TV History

Beatles 50th Sullivan Anniversary Count Down…16 Days Who is this man and why is he on stage with The Beatles? That answer in a moment, but first the scene must be set. It was only last year that I discovered that the Beatles third Sullivan appearance on February 23 was in fact, the first…

‘The Night That Changed America’ This Sunday night, Ken Ehrlich will produce the Grammy Awards show and the next night, he’ll do the same for the Grammy’s tribute to The Beatles. That show will air on CBS February 9 at 8PM to mark the 50th anniversary of the band’s first appearance on Ed Sullivan.…

65 Years Ago This Month, RCA Introduces The 45 RMP In January of 1949, RCA rolled out the “single”, a 7 inch record that played at 45 rpm. This was in retaliation to the CBS 33 1/3 rpm “long play” albums that were introduced the year before. Prior to these developments in ’48 and…

Beatles 50th Sullivan Anniversary Count Down…17 Days The photo on the left was taken from the control room during the dress rehearsal for the February 9 live show. Most of the screaming girl footage was shot during this very long rehearsal and inserted via videotape into the live broadcast. Remember, The Beatles had already…

This Is The ONLY TK42/43 NBC Ever Owned…Shocking But True As you know, RCA owned NBC and was the world’s leading maker of television broadcast equipment so…it’s quite a wake up call when your own network doesn’t buy your “next big thing” in color cameras. Here’s the bitter sweet back story. The RCA TK42…

One Of My All Time Favorite Photos I’ve had this 8 x 10 glossy photo since 1966. Starting at age 14 (’64) I would write to NBC, CBS and ABC asking for photos of the cameras in action. Mrs. Katheryn S. Cole at NBC was gracious enough to always reply with big packs of…

The First Television News Footage? Quite Likely… In 1933, the Don Lee owned experimental station in Los Angeles, W6XAO is reported to have acquired film shot the afternoon of March 10, 1933 of the Long Beach earthquake. It was almost 6PM local time when it hit, but using rapid processing film development (where the…

Beatles 50th Sullivan Anniversary Count Down…18 Days February 9, 1964 was The Beatles debut on American television but it was more than just a performance…it was a turning point for a country that was still in shock over the assassination of President Kennedy just a few short months before. We’ll count down till the…

55 Years Ago Today, “Alfalfa” Died Source

And The Color Race Is ON! Believe it or not, In April of 1954 Westinghouse began selling the first home color television set. They beat RCA by several weeks and RCA rushed the CT 100 into production on March 25. During the color wars between CBS and RCA over the compatible color systems, manufacturers…

Remember Your First Color TV Set? This RCA model is the one our family had and we got it in 1964. What do your remember about your first color set? Source

‘Producer’s Showcase’, NBC 1954-1957 This “spectacular” was a creation of NBC President Pat Weaver and was overseen by the great producer/director Fred Coe. Thirty seven elaborate episodes of this 90 minute, live color show aired at 8PM every forth Monday. Production was done at NBC Brooklyn. The ambitious series presented original musicals or plays,…

Exclusive Rare Video! ‘Operation Disney’ Behind The Scenes With ABC On Disneyland’s Opening Day First, please share this…your friends will appreciate it as Eyes Of A Generation is the only place you can see this rare footage. This was shot by ABC over the three days prior to the Sunday, July 17, 1955 grand…

NBC Radio’s First Day & The First Network Stars NBC was America’s first radio network and the inaugural program was broadcast on sixteen stations on November 15, 1926. The show originated from NYC, Chicago and Independence Kansas. The “official” part of the broadcast came from New York’s WEAF where Sarnoff and other leaders of…

RCA Color Projection Television In October of 1951, RCA demonstrated it’s first color projection unit at The Colonial Theater. The guests saw an RCA color film on the unit and a live feed from NBC Studio 3H (where the live “coffin” color cameras were being tested). The projected images made a picture that was…

Exclusive Video Coming Tomorrow! 14 minutes of ABC film showing the preparations to broadcast the opening of Disneyland with 29 cameras, July 17, 1955. Here are some screen shots of what’s coming! Source

The Granddaddy Of Color Studios…The Colonial Theater I had given up finding a photo of the theater’s face when NBC and RCA owned it, but thanks to Lytle Hoover, we finally have it. This is where the fist production models of the RCA TK40 went into service in March of 1953. The first several…

I Wonder How This Worked Out? Below, we see an RCA TK30 owned by CBS being mounted in a Bell helicopter. I don’t know what they are shooting, but if the helicopter goes up more than a couple of hundred feet, there will be big problems for all. Notice this is a cabled camera…

First Airborne Color and First Live Use Of Color Video Tape There are several elements to this story, so let’s start with the mystery of the camera itself. Yesterday our friend Lytle Hoover, of RCA’s Broadcast Division in Camden, sent the photo on the left to several television camera collectors. We were trying to…