex BCC 10 Yesterday, I made a comment on the BCC 10 and low and behold, I just found a photo of them at work at KPRC in Houston. I’ve never seen these cameras in a studio, only in catalog photos and that’s probably because so few were made. Only 69 were built…

Keep the screwdriver handy, you’ll need it again! WOIC-TV (1949–1950) WTOP-TV (1950–1978) WDVM-TV (1978–1986) WUSA-TV (1986-present) On the other hand, today WEWS in Cleveland celebrates 65 years on the air with the same call letters, same channel and same ownership. Now that’s rare! Congratulations! Source

An Expensive Hobby Restoring early videotape machines to working order is not small feat, but John Turner does it. Here’s a demonstration of how his RCA TK60 quad machine works. What Labguy did on his spring break series, first video. John Turner demonstrates the 1969 RCA TR-60 quadruplex broadcast video tape recorder that he…

What Does The ‘TK’ On RCA Cameras Stand For? As most of you know, the TK prefix on RCA camera models began in 1946 with the introduction of the RCA TK30 Image Orthicon camera. Pictured below is one of the very first TK30s delivered to NBC in early June of 1946. Last night I…

WXYZ, Detroit: Suitcases Full Of Money Without WXYZ, ABC may not have made it. Lytle Hoover, who was then directing The Soupy Sales Show from there, told me that every Friday morning the GM flew to NYC with a suitcase full of money so ABC could cover payroll checks. WXYZ-TV began broadcasting October 9,…

Roll The Credits…Literally Here’s the way the closing credits were done in the old days. White text on black scroll was fixed to a large wheel. Some were hand cranked and others had a variable speed electric motor. This shot from Radio Canada has a Marconi Mark II ready to shoot when the credits…

The RCA TK76 and PM Magazine It is no small coincidence that both launched in 1976. PM originally started in San Francisco on KPIX as Evening Magazine and was created to run as a local program in the half hour preceding prime time. A new FCC ‘Prime Time Access’ rule, prohibited stations in the…

No Doubt About It. What we have here in Studio 33 at Television City are Sony EFP (Electronic Field Production) kits. The cameras are most likely Sony 1500 HDs. They are using the Sony Large Viewfinder Adapter build up kit, model HDLA1507US. For more on the technology, go to the link. Thanks to Father…

Joey Bishop Show: Vine Street Theater At the top of the video, you can see a couple of the GE PE 350 cameras on the set. In ‘Recent Posts By Others’ there is another short clip from this same episode that has a quick glimpse of the cameras. If you watch the rest of…

NBC’s Color Girl Last week we touched on the color camera development at The Colonial Theater in NYC, but before that, there was experimental color testing from Studio 3H at 30 Rock with the experimental ‘coffin’ cameras. There was experimental color from the Washington DC Windham Hotel studios, but no “color girl”. Marie was hired…

The Beautiful Color Of The RCA TK41 In this series of clips, you can see the rich colors and hues that the TK41 gave us along with great blacks. The editing leaves a lot to be desired, but the point is the pictures. The spelling tells me this is was done by someone outside…

VERY COOL! You’ll feel like Johnny Carson or David Letterman making their grand entrance into NBC Studio 6B! Great camera work on this rare piece from one of Dave’s first shows. ENJOY and Share! Thanks to Father Bob! This is from one of Dave’s first NBC shows, featuring a cameo from Larry “Bud” Melman,…

The Colbert Report This is the set in NEP’s Studio 54 in New York. It is a fully-equipped HD studio has: Sony HDC1450R cameras, Canon lenses, a Sony MVS-8000G Switcher, an Evertz Virtual Monitor Wall 162 Inputs, 5.1 Audio Monitoring, 24 channels of EVS, a variety of tape machines, SSL C100 Digital Audio Console…

The Daily Show With John Stewart This is the Daily Show set at NEP’s Studio 52 in New York. This fully-equipped HD studio has: Sony HDC1450R cameras, Canon lenses, a Sony MVS-8000G Switcher, an Evertz Virtual Monitor Wall 162 Inputs, 5.1 Audio Monitoring, 24 channels of EVS, a variety of tape machines, SSL C100…

Mike Douglas Show, TK10 This shot is from 1963, a couple of years into the show. It was live every weekday for an hour until around October of ’65. That’s when Zsa Zsa Gabor called Morey Amsterdam a “son of a bitch” for interrupting her joke. After that, the program aired on a one-day…

Short Clip: Cameraman Dave Dorsette’s Interns FYI, Dave retired a year or so again after 35 years at CBS but is back from time to time. Go Get Em Dave! Karen’s a summer intern for Dave, the Cameraman Source