TV History

Network Television’s First, Live, Country Music Show From July 5, 1953 – September 13, 1953, the Dumont Network broadcast the ‘Old American Barn Dance’ live from 10:30 till 11 on Sunday nights. This was a summer replacement show done from Chicago. In 1949, ABC had been the first with country music on television with…

Inside NBC Studio 8H… Here’s a little over a minute of video shot during the set up session for Rihanna’s band in December of 2009. This is usually done Thursday mornings with load in and sound check done by 1 o’clock and and a run through of the songs done around 2 when camera…

‘Saturday Night Live’ Run Sheets…Dress, Air And Map With tonight bringing SNL Season 39 to a close, we’re celebrating with all today’s posts focusing on this great American treasure and the world’s only remaining live, variety style network show. We’ve all heard the stories about the sketches that are cut between the dress rehearsal…

The Rooftop Gardens At Rockefeller Center…Rare Gems This is an excellent piece on the gardens with lots of photos but the 30 Rock garden is not mentioned or shown here. Fortunately, much of that can be seen in today’s first post of the SNL promos for tonight’s season finale. http://inhabitat.com/nyc/the-rockefeller-centers-rooftop-gardens-are-a-hidden-urban-treasure/ Rockefeller Center’s Rooftop Gardens…

SNL Promos…The 30 Rock Rooftop Garden There are several rooftop gardens in Rockefeller Center, but I think this location is actually on top of the 11 story studio building at 30 Rock, and may even be directly over Studio 8H. In the comment section below, our friend Dennis Degan has posted links to his…

Classic! Source

Just For Fun…One Of Television’s First “Mishaps” In the late 1930s, when TV was just a baby, there were bloopers and blunders everywhere because it was all new, but this little gem is a bit different! It’s a story I was told on my recent visit to NY and happened in NBC’s studio 3H…

Yet More Classic Letterman…13 Cameras In The Studio If you look closely, you’ll notice there are actually three different kinds of RCA TK47s on the set. The TK47 with multi core cable was introduced in 1978 and we see some of that cable along with triax cable that came with the TK47B in 1982.…

The Durland Riding Club…Now Home To ABC New York As you can read on the photo captions, the Durland Riding Club with it’s academy and stables was built on the site now occupied by ABC in 1901. The building had a front on both 66th and 67th Street, just west of Central Park. These…

Barbara Walters… The Stormy Arrival In 1976 And Her Smooth Departure Tomorrow On Monday, the ABC News building was re named “The Barbara Walters Building” and these photos are in the lobby of 47 West 66 Street. The ABC News building is among several buildings that make up the ABC complex along 66th Street,…

Inside ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ This has always been one of my favorite shows. There is a line in a Lionel Richie song that says it all…”easy like a Sunday morning”, and that’s just the way it feels. Actually, that’s the foundation it was built on; to be like the magazine section of the Sunday…

Did You Ever Wonder Why Early TV Sets Used A Mirror? Me too, but now I know. As odd as it seems now, the mirror was actually not a bad solution to a big problem. The first cathode ray tubes for home receivers were actually quite long and a chassis for it would have…

NBC Chimes History, Part 2 Here is a page from Broadcasting Magazine’s February, 1950 edition announcing the NBC Chime sound to be the first ever “service mark” to be protected by a US patent. The article goes on to cover a bit of the history of the chimes, including the 1938 electronic version built…

The Poor Bastards Never Had A Chance…The NABET Strike, 1987 As we know, Dave loves to play with the staff and crew, but when the technicians strike rolled around, management had to step in and Letterman pulled all the stops to “play” with them. This should start at the intro to ‘Dave’s Record Collection’…

You Mean There’s No SET??? Inside, ‘Inside Edition’ Last week, inside CBS Studio 45, I was stunned to learn that this green screen area is where Deborah Norville hosts ‘Inside Edition’. Don’t freak out, but this is not the only show done this way and the list of others is growing. In the photos…

The Race Against Time And The Ultimate Dropout… Our friend Richard Wirth has a new article on how preservationists are reviving videotapes…at least long enough to play them through into a digital format. It is literally a “sticky business”, but thankfully there are people making the effort. Here’s a look at how they are…

’60 Minutes’…The Man Behind “The Look”, Arthur Bloom Shown below are photos of the door to the ’60 Minutes’ Studio 33, including a memorial plaque to Arthur Bloom, a major innovator of television graphics. Arthur Bloom was the award-winning CBS News television director responsible for the distinctive on-screen look of 60 Minutes since its…

’60 Minutes’ And The Green Screens At CBS As a followup to the photos of the current set, I thought it would be fun to take a look back. On the left is one of the original set chairs from ’60 Minutes’ on display in the lobby of the CBS Broadcast Center. It is…

’60 Minutes’…On The Set With so much green screen around, it was a nice surprise to find the ’60 Minutes’ set dressed in blue. When CBS started buying Norelco PC60s by the dozens in 1965, a medium blue was the prefered chroma key background then, but by around 1970 green began to take over…

The Special Effects Lesson…More Classic Letterman On March 17, 1983, Dave takes a walk down the hall to NBC’s Studio 6A control room for a demonstration of some of the video effects the show uses. Director Hal Gurnee is there along with Emmy winning TD Terry Rohnke. This was episode 24 of season 2.…