A Day In The WABC TV News Room…1973
A Day In The WABC TV News Room…1973
In an a year that has been so tumultuous for the television news business, when even fair and accurate reporting has come under attack, I thought this would be a good time to take a look back at how the process actually unfolds at a big local news department.
This great video is nearly a half hour long, and takes us through a full day of activity at the WABC news room, and studio. From assignment editors handing out local stories to crews and reporters, including Geraldo Rivera, to rushing film via motorcycle couriers back for editing, and finally to air with anchors Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby.
According to the address above the door, this newsroom was at 77 West 66th Street, at the corner of Columbus Avenue, where the WABC news studio is now. The street numbers, and the ABC campus have changed a bit over the years and I think the live studio they were running to is in what is now 77 West 66th.
As you will see, the studio is a few buildings down, and was perhaps in 7 West 66th. Every piece of film and graphics, and talent had to make the mad dash down the street to the studio building.
You may have noticed the redundant use of the word “film”, but in ’73…that was still the main medium for news. At least it was color though, and took 40 minutes to develop.
The process of getting the script to teleprompters starts at around 18.5 minutes in and the broadcast shots come soon after.
Some nice shots of the editing process here, and the Norelco cameras have the extra tall dome tally lights…interestingly, only the very top of the tube light illuminates and you’ll hear the anchors discuss that at the very end, after the broadcast. Those tall tally lights were after-market-add-ons and were made to be taller than the teleprompters most mounted above the lens, but WABC is using and under lens setup.
Even for those of us not from New York, there are a lot of memories here like the Vietnam war protest Geraldo is covering, Burt Reynolds and Dianne Canon who are making “Shamus”, and for New Yorkers, a lot of drive by memories from the news cars.
Thanks to long time ABC cameraman Howie Ziedman for the video link. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
Geraldo is still working at 73 years of age.
If today’s technology existed in 1973:
“Good evening, I’m Roger Grimsby; here now the news. Right now, there’s a protest going on against the Vietnam War outside the ITT Building and violence has erupted throughout. Geraldo Rivera is live at Park Avenue with the very latest.”
In Alaska, the Anchorage and Fairbanks stations used drug stores as their “film lab”, some times, they would fly the films down to Alpha Cine Labs in Seattle (the only full-service processing facility in the Northwest. ENG would gradually arrive in around 1977-78, and film was completely phased out by late 1980-early 1981.
News film made it into the 1980s. At least in the big markets there were union issues; film was generally in the hands of IATSE, while electronic stuff belonged to NABET or the IBEW. Also age issues – as many film cameramen were older; some were actual newsreel guys who took on TV. Rather than being retrained , joining another union, losing seniority and an initiation fee, many left.
“…as late as ’73”? That’s over 40 years ago…lol! Seriously, in Philadelphia film was still the mainstay in 1977. I was an intern at WPVI then, and I believe that’s when they got their first real ENG truck. Videotape was beginning to make inroads, but was time consuming and awkward to edit.