Soon after the passing of CBS great Don Hewitt, I got a note from my friend Steve Dichter with an interesting question and a photo, shown below. It’s a video capture from a 60 Minutes montage of Hewitt’s early work and introduces innovation number four, but first…innovations one, two and three.

Don Hewitt was the producer of the first of four Kennedy-Nixon debates that were broadcast nationwide on radio and television in 1960. He’s seen below with both men just before air at the WBBM-TV studios in Chicago. Although he “officially” produced only the first debate, I do think he consulted on the following three. But even if he didn’t, one of his creations was there for all four events.

CBS hosted the first debate at WBBM in Chicago, NBC the second from WRC in Washington D.C., and ABC the third and fourth rounds. In debate three, Kennedy was in New York and Nixon in Los Angeles. Now that would account for innovations one and two, as this was the first time presidential candidates had debated on television, and the first-ever bi-coastal debate with split screens and more. Below is a photo of Kennedy at the WABC-TV studios in New York during the third debate. Nixon was at KABC-TV in Los Angeles.

Innovation number three came in the fourth and final debate. It can be seen in the photo below. Can you spot it?

The final debate came from Studio TV 1 at ABC in New York. In the photo above from that night, notice that the mic booms have two microphones. Now there was an instant backup in case there was an audio problem. This is thought to be the first use of dual mics on booms.

And now for the big finish…innovation number four. Above, you can see a back shot of Kennedy and Nixon in Chicago. Notice the large boxes on top of the TK11s. So far, we haven’t seen whatever those are in action. Below, the question is answered.

Now we can clearly see that’s a countdown clock that shows one-minute, 30-second and 10-second warnings to the candidates that their time is expiring. This was Don Hewitt’s innovation. These timers, or duplicates, were used in all four of these televised debates. If you look closely at the images above, you can see them in every studio. That’s innovation number four, but before we leave, two more photos deserve a look.

Above is one of the two remaining cameras used in the first historic debate at WBBM. It belongs to the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.

Below is the other WBBM camera, on display at the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Below is a link to the MBC site and to a page showing some of Steve Dichter’s vintage television collection. Also included for the younger set is a little general background on the debates themselves.

http://www.museum.tv/

http://www.tvhistory.tv/Dichter.htm

The key turning point of the campaign were the four Kennedy-Nixon debates; they were the first presidential debates held on television, and thus attracted enormous publicity. Nixon insisted on campaigning until just a few hours before the first debate started; he had not completely recovered from a recent hospital stay and thus looked pale, sickly, underweight, and tired. He also refused makeup for the first debate, and as a result his beard stubble showed prominently on the era’s black-and-white TV screens.

Nixon’s poor appearance on television in the first debate is reflected by the fact that his mother called him immediately following the debate to ask if he was sick. Kennedy, by contrast, rested before the first debate and appeared tanned, confident, and relaxed during the debate. An estimated 80 million viewers watched the first debate. Most people who watched the debate on TV believed Kennedy had won while radio listeners (a smaller audience) believed Nixon had won.

After it had ended polls showed Kennedy moving from a slight deficit into a slight lead over Nixon. For the three remaining debates, Nixon regained his lost weight, wore television makeup, and appeared more forceful than his initial appearance. However, up to 20 million fewer viewers watched the three remaining debates than the first debate. Political observers at the time believed that Kennedy won the first debate, Nixon won the second and third debates, and that the fourth debate, which was seen as the strongest performance by both men, was a draw.

Below is a shot of the Today set in the RCA Exhibition Hall on January 14, 1952, the morning the program first went on the air. Host (or “communicator”) Dave Garroway is at his desk welcoming viewers to a new concept in television.  Television pioneer – and my friend – Frank Merklein is behind the RCA TK30 to the right. NBC cameraman Howard Katzman also worked that first Today show, and all the rest, for 16 years.

Today is one of Pat Weaver’s great ideas, and like so many of them, lives on as a legacy to NBC Television’s first president. Today was the first show of its genre and it was seen live only in the Eastern and Central time zones, broadcasting three hours per morning but seen for only two hours in each time zone. Since 1958, Today is tape-delayed for the different time zones.

In 1996, NBC started feeding all four continental time zones from New York using Tektronix Profile video servers. With the final conversion of Broadcast Operations Control to high definition completed in 2009, Today is now seen in HD on network feeds live in the East and delayed for the three later time zones in the continental US.

For many years Today was a two-hour program, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in all time zones except for Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. Virgin Islands, until NBC expanded it to three hours on October 2, 2000. A fourth hour was added on September 10, 2007.

Above is the NBC Broadcast Operations Center on the second floor of 30 Rock prior to its 2009 HD conversion. Here you see the center of the “front deck” with controls for all 40 channels of NBC’s output feeds. Channels 9 through 12 (left to center) are the four time zone outputs for NBC’s regular standard definition feeds. Text displays indicate the status of each channel. Picture monitors at the top show the outputs of each channel while the lower monitor displays a received return of the respective channel for transmission assurance. Audio bar graphs similarly indicate the status of audio for each channel.

The Today program first originated from the RCA Exhibition Hall on 49th Street (above photo) in a space now occupied by the Christie’s auction house, just down the block from the current studio. The first set placed a functional newsroom in the studio, which Garroway called “the nerve center of the world.” The barrier between backstage and on-stage was virtually nonexistent. Garroway and the on-air staff often walked through the newsroom set. Glimpses of camera crew and technicians were a frequent occurrence, as were off-screen voices conversing with Garroway. Gradually, machines and personnel were placed behind the scenes to assemble the news and weather reports, and the newsroom was gone by 1955.

From that very first morning, the big storefront window attracted onlookers. But as Today gained popularity, the window went from being a curiosity to an attraction. During intervals when recorded music was played, the in-studio cameras would often turn and do slow pans of the faces outside. Often people would bring signs with a message for family and friends watching back home. Sometimes Garroway would go out and talk to some of the folks outside, as we see him above doing on a sunny morning in March 1957.

After a complaint from Philco that staging Today in a streetfront studio provided RCA an unfair advantage in marketing its products, Today moved out of the Exhibition Hall, broadcasting its first program from Studio 3K in the RCA Building on July 7, 1958. Soon after, most portions of Today began to be videotaped the prior afternoon, with the only live segments being Frank Blair’s news updates. Although this arrangement allowed more flexibility in scheduling guests, who were no longer tied to Today‘s early hours, the change was mainly an accommodation for Dave Garroway, who was facing exhaustion and health issues. This practice continued until Garroway left Today in July 1961.

On July 9, 1962, Today began broadcasting from the Florida Showcase, a glassed-in storefront at 61 West 49th Street at the ground level of 30 Rock, leased by the Florida tourism board. The program would originate from the storefront in the morning, then cameras and sets would be stowed before the storefront opened for regular business.

This arrangement lasted until September 13, 1965, when Today moved back inside the NBC studios. Not only did the move back to a regular studio simplify matters, but it allowed Today to go all-color. NBC couldn’t justify allocating four huge and expensive color cameras to the Florida Showcase.

For the next twenty years, the show occupied a series of studios on the third, sixth, and eighth floors of 30 Rock, notably Studio 3K in the 1970s, Studio 8G (adjacent to Studio 8H, home to Saturday Night Live) in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and finally Studio 3K from 1983 to 1994. Today moved to the current street side studio (Studio 1A) on June 13, 1994, just east of the former RCA Exhibition Hall, providing a link to the show’s 1950s origins. In this 2014 shot, note the temporary barricades that are set up each morning for the fans who gather outside.

In 2006, Studio 1A underwent a major renovation to prepare for high-definition broadcasting. While a new set was readied that summer, the program originated from a temporary outdoor studio in Rockefeller Plaza. It was the same set NBC used at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, in 2006 at Torino, and it would be re-used for Beijing in 2008.

Here’s Today‘s “Summer Stage.” While Studio 1A was being completely refurbished for HD in the summer of 2006, Today was produced from this outdoor stage on Rockefeller Plaza in front of the GE Building.

On September 13, 2006, Today moved into its brand new set. The new studio is divided into five different parts on the lower level. It includes the interview area, the couch area, the news desk, the performance/interview/extra space area, and home base, which is where the anchors start the show. A gigantic Panasonic 103-inch plasma monitor is often used for graphic display backgrounds in the Satellite studio upstairs on the same level as the kitchen set.

The blue background window treatments (or shades) seen in the opening of the show in home base move up and down to allow a view of the outside from the home base. The screen is used for many things, but the main use for it is to prevent TV viewers from seeing early morning darkness outside when their own (later delayed) time zone may be in full daylight. Another reason for raising the screen is to shield TV viewers from outside visitors holding distracting signs during serious show segments.

Below are seven photos showing two different Today set dressings and all the major “areas” like the news desk, conversation sofas and performance area for bands or kitchen segments. All the cameras are SONY HD models, mostly 1500-model ENG/EFP size cameras in the buildup sleds and hard-bodied HD 1000s in the final two shots. Take a look at that cool jib camera mounted on a Vinten Fulmar ped. To get a real education on the new Sony cameras and systems, please see the Conan section of the Tonight Show History.

Over time some minor changes were made to the set, including the elimination of the “news desk” in 2013 in favor of a larger anchor desk with room for all four anchors. On August 16, the program left Studio 1A while it underwent a month-long renovation. The newest set configuration has a “home base” platform that can spin 360 degrees, new decor in the “sofa area” set, and the “Orange Room” area for social media.

One byproduct of the 2013 set renovation is an attraction for tourists. When the new “Shop at NBC Studio” opened inside 30 Rock in 2015, the anchor desk that had briefly served on Today became part of the store’s attractions. Visitors can sit at the desk for a photo opportunity.

Today anchors started out as “Communicators.” Creator Pat Weaver envisioned a person whose responsibilities would go beyond the bounds of traditional sit-down news anchors and wanted well rounded, curious and authoritative hosts. Although the “Communicator” nomenclature has since dropped out of favor, the job remains largely the same. The principal anchors/hosts of the show have included:

• Dave Garroway (1952-1961)
• John Chancellor (1961-1962)
• Hugh Downs (1962-1966)
• Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters (1966-1971)
• Barbara Walters and Frank McGee (1971-1974)
• Barbara Walters and Jim Hartz (1974-1976)
• Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley (1976-1982)
• Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel (1982-1989)
• Bryant Gumbel and Deborah Norville (1990-1991)
• Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric (1991-1997)
• Katie Couric and Matt Lauer (1997-2006)
• Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira (2006-2011)
• Matt Lauer and Ann Curry (2011-2012)
• Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie (2012-present)

Boy, do I wish I could have one owned one of these three Marconi Mark IV cameras from WCNY-TV!

These three Mark IV cameras are very rare, and have a very interesting history.  Here are a few shots of these historic cameras in action at WCNY, a PBS affiliate in Syracuse, NY circa 1969.

Believe it or not, these are the same cameras that first showed 73 million Americans  The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show at 8 pm on February 9, 1964! And that’s just one of the thousands of legendary names whose images they captured.

Jackie Gleason also used these cameras in Studio 50, as you’ll see below. I don’t know how many Marconi cameras were used in the theater, but when RCA cameras were in use there, there were always at least five TK10s or TK11s – four on stage and one at audience level. I’m guessing there were at least four, maybe six, of the Marconis there.

These three cameras were donated to WCNY by CBS after Studio 50, also known as The Ed Sullivan Theater, was temporarily closed to prepare for color telecasting. The show moved to Television City in Hollywood for six weeks while the Norelco PC60s and new lighting were installed. The first colorcast from Studio 50 happened on my 15th birthday, Halloween night, 1965.

CBS was pretty consistent in donating its old equipment through the years. A lot of it wound up at colleges, educational stations and churches, including the Catholic Broadcast Center run by the Brooklyn archdiocese. That’s where my TD-1 pedestal was rescued from, thanks to “Cardinal” Paul Beck in Boston.

I have quite a soft spot for the Sullivan show and all things associated with it. I’d kill to have owned one of these cameras and would love to know if anyone has any idea where the WCNY Marconis wound up. I have been in contact with the station, but they have no recall. I am fortunate to have one artifact from the Ed Sullivan Theater though, and thank John Smith for giving me the backstage announce microphone he rescued during the Reeves Teletape years in the theater.

It’s not every day you come across a TV pioneer like Frank Merklein, or a family like Frank’s! There are two stories here. One is Frank’s incredible history in television, and we’ll get to that…but first, I want to introduce you to what could be one of TV’s only three-generation families. To make my point, let’s start with a few pictures.

Above is Frank’s father, James Merklein, in a March 1951 photo on the set of Space Cadets at ABC New York. Below we see Frank at a TK10 at NBC New York in 1952. By the way, this is on the Howdy Doody set, and the director of the show has suddenly become Frank’s dolly grip…well, at least for this shot.

But the Merklein family tree is by no means complete. Frank must have liked the old radio show I Married Joan, because in 1946 he did! Below we see a 1952 photo of Frank’s wife, Joan, on the set of The Sid Caesar Show. Joan was an actress and was hired occasionally as a “straight man” on several Comedy Hour shows.

 Their first child was Jay. Guess who’s running the Norelco in the images below? Yep…Jay Merklein, who’s still with ABC in Los Angeles handling worldwide satellite feeds. Below, Jay operates a camera on Ryan’s Hope.

In the two photos below, Frank and Joan visit with Jay and his Norelco at a PGA event near their home in Florida.

The Frank Merklein Story

Now, the really interesting part of Frank’s story. Below is a photo of Frank at my home in Georgia posing with my RCA TK41C…not an unusual pose for him, for he’s one of the original color TV cameramen.

Frank worked the first RCA TK40s at the now-famous Colonial Theater in New York, where RCA and NBC did several years of experimental broadcasts, as well as the first real color broadcasts. The Colonial events started in the fall of 1951 and continued there until around 1954. Frank also worked the TK40s in NBC’s first in-house color studio, Studio 3K at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

This is a tiny part of Frank’s history and it is really just too much to tell in detail, but I’ll hit a few more high points. Frank was in the Army with General Sarnoff’s nephew in World War II. One day Frank asked what would be a good job after the war, and Sarnoff recommended television. Frank graduated from the RCA Television School as an engineer and got a job at NBC in March 1948.

Frank worked the RCA TK10s and 30s on a lot of shows, including Howdy Doody, the Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze, The Comedy Hour, Your Show of Shows, Today and many more. He later ran the color cameras on Howdy Doody, Perry Como, Kraft Music Hall, Hallmark Hall of Fame and more.

As a matter of fact, Frank was there for the January 14, 1952 debut of Today. Below you can see him in action during the program’s very first half-hour, keeping a TK30 trained on original “master communicator” Dave Garroway.

Frank also became a part of broadcast history in two other ways. About a year into the color work, Frank was appointed to the National Television Systems Committee, which had the task of coming up with a compatible standard for color broadcasting.

It was actually Frank Merklein that broke the news to Gen. David Sarnoff that the NTSC had agreed that RCA’s dot matrix system was the winning concept and would be the basis of the industry’s future. Below is part of an email from Frank to me on these subjects.

General Sarnoff was the force behind trashing the CBS mechanical wheel and to forming the color committee of all the USA manufacturers. NBC did daily shows (same every day for 2 1/2 years) from 3K and the Colonial Theater (now Lincoln Center).

When the FCC chose the NTSC system, the General was in our studio, 3K. I was on the phones with the FCC. I turned to the General and gave him a prepared message. “General Sarnoff, the FCC informs you that they have unanimously approved of the NTSC system for color.” He grinned, blew smoke from those over-sized cigars he inhaled and thanked everyone… Great memory.

If Sarnoff receives the proposed EMMY Award for Color Television in the name of the industry, I want to be the one to whom it is handed before turning it over to the Sarnoff Museum. I think I’m the only one left that was on the color committee.

Be well,
Frank

p.s. I’m glad you had heard of the famous green banana/Revlon incident in which I was involved. Stage manager Warren Philips threw a green (unripe) banana on a table for us to balance the color in our 3 TK40 cameras. Since we usually balanced our color with ripe yellow bananas, we all produced a perfect match of yellow bananas in the monitors behind us. As a result, the Revlon commercial we were setting up to tape had a bit of a hue shift. So did the color of the faces of the executives in the booth with the client when the lipstick came up blue. That was the only day we could ever hear through the glass of the control room the shouting was so loud.