July 10, 1950…The Original, TV Music Countdown Show Debuts

“Your Hit Parade” was television’s first ever Top Ten type music show, and radio’s too. It started on the NBC Red Network on April 20, 1935 and ran there till 1955. The television version started on NBC on this day in 1950 and ran there till ’58 when it went to CBS for a year.

In the great photo below, we see one of the show’s biggest stars, Dorothy Collins singing before the cameras at NBC’s Ziegfeld Theater, in color. The show started July 10, 1950 in NBC’s brand new Studio 6A which was converted from radio to TV on May 29, 1950.

The show needed more floor space for the 10 song scene sets, and the next year it moved to NBC’s brand new 8H which was converted to television on January 30, 1950. The show was done in color occasionally from The Colonial Theater, but went all color in 1956 when it moved to Perry Como’s new home at the Ziegfeld Theater. As a side note, the 4 RCA TK41s at the Zeigfeld were sent to Studio 8H when that beacame the “Peacock Studio” in 1963.

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