TV History

June 1, 1980…CNN Debuts As The First All News Network 36 years ago today, The Cable New Network went live at 5 PM with anchors Lois Hart and Dave Walker after a brief dedication ceremony from Ted Turner…you can see the first hour here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2m8s&v=rWhgKuKvvPE&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=BrandonMillman Below are photos from our friend Jeff Jeffares taken…

May 30, 1949…WFBM Signs On With 10 Camera Indy 500 Coverage Operating now as WRTV, what is now Indiana’s oldest TV station, signed on the air on May 30, 1949 under the call sign WFBM-TV with a film documentary entitled “Crucible of Speed”, covering the history of the Indianapolis 500. Here’s where it gets…

NBC New York: Radio City TV Studios & Theaters Chronology 1935 -1956 This is the first ever, known, chronological listing of the conversions of NBC’s Radio City studios. Included in this exclusive Eyes Of A Generation time line, are the outside performance theaters, and their conversion dates to NBC Television theaters. This compilation gives…

May 29, 1950…Dual Debut! “Broadway Open House”, NBC Studio 6A When 30 Rockefeller Plaza was dedicated in November of 1933, the sixth and seventh floors were empty. The only thing in this space was the raw infrastructure and some work lights, and the elevators didn’t stop there till 1941. In 1933, television was still…

May 27, 1972…George Carlin Debuts The Infamous “7 Words” Sketch 44 years ago today, George Carlin’s now-legendary, “7 Words You Can Never Say On Television” sketch from the “Class Clown” album, was performed in concert for the first time. It was an instant hit! A few years ago, Carlin discussed this in an interview…

The Reason For Experimental TV, Involved Consumer Protections… On July 1, 1941, the era of commercial television began in the US, when NBC’s W2XBS became WNBT and CBS’s W2XAB became WCBW. (Until 1946, network flagship radio, or television stations could not be named after the network). It may surprise you to know that during…

Picture Parade…A Random Walk Through Some Interesting TV History There is more on each photo. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee Source

May 24, 1974…The Last “Dean Martin Show” Aired On NBC To celebrate 9 years of first class television, in spectacular living color, here’s an hour’s worth of highlights from Producer/Director Greg Garrison, with a great, rarely seen 8 minutes of Jonathan Winters ad libbing his way through an attic (11:42). There’s also Lena Horne,…

May 23, 1964…And Away We Go…From NYC To Miami Beach Jackie Gleason’s last show from his longtime home, at CBS Studio 50 in New York (now The Ed Sullivan Theater), aired May 23, 1964. After the summer break, the show debuted from The Miami Beach Convention Center on September 26. Below is a photo…

May 22, 1950…The Start Of Late Night TV…Almost The man circled in this photo is Don “Creesh” Hornsby. NBC’s Pat Weaver choose Hornsby to host network television’s first late night show called “Broadway Open House”. The show was scheduled to debut at 11 PM, on May 22, 1950 from NBC Studio 6B. In the…

May 21, 1992…Johnny Carson’s Final Guest, Bette Midler, 3 Songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pH60UR5HAg First 2 Songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGh6ZgPZFhs Final Song On the night before the final show, there could not have been a more perfect final guest, or send off than the one seen here. Most mostly remember Bette’s final song, but before you watch that, watch…

May 20, 1939…First Television Picture Sent Over Telephone Lines 77 years ago today, NBC sent television images from Madison Square Gardens, to 30 Rockefeller Plaza over AT&T telephone lines. Over the course of the six day bicycle race event, three broadcasts were done, with each being a little better than the last, due to…

May 20, 2015…The Final David Letterman Show Airs In some ways, it seems like this was just yesterday…in other ways, it feels like Dave has been gone for a lot longer. Here, some of the show’s long time staff members talk about how the end came, and their feelings at the time, and after.…

May 19, 1945…Dumont’s W3XYT Signs On In Washington DC With NBC/RCA having come to DC in 1939 with W3XNB, Dumont was the second experimental station in the capitol. In 1947, this became WTTG, and was named after Thomas T. Goldsmith, Dumont’s chief of engineering. Dumont’s first “network” consisted of a linkage from their WABD…

Prime Time Television…1948 And ’49, With My Detailed Notes This is just amazing…what you will see here are some of the first ever 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…

NBC’s RARE Gift To Carson On His 10th “Tonight” Anniversary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATMqQVjr0ys&ab_channel=GlennMack2Night Thanks to Glenn Mack, here is a clip (linked above) you have probably never seen…I know I hadn’t until now. This is from the 10th Anniversary show on October 1, 1972. There is more video from this celebration with Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin,…

May 17, 1939…Television’s First Sports Announcer & Baseball Game On May 17, 1939 NBC broadcast a baseball game between Princeton and Columbia Universities from Columbia’s Baker Field. Two RCA Iconoscope cameras covered the event that was carried on NBC’s experimental station W2XBS in New York. Princeton beat Colombia 2 -1. The rare color image…

May 17, 1930…Construction Begins On Rockefeller Center Of the 21 buildings on 15 acres in midtown New York, that make up Rockefeller Center, none are more famous than Radio City Music Hall, and the home of NBC…30 Rockefeller Plaza. In the construction photo, we see in the center, the excavated footprint of 30 Rock.…

May 16, 1946…70 Years Ago Today, America Met Audio Tape As a compliment to today’s earlier story on the history of AMPEX, here is a companion article on Jack Mullin, who, on this day in 1946, stunned attendees at the annual Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) conference in San Francisco. There, with a captured…