November 6, 1947…’Meet The Press’ Debuts, NBC

This is America’s longest running television program. Almost everyone thinks of it as a Sunday morning show, but when it started, it was a Saturday night show, and hosted by a woman.

Her name was Martha Rountree and she started as a reporter at The Tampa Tribune, but she wasn’t reporting on social occasions or homemaking. As a kind of rebel from the start, her duties included writing a sports column under the name “M. J. Rountree,” with Tribune readers none the wiser as to the sex of the journalist who was, after all, writing in a field dominated by men.

A local CBS station was impressed enough by her work that they gave her a chance to write for radio, at which she excelled. From there, she headed north to New York, where she wrote ad copy, but Rountree was not comfortable playing so minor a part of an industry she felt held greater opportunities for her.

“I got the ideas, worked them out; other people got the credit,” she lamented. “I wanted to produce myself. To prove that she meant business, she and her sister Ann, opened a production firm called Radio House, which prepared transcribed programs and singing commercials.

1945 was Rountree’s banner year. She made her mark on radio in a big way, selling the idea for two different panel shows to the Mutual Radio Network, premiering them a day apart in October. One was ‘Leave It to the Girls’, the other was ‘Meet The Press’ which debuted first on October 5, 1945.

Although frequently credited as a co-creation of Rountree and Lawrence E. Spivak, publisher and editor of American Mercury magazine, authoritative sources adamantly state that it was Rountree who developed the premise on her own, with Spivak joining up as co producer and business partner in the enterprise after the show had already debuted.

Our friend Max Schindler, who directed the show for over 20 years, had this to say about the creator credit, “Whoever conceived it, it was Spivak who made it a success…he dedicated his life to it”.

Here is more from Max, on directing the show. https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/meet-the-press?clip=15097#highlights

On November 6, 1947, while still on Mutual Radio, the show came to NBC Television. ‘Meet the Press’ was originally presented on Saturday night at 7:30 as a half hour show with a single guest and a panel of questioners. The first guest was James Farley, who served as Postmaster General, Democratic National Committee chairman and campaign manager to Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the first two terms of the New Deal Administration.

The first host was its creator, Martha Rountree, the program’s only full time female moderator to date. She stepped down on November 1, 1953 and until Ned Brooks could take over, her friend Deena Clark filled in.

Rountree was succeeded by Ned Brooks, who remained as moderator until his retirement on December 26, 1965. Although Spivak became the moderator on January 1, 1966, he did not really want the job. Max Schindler said, “Spivak didn’t want to moderate…he wanted Edwin Neuman, but NBC could not spare him, so he reluctantly took over”. He retired on November 9, 1975, on a special one-hour edition that featured, for the first time, a sitting president, Gerald Ford, as the guest.

The next week, Bill Monroe, previously a weekly panelist like Spivak took over as moderator and stayed until June 2, 1984. For the next seven and a half years, the program then went through a series of hosts as it struggled in the ratings against ABC’s ‘This Week with David Brinkley’. Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb (as co-moderators) followed Monroe for a year, followed by Chris Wallace from 1987 to 1988. Garrick Utley hosted ‘Meet the Press’ from 1989 through December 1, 1991 at which time Tim Russert took over, and not long after that, the show went to a one hour format.

Russert’s untimely death gave David Gregory the seat, and now Chuck Todd is host.

Rountree died on August 23, 1999, in Washington, where she had made her name as one of the key figures in political reporting. Tim Russert, summed up her status in the medium by declaring, “She was a news pioneer who helped create a national treasure, Meet the Press.” Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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Happy Trails! Colbert’s Gentle Sendoff To John Meiklejohn…

One of the best cameramen in the business retired last night, and Stephen gave his 11 year friend this send off. I’ve heard that as far back as 1966, they were telling JMJ stories.

This reminds me of the send off David Letterman gave to our friend, and CBS legend Dave Dorsett. Like Dave, I suspect John may be back from time to time to “fill in”. Happy Trails! -Bobby Ellerbee

https://twitter.com/colbertlateshow/status/793310612386254849

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Today, he would have been 100 years old.

“Whatever the cost of education, the price is cheap compared with an ignorant nation”. -Walter Cronkite

This is Mr. Cronkite in Studio 42 at the CBS Grand Central studios.

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November 2, 1959…The Game Show Scandal Breaks Wide Open

It was on this day in 1959 that Charles Van Doren admitted before a congressional committee that he had indeed received the answers to the questions on “Twenty One”.

Here is Herb Stempel discussing loosing to Charles Van Doren by missing the “Marty’ Question. For all of us that have seen the movie “Quiz Show”, you must admit that the movie was very accurate in it’s portrayal of this whole story.

One of the key players in the “Twenty One” story, was producer Dan Enright. At this link is a very interesting and detailed article on Enright’s part, his rise and fall, and his eventual return to television with the shows “Jokers Wild” and “Tic, Tac, Dough”.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/peopleevents/pande04.html

Actually, “Dotto” with host Jack Narz was the first show to be found rigged, and went off the air in August 1958. Narz was cleared of any wrong doing, but game shows were not, and over a three month period, all were canceled on every network, including “Twenty One”, which last aired October 16, 1958. -Bobby Ellerbee

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You Won’t Believe Your Eyes! How To Make Miniature TV Studio

A few years back, our friend Jim Wickey made a beautiful, perfectly detailed studio for a real TV show. The RCA TK11 scale models are stunningly realistic, but are made of cardboard. Here are some shots of the finished product, and…his how to instructions. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee

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October 31, 1953 & 1965…Two Color Television Firsts!

On October 31, 1953, NBC broadcast the first one hour color program to the full network. The production was a truncated version of the opera, “Carmen”. It was done from NBC/RCA’s only color facility, The Colonial Theater in New York.

At the time, the only color transmitter was an experimental model at WNBT in New York, but the goal was not measure how many people saw it in color…the goal was to measure how well the millions of monochrome sets received the “color compatible” signal.

The cameras used were the four RCA TK40 prototypes. The one hour presentation also included an audio trick or two. In passages where the vocal performance was critical, but extreme movement in dance numbers was too, look-alike actors were subtly inserted on stage to dance and lip synch while the principal operatic stars sang off stage. The principals would quietly return to stage and sing in more static shots.

On October 31, 1965, “The Ed Sullivan Show” debuted in color from its home at CBS Studio 50, with at least four new Norelco PC60s. On a few occasions before this, the show had been colorcast, but those were done from Television City, when the show was visiting the west coast.

18 months later, Studio 50 was re-equipped with Marconi Mark VII color cameras. Hallow Happyween! -Bobby Ellerbee

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October 30, 1931…NBC Begins Work On Empire State Tower

On this day in 1931, NBC began putting a TV transmitter and antenna on top of the Empire State Building. The first experimental TV broadcast from the building was on December 22, 1931.

As you can see in these photos, which were all taken before 1935, there was no tall mast on the building at the time…just kind of a rounded dome. The RCA tower was built on top of that.

RCA’s first experimental television transmissions began in 1928 on station W2XBS located near the Van Cortlandt Park area in the Bronx. Within a year it was moved to the New Amsterdam Theater Building, transmitting 60 line pictures in the new 2-3 mHz band allocated to television.

A 13 inch Felix the Cat figure made of paper mache was placed on a record player turntable and was broadcast using a mechanical scanning disk to a scanning disk receiver. The image received was only 2 inches tall, and the broadcasts lasted about 2 hours per day. By 1930 the station became part of NBC and began to transmit from NBC’s new home at 711 5th Avenue.

The Empire State Building was completed in May of 1931, and RCA leased the 85th floor for a studio and transmitter location for experimental television broadcasts. RCA, through its broadcasting division NBC, applied to the Federal Radio Commission on July 1, 1931 for construction permits for the sight and sound channels of a television station, which were issued on July 24, 1931.

The call sign W2XF was issued in December 1931 for the “sight” channel of that station on an assigned frequency of 44Mc. The RCA transmitter had an input power to the final stage of about 5Kw, giving an estimated power output to the antenna of about 2Kw.

The sound channel of the TV station was separately licensed as W2XK for a 2.5Kw transmitter to operate on 61Mc. Both transmitters were located on the 85th floor and used separate vertical dipole antennas.

In 1936, the tall tower like structure was added as a mooring mast for blimps. The winds proved to be too strong and there were several near accidents in mooring tests, but it did make for a great new antenna mount. -Bobby Ellerbee

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EOAG Exclusive Photos…’The Doctors’, NBC Studio 3B

Thanks to Bob Batsche, and Glenn Mack, we have these these rare color photos that they took on the set in 3B, and thanks to Chuck Snitchler, we have a shot of the slate from the first color episode which would air December 4, 1967, but was taped almost a month before.

On April 1, 1963, ‘The Doctors’ replaced Merv Griffin’s first daytime talk show in the 2:30 time slot, where it remained for nearly sixteen years. This is an extraordinary feat considering the competition, which included long-running favorites such as ‘House Party with Art Linkletter’ on CBS and ABC’s ‘Dating Game’. On occasion, it was also up against one of the longest-running soap operas in television history,’The Guiding Light’ on CBS.

In a move the proved fatal, NBC moved ‘The Doctors’ to 12 noon eastern on March 29, 1982. The show aired its final episode on December 31, 1982, some three months before it would have celebrated its 20th anniversary on NBC.

Frankly, I am stunned that NBC, or any network, would offer any programing at noon on a weekday in the 80s, as there was always a half hour of local news at noon. I have seen a mid 70s CBS daytime schedule that leaves open the 12 – 12:30 block for local programing. I wonder why NBC didn’t do that? Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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The Original Beauty Of The Ed Sullivan Theater…Rare Images From 1927

More of the history of the venue is in the original article below. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

Rare Ed Sullivan Theater Photos…1927

I love it that these rare photos are now pouring in! Take a look!

This is the theater as is looked when it was built. It opened in 1927 as The Hammerstein Theater and was designed by architect Herbert Krapp who designed about a dozen of NYC’s most famous theaters. Due to the depression, the theater closed in 1931.

It was taken over by Broadway Billy Rose and became a night club with all the theater seating removed and replaced by tables. In 1936, CBS took a long term lease on the building and converted it to CBS Radio Theater 3 (one of five in NYC). The first radio show from here was “The Major Bowes Amateur Hour”.

In early 1950, the theater was converted to television and became CBS Studio 50. The first broadcast was “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” show. Godfrey’s talent show had been on CBS radio for over a year and originated here before the TV conversion. Thanks to Simon Crawshaw and Nick Van Hoogstratten for the rare photos. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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October 23, 1956…Videotape Debut Network TV: Setting The Record Straight

Most people think the November 30, 1956 time delayed broadcast of “CBS News With Douglas Edwards” was the first use of videotape on network television. That is not correct, but it was the first use of tape as a time-shifter, in that the east coast broadcast was videotaped at Television City for rebroadcast two hours later to the mountain and west coast time zones.

As for the first known network use of videotape, that happened 60 years ago today at NBC. At the time, “The Jonathan Winters Show” was 4 weeks old. The 15 minute variety show ran from 7:30-7:45 Tuesday nights, just before “The Camel News Caravan” with John Cameron Swayze, replacing one of the two weekly Diana Shore shows that had for years, aired in that slot on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

On October 23, 1956, the NBC engineers in New York wanted to see if the viewing public could tell the difference between a videotape and the live portion of the show. Jonathan’s musical guest that night was Dorothy Collins, of “Your Hit Parade” fame. She had a new record out called “The Italian Theme” and her performance, with dancers and backup singers, was recorded earlier in the day. During the live show, Winters introduced her, as if she was there, and the tape rolled seamlessly. In case there was a problem, NBC had extra operators on duty that night in New York, and to their great relief and amazement, no one called or noticed. With that quiet event, videotape had passed the final acceptance test.

Remember, this is only six months after Ampex introduced videotape at the 1956 NAB in April. In the book “A Companion To American Technology”, Carroll Pursell reports that a month later, in November of ’56, Winters used videotape to play two characters in the same sketch. Unfortunately, there is no kinescope or tape of this historic event either, and about all that’s available from Jonathan’s 1956 show is this single program. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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