Welcome to the Archives section. On these expanded and updated pages, you will read and hear untold stories and see unique images by the hundreds dating from the earliest days of television, to the present.

The content here was not widely available to the general public and contains a lot of information that was created for internal use, or as business-to-business material from broadcasters and affiliated industries. This is also home to unique, unpublished information contributed by authors, and a good example is the great AT&T Book…Connecting The Continent For Radio And Television by our friend Mark Durenberger and others.

Some of the other exclusive features of this page include my Total Color Camera Sales In The US, The Ellerbee Classic Camera Census, and First Person, An Oral History of Broadcast Television. Hundreds of new entries on a variety of television topics have been added, with more to come. -Bobby Ellerbee

Above, “Tonight” show in NBC Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Plaza circa 1963. 

RCA Red Book, "The History"...Holy Grail Of Early Color Television History, Part 2 of 2

RCA Red Book, “The History”…Holy Grail Of Early Color Television History, Part 2 of 2

In 1953, RCA submitted 700 pages of documentation to the FCC as a “Petition For Approval of Color Standards for ...
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RCA Color Television...Best Color History Primer Ever!

RCA Color Television…Best Color History Primer Ever!

From the David Sarnoff introduction to the history highlights at the end, this is one of the best short study ...
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December 6, 1948...CBS Studio 50's Television Debut

December 6, 1948…CBS Studio 50’s Television Debut

December 6, 1948…CBS Studio 50’s Television Debut On this day in 1948, what had been the CBS Radio Theater #3 ...
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November 17, 1946...TV's 1st Magazine Style Show Debuts

November 17, 1946…TV’s 1st Magazine Style Show Debuts

November 17, 1946…TV’s 1st Magazine Style Show Debuts “Television Screen Magazine” was the show, and it may have been the ...
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AT&T Book...Connecting The Continent For Radio And Television

AT&T Book…Connecting The Continent For Radio And Television

By far, the most informative collection of information I have ever seen on early telephony and broadcasting. Without AT&T’s help, ...
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NBC "Chimes Magazine"...554 Pages Of Network History '52-'54...

NBC “Chimes Magazine”…554 Pages Of Network History ’52-’54…

Here is a 1953 report on color television progress at The Colonial Theater, which is just one of many dozens ...
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November 8, 1952...NBC's First Full Color Facility Debuts

November 8, 1952…NBC’s First Full Color Facility Debuts

On this day in 1952, The Colonial Theater broadcast it’s first color production to the network. Fittingly, the show was ...
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ATT Telephone TV Skyway

ATT Telephone TV Skyway

A brief, but informative look at the ATT effort to span the continent with new coaxial and microwave relay systems ...
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Total Color Camera Sales, USA, 1954-1982, RCA & All Other Brands

Total Color Camera Sales, USA, 1954-1982, RCA & All Other Brands

Total Color Camera Count for USA 1954-1982 from RCA, and 1964-1981 including all major brands Thanks to our friend Lytle Hoover ...
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Ellerbee Classic Camera Census

This is the world’s first and only count of the remaining studio size television cameras from the Golden Age and ...
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Starting From Scratch...The Earliest CBS Grand Central Studios Images

Starting From Scratch…The Earliest CBS Grand Central Studios Images

In the fall of 1939, CBS began work on the area they had chosen to become their premier television studio ...
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Gray Research Telop Machine, Television's First Optical Projection System

Gray Research Telop Machine, Television’s First Optical Projection System

Thanks to Val Ginter in NYC, here is a rare copy of the 1953 Gray catalog with a price list ...
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NBC’s Former Brooklyn Studios

Blueprints of the former NBC studios in Brooklyn ...
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RCA Broadcast News, January 1954

“Color Television – What It Means To Broadcasters” is the tile of this issue, and this was the first issue ...
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RCA Broadcast News, April 1961

From April 1961, here is what EVERYBODY was doing with color. From networks to local stations and cameras to tape, ...
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RCA Broadcast News, October 1946

RCA introduces television’s first workhorse…the TK30 Image Orthicon Camera…in a multi-page article. This was the first IO camera, the first ...
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October 18, 1952...RCA's First Experimental Color Football Broadcast

October 18, 1952…RCA’s First Experimental Color Football Broadcast

Below is a rare look at RCA/NBC’s first color remote unit, used for this color-cast. Although it was seen by ...
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“Howdy Doody” Script, 1960

Thanks to our good friend Gady Reinhold at the CBS Broadcast Center, here is one of the many treasures from ...
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1935: “The House That Radio Built”

Here is the 32 page book on how NBC’s headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was built. In this rare, 1935 ...
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RCA History In The Making....Rare Original Design Sketchs

RCA History In The Making….Rare Original Design Sketchs

I am pleased to share a page from my collection of rarities, a few rare design drawings made by our ...
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