TV History

State Of The Art: Video Tape Delay Until sometime in the mid to late 60s, this is the way you got a 6 second delay for live television events. In this photo, you would have recorded on the left machine, thread the tape over a few homemade spendels and play it back on the…

1913: State Of The Art Sports Reporting Check out these two long rows of telegraph operators and reporters. That’s how the 1913 World Series was covered from The Polo Grounds in NYC. The series pitted the New York Giants against the Philadelphia Athletics. (NY Giants became the SF Giants in 1957) Source

In 2005, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Van Cliburn, who was a frequent guest of a good friend of mine in Miami. Although his background is classical, he’s very down to earth and can tell some great jokes. I had heard his name since I was a kid, and frankly,…

RCA Color Television: January 1954 In this special issue of RCA Broadcast News, everything you always wanted to know about early color TV, and more is here. Color cameras, film, lighting, transmission…all of it. From the highly technical to the simple stuff, it’s all covered in this issue. Enjoy! Source

New York Worlds Fair: Summer 1964 I remember visiting the RCA Exhibit and the how much I hated leaving it. I was 13 and my parents had to threaten me to get me out of there. This singing duo was there along with a guy playing an electronic accordion. Sprite had a brand new…

Color Comes To Japan: 1957 On Sunday, I had a story about Expo ’58 and the RCA color exhibit at the Brussels’ World’s Fair. In it, I also mentioned that RCA had sent a mobile color unit to Japan in 1957 to give them a first look at color television and here is the…

CLASSIC: ‘Person To Person’ History Above, cameraman Norm Hannin (who looks a lot like David Brinkley) prepares his specially branded TK30 for a live interview at the home of Bobby and Ethyl Kennedy. Notice the cut out on the bottom of the viewfinder hood. Good idea. ‘Person to Person’ ran from 1953 to 1961…

Reagan, Carter, Anderson This is election night, 1980 at ABC New York. The big camera is an Ikegami HK 312E with the big Triax box on it’s right side. The ENG camera may be an Ikegami 77, but I’m not sure. Do you know? Source

August 27, 1968…44 Years Ago Today Dan Rather was manhandled at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Classic footage of a well remembered event. For more presidential election videos go to electionwall.org Source

RCA TK30 ‘Gun site’ This is a screen capture from an introductory article on the RCA TK30 from RCA Broadcast News in 1946. Here we have an explanation of the mysterious gun sight that attached to the top of the viewfinder hood. I think there were two types…this one with a polarized lens and…

New Year’s Eve At Times Square: A History Lesson Here’s a brand spanking new RCA TK30 above the entrance to the Hotel Astor in Times Square in 1946 shooting the merry makers below. Since the mid 1800s, Trinity Church was the gathering point, but the celebration moved to Times Square in 1904 as part…

But you knew that Green Acres wasn’t really shot outside, right? Source

London: THIS JUST IN! From the International Broadcast Center at the 2012 Summer Olympics, here is NBC’s Daytime Studio. Hosts from this location are Al Michaels and Dan Patrick. Thanks to Todd Palladino who runs one of these cameras for sending this first look at the homebase set. Hopefully, more to follow soon. Source

London Olympics Coverage…From Studio 8H This is where most of the commentary marries the video…on the floor of Studio 8H at 30 Rock. With SNL on summer break, the studio is transformed to the Announce Center. Each of these eight or so sound proof booths has 2 sides…a small producer’s side and a larger…

Jim McKay on NBC? CBS Too? Actually, yes! With the Olympics upon us, I thought you may like to know that NBC was classy enough to include Jim McKay three times in it’s Olympics coverage over the years. In 2002, ABC “loaned” McKay to NBC to serve as a special correspondent during the Winter…

1955: NBC Burbank This is the control console for an RCA TK41. The camera control unit is on the left and the colorplexer on the right with the double rows of red, blue and green knobs. You need one of these consoles for each TK41. So many knobs, so little time. Source

UPDATED with RCA BROADCAST NEWS ARTICLE Every Tuesday night, from 1954 to 1970 most of America was watching Red Skelton on CBS…I know my family did. The show as mostly done at Television City, but at some point in the late 50s, Red moved the show out of TVC. Red was a very smart…

A Funny Story… This shot of a TK11 is from WTVT in Tampa, but listen to the story that the cameraman posted along with this old photo of him. “It was my first day on camera and I was nervous. Very nervous, and alone with only the newsman and me in the studio on…

I’ve had this photo of these 10 cameras that were built by WFBM in Indianapolis for a long time and have often wondered why these guys built so many of them. Now I know. Operating now at WRTV, the station signed on the air on May 30, 1949 under the call sign WFBM-TV with…