Republican National Convention: 1940

This is an RCA Iconoscope camera from experimental station W3XE (now KYW) covering the RNC in Philadelphia for NBC in June of 1940, where Wendell Willkie was chosen to run against FDR.

The channel 3 facility in Philadelphia is one of the world’s oldest television stations. It began in 1932 as W3XE and was owned by the Philco Corporation. In 1941, it began sharing programs with W2XBS (later WNBT and now WNBC-TV) in New York City, becoming NBC’s second television affiliate, and creating a link between the station and the network that would last for 54 years.

On July 1, 1941, W3XE received a commercial license, the third in the United States, and the first outside New York City. The station signed on for the first time on September 1 as WPTZ. Like others, they significantly cut back operations after the U.S. entered World War II, but returned to a full schedule in 1945. It then became one of three stations (along with WNBT and WRGB in Schenectady, New York) that premiered NBC’s regular television service in 1946. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation, owner of Philadelphia’s NBC radio affiliate KYW (1060 AM), purchased WPTZ in 1953 for a then-record price of $8.5 million.

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