‘Camel News Caravan’ Debut…NBC’s 1949 Press Release

On February 16, 1949 John Cameron Swayze delivered the first edition of this show live from Studio 3H. ‘Camel News Caravan’ was preceded a year earlier by NBC’s first news program called ‘NBC Television Newsreel’ which was all voice on film. Some have Fox Movietone News as the film source, but RCA had a strong relationship with RKO which distributed Pathe News.

I’ve also recently discovered that NBC’s Uptown Studios, which they took over in December of 1948, was owned by Pathe. That was a three building complex which included Pathe’s labs and studios. Operation logs and news accounts suggest that NBC had a telecine room there as early as mid 1948 and that some of the film used on Swayze’s show was rolled from there, especially “breaking news”. NBC didn’t have film processing equipment in those days and used Pathe’s labs for that purpose. Late arriving film was processed quickly and without a positive print being made, could be shown, still wet, as a “hot Kine”. On screen, it looked like a positive print as the polarity was reversed on the negative’s transmission while it was running.

Here is an entire edition of Caravan from September 19, 1952…just days before Vice President Richard Nixon’s famous “Checkers” speech. As you see, the story is starting to break. Notice the stations that were aboard the network at the bottom of page two. Enjoy and Share!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK_3NBHJyBk

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