When Networks Owned Their Own Remote Fleets
On December 27, 2013
- TV History
When Networks Owned Their Own Remote Fleets
Above is a good video of the inner workings and equipment in one of the first CBS Color Mobile Units equipped with Norelco cameras. I’m not sure when the last network owned units were sold, but I think by the late 80s, ABC, CBS and NBC were pretty much all out of the business of owning trucks and were leasing them. Labor costs was one of the major reasons they got out of the mobile business and companies like NEC and ESPN began to really take off.
MU 10
When CBS lost the NFL after the 1993 season, FOX used the CBS trucks on the NFL, NHL and MLB for several years.
Further info regarding CBS Mobile Units: I was also the Project Manager for the build of two Tractor Trailer Units during this 1985-1986 period and they were designated MU 11 & !2. The last CBS built Mobile Unit was MU-1 in 1991. This unit was built for the Albertville Winter Olympics. This also was my design. I retired from CBS in 1995 and CBS still had their own fleet of mobile trucks. A few years after my retirement, CBS sold off their fleet of Mobile Units.
The Mobile Unit shown in your post is not the same unit shown in the video. This unit is CBS Mobile Unit 10 which was specifically designed for use by CBS Washington. It was built around 1985 or 1986. I was the Project Manager for this build.
@Gustavo …The switcher looks very similar to an RCA Model TS40. The TS40’s that we had at NBC Chicago had the square Pendar switches where the switcher in this truck had the round buttons. Note that all CBS installations at the time had the Director to the right of the TD, whereas all the NBC control rooms had the Director sitting to the left of the TD.
They would lease them back but they could not keep them maintained.
Could anyone tell me the manufacturer and model of the production switcher within this OB truck? Thank you in advance.
How do you go from making cameras to electric razors?
Also… A whole special on a color truck produced in black and white. Funny.
As the truck pulled away my first thought was, “they didn’t pull power! CALL AN ENGINEER!!”
A sidebar: Look how good the CBS logo looks!
Never heard of those cameras. Who made them?
I remember working on some of the CBS units doing NFL football and college basketball still into the mid ’90s.
A friend designed the first expanding sides trucks for CBS, AF took on the design after.
NBC had their units till 1995 or so. I worked an AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh where NEP was taking ownership of all of their trucks that week after the show. ABC may have been until the late 90’s and I think they were sold in pieces. I know their best trucks at the time went to NMT.