Remember The Letterman-Gumble Feud? Here’s Where It Started!
In May of 1985, ‘Today’ Executive Producer Steve Friedman and NBC President Larry Grossman announced that the famous morning show would present a live, one hour ‘Today Primetime’ special in August.
What no one on the ‘Today’ staff knew was that Friedman had also invited David Letterman to “interact” with the live show. “Interact” he did, and this video captures the moment. I don’t know if this clip was part of the ‘Today’ show live feed, or, if it was taped by Letterman for use on his show, but this kicked off a three year feud with ‘Today’ host Bryant Gumble.
The feud finally ended May 13, 1989 when Gumbal made an appearance on ‘Late Night’…a video clip I would love to see!
Although, in the article, Jane Pauley describes the event as an interruption of her interview with ‘Miami Vice’ stars Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, what we see here is a set with Gene Shalit, Gumble and Pauley. Perhaps there was a second “interaction”?
Vin Scully…65 Season With The Dodgers, From Brooklyn To LA
His 65 seasons with the Dodgers (1950–present) is the longest tenure of any broadcaster with a single team in professional sports history, and he is second by one year to only Tommy Lasorda in terms of number of years with the Dodgers organization in any capacity.
In 1950, Scully joined Red Barber and Connie Desmond in the Brooklyn Dodgers radio and television booths which were carried on WOR. When Barber got into a salary dispute with World Series sponsor Gillette in 1953, Scully took Barber’s spot for the 1953 World Series. At the age of 25, Scully became the youngest man to broadcast a World Series game (a record that stands to this day). Barber left the Dodgers after the 1953 season to work for the New York Yankees.
Sculley worked for CBS from 1975-’82 calling NFL, PGA and tennis games. From ’83-’89 he worked for NBC television as their lead baseball broadcaster. Besides calling the Saturday Game of the Week for NBC, Scully called three World Series (1984, 1986, and 1988), four National League Championship Series (1983, 1985, 1987, and 1989), and four All-Star Games (1983, 1985, 1987, and 1989). Scully also reworked his Dodgers schedule during this period, broadcasting home games on the radio, and road games for the Dodgers television network, with Fridays and Saturdays off so he could work for NBC.
In the center is an NBC publicity photo of Bill Stern. Mr. Stern is the man that called the action on the first ever televised sporting event…the second game of a baseball doubleheader between Princeton and Columbia at Columbia’s Baker Field on May 17, 1939 as seen on the left.
On September 30, 1939 he called the first televised football game. It was a college game between the Fordham Rams and the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets played at Triborough Stadium on New York City’s Randall’s Island. Fordham won the game 34–7 and a photo from that game is on the right.
NBC hired Stern in 1937 to host ‘The Colgate Sports Newsreel’ as well as Friday night boxing on radio. Stern was also one of the first televised boxing commentators. Many say that Paul Harvey copied Stern’s style and his stories about the famous and odd, which Harvey called “The Rest Of The Story”. Although Stern made no effort to authenticate his stories, in later years, he did however introduce that segment of his show by saying that they “might be actual, may be mythical, but definitely interesting.”
Thanks to Jodie Peeler for the wonderful and rare color photo… more of those soon!
Heartwarming In So Many Ways…HUGE SURPRISE ENDING! Must See!
This is a three minute clip of Bill Cosby hosting a special tribute to Art Linkletter that aired on CBS on February 6, 1995. ‘Art Linkletter’s House Party’ was on CBS radio and television for 25 years. Interviewing kid was one of Art’s specialties and joys, but as we all know “kids say the darndest things”! And they DID!
You would think RCA lead the way in this area, but they were more focused on studio color cameras in the late 60s as the TK42/43 project had gone badly and Norelco was eating their lunch. Now, this is not to say that there were not some RCA/NBC experimental color portables in use, but they were not production models…just testers.
That I know of, ABC had the first color portables and this video clip shows the camera on the sidelines of the USC-UCLA game on November 11, 1967. There were two backpack versions…one contained a small video tape recorder and no live capacity, but the one shown here is the “Scrambler” pack which is a control and microwave box. In the photo below is our friend Don ‘Peaches’ Langford with the BC 100 and was one of the first to use this camera.
Just a month earlier, in October of 1967, Norelco announced it’s first color mini camera, the PCP 70, at National Association of Educational Broadcasters convention, but most think it was just a prototype that was not ready for field use. The camera head, with zoom lens weighed in at 23 pounds. The backpack was an additional 22 pounds. The list price was $41,450.
To be fair to RCA, the color portable they introduced August 25, 1968 at the political conventions had been in developed the year before for use on the NASA Moon missions. Here is a link to the story on that camera.
Third on the scene with portable color was Ikegami. In 1972, the HL 33 (Handy Looky) debuted. The HL 33 also had a large back pack, but did lead the way in Electronic News Gathering and is generally considered the first ENG camera.
Although bringing up the rear, it was RCA that finally did away with the backpacks, which brought great joy to the camera crews. The RCA TKP 45 (see earlier post for introductory video) debuted in 1974 as a camera only unit which cabled directly to the truck. It was more of a production color camera than and ENG but could handle the task.
Finally in 1976, RCA rolled out what would become the top of the line and most used ENG camera ever, the TK76. In the last part of the TKP 45 video, we see the 1975 engineering model of the TK76. Here is the full story on that 1975 RCA ENG camera that never had a name, as told by our friend Lytle Hoover. Enjoy and share!
Ignore the annoying bugs; here’s a quick clip of Ampex’s portable Ampex BC-100 camera in action, at the November 11, 1967 UCLA-USC game–which I had thought …
RARE VIDEO! RCA TKP 45 Color Portable Camera Introduction
Our thanks to James Murphy Tinsley for finding this great RCA clip from 1974. Not only do we see the intro of their new portable color production camera, but near the end, we see a prototype of the famous RCA TK76 ENG camera. It looks nothing like the finished product.
In today’s next post, we’ll get into the history of portable color.
On April 17, 1967, Joey Bishop and his sidekick Regis Philbin went head to head with Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon on NBC, and in some markets, Merv Griffin’s syndicated Group W show. (Merv’s CBS late night show did not come along till ’69.)
As a member of the “Rat Pack”, Bishop was a hot property, but even at the top of his game, ‘Tonight’ was too big hurdle and the show ended on December 26, 1969 with Bishop leaving after his monologue, declaring that this was the last show. Philbin was left to finish the final episode. The time slot was filled by ‘The Dick Cavett Show’.
The only episodes that topped ‘Tonight’ in the ratings was when Regis walked off the show, and returned a few days later. Philbin’s reason for leaving was the bashing he took from critics and ABC executives, but years later, Philbin revealed that the “walk off” was actually a stunt Bishop had come up with.
The show was done with GE PE 350 color cameras from The Vine Street Theater. According to our friend Randy West, who reminded me of this event, Bishop and Philbin would walk around the neighborhood for inspiration on monologue bits. As seen in the video, it seems they also did a bit of shopping as in this clip of the show’s open, they are both sporting new Nehru jackets.
The opening minutes of a Bishop show episode that features Sammy Davis as the central guest. Here Joey and sidekick Reege talk about their new Nehru jackets …
This is an amazing find! From ‘Antiques Roadshow’ here is the video of the Charlie Douglas ‘Laff Box’, built in 1953, which was discovered among the items sold in a storage locker sale!
Back in the 50s and 60s, Charlie Douglas was ‘The Man’ for laugh tracks in Los Angeles and traveled with his top secret black box to sweeten the tracks on many famous shows.
He would wheel his black box of pre-recorded laughs into the post audio room, plug in to the mixing console, and proceed to treat the soundtrack with everything from chuckles to knee-slapping fits, to applause.
Understandably, Charlie and his son Bobby were very protective of the technology and the library of carefully categorized audience reactions inside that black box. Now remember, this was before cart machines, but when the close up comes, you’ll see the loops rotating and I think this technology was called the Mckinzie tape loop system. Thanks to Mark Sudock for the clip. Enjoy and Share!
Varotal Mark III Field Lens…The Grandaddy Of Remote Zooms
At 30 pounds, this is quite a big boy and took a bit of lead weighing on the pan handle to help balance this. I think the lever on the side of the lens is the back focus. Having never seen one of these in action, I think the rear handle is a “two in one” demand. I suspect the small silver knob is the focus demand and the arm it’s mounted on is the zoom demand that the operator would push to zoom in or pull to zoom out on this 10 X 1 lens.
With course gearing, you wouldn’t have to move the zoom bar much to go from full out to full in. I suspect these came to the market around 1953. Unfortunately, no one knows much about these and the only on I know of that survives is in the care of our friend Chuck Pharis. Have any of you worked with these?
Network Television’s First Evening News Anchor…Douglas Edwards
This is thought to be the earliest known photo of Douglas Edwards telecasting the news, shortly after the May 3, 1948 debut of ‘CBS Television News’.
Edwards joined CBS Radio in 1942, eventually becoming anchor for the regular evening newscast ‘The World Today’ as well as ‘World News Today’ on Sunday afternoons. He came to CBS after stints as a newscaster and announcer at WSB in Atlanta, Georgia and WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.
CBS began broadcasting news shows on Saturday nights, expanding to two nights a week in 1947. These reports were delivered by CBS radio news men, who were not interested in this “television stuff” and loathed having to do it. Edwards had a couple of turns at it, and kind of enjoyed it and let his interest be known.
On May 3, 1948, Douglas Edwards began anchoring ‘CBS Television News’, a regular 15-minute nightly newscast. It aired every weeknight at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program to use an anchor.
On February 16, 1948, NBC had begun airing ‘NBC Television Newsreel’, and later ‘Camel Newsreel Theatre’ as a 10-minute program that featured Pathe’ newsreels. John Cameron Swayze provided voice-over for the series. ‘The Camel News Caravan’ was an expanded version of the ‘Camel Newsreel Theatre’ feature Swayze on-camera.
On CBS, the week’s news stories were recapped on a Sunday night program titled ‘Newsweek in Review’. The name was later shortened to ‘The Week in Review’ and the show was moved to Saturdays. In 1950, the name of the nightly newscast was changed to ‘Douglas Edwards With the News’, and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting “Good evening everyone, coast to coast.”
It is not clear whether both Douglas and Swayze did a live second broadcast for the west coast. By 1947, Kinescopes had begun to be used and there are stories that report the show was done live again with added west coast content, and reports that say it was kine delayed, but one thing is clear…November 30, 1956, Edwards’ program became the first to use the new technology of videotape to time delay the broadcast.
The CBS program competed against NBC’s ‘Camel News Caravan’ that was launched in 1949 with John Cameron Swayze. NBC’s news took the lead, but by the mid 50s, CBS and Edwards were in the lead. In September 1955, ‘Douglas Edwards With The News’ was moved to 6:45 p.m. ET.
On October 29, 1956, Swayze was replaced by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC’s ‘Huntley-Brinkley Report’ and this helped CBS ratings as it took a while for Chet and David to gain traction.
By the early ’60, NBC’s news ratings were a good bit higher and a decision was make to make a switch at CBS.
Walter Cronkite became anchor on April 16, 1962. On September 2, 1963, ‘The CBS Evening News’ became network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast, lengthened from its original 15 minutes, and telecast at 6:30 p.m. ET. NBC quickly followed suit and ‘The Huntley-Brinkley Report’ expanded to 30 minutes exactly a week later on September 9, 1963.
‘The CBS Evening News’ was broadcast in color for one evening on August 19, 1965, and made the switch permanently on January 31, 1966.
When certain “blue humor”comedians and “colorful personalities” were on live network shows, producers would sometime hedge their bets with a 6 second tape delay and this is how they did it.
Until sometime in the mid 1960s, this is the way you got a 6 second delay for live television events. As shown here, you would have recorded on the left machine, threaded the tape over a few homemade spindles and play it back on the machine on the right for air. In case of a blooper, the director cut to live action before the image got over to the playback head and pray there are no more till you can get to a station break and re sync.
George Carlin’s famous ‘7 Dirty Words’ sketch was first performed in concert May 27, 1972 for his “Class Clown” album. A few years ago, Carlin discussed this in an interview for the Emmy TV Legends bio series. The 4 minute XXX rated clip is below. The famous list is at 2:57, but even though not of the faint of heart, Carlin’s perspective as a true wordsmith, and context is fantastic as always.
At ‘Saturday Night Live’, some of these words have always had a way of just popping into a live show…especially the F word and here’s a brief F’ing history of those “special” moments.
During a sketch in 1980, Paul Shaffer said “f****n'” instead of “floggin'”; in 1981, Charles Rocket, said “I’d like to know who the f**k did it” during a “Who Shot JR?” parody and on the same night Prince sang the lyric “Fightin’ war is such a f****n’ bore”; in 1990, singer Morris Day of The Time said “Where the f**k did this chicken come from?” and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith sang “feedin’ that f****n’ monkey on my back” during their performances.
In 1994, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. sang “Don’t f**k with me” and Adam Horovitz of Beastie Boys sang “So won’t you f****n’ listen” in their performances. In 1997, Norm MacDonald accidentally said, “What the f**k was that?” after flubbing a line during “Weekend Update”. James Hetfield of Metallica sang “F**k ’em man, white knuckle tight” during their performance in 1997. In 2009, Jenny Slate accidentally said, “You know what, you stood up for yourself and I f**king love you for that.”
To celebrate the defeat of Germany, and it’s Axis ally Italy, WNBT broadcast hours of live news coverage and celebrations on the end of World War II in Europe with remotes from around New York City. Here, we see an RCA Orthicon camera atop the marquee of the Astor Hotel in panning the happy crowd below.
Although a step up from the Iconoscope cameras, the first Orthicon cameras still had the ground glass, optical viewfinders and the right hand pan handle was the focus demand, which would carry over into the TK40s and 41s. The focus demand on the body of the camera’s right side did not come along until the Image Orthicon RCA TK30 and TK10 which had a four lens turret and five inch electronic viewfinders. Interestingly, some of the fist TK40 prototypes had the side mounted focus control, but TK40 operators liked the dual handles and right grip focus demand better with a camera that size.
Many of our international friends still have their cameras set up with the focus demand on the right and zoom on the left. In the US, our cameras are mostly set up with zoom demand on the right and focus on the left. This shift came about with the introduction of the cable drive Varatol zoom lenses from Rank Taylor Hobson. With the back focus correctly set, cameramen could get more dynamics with the zoom demand and that was more easily done with the right hand with minimal help from the cable driven focus demand, so that assignment went to the left hand.
Two Mothers Of Invention…Steve Allen And Frank Zappa!
You may have thought the story of Frank Zappa, “playing a bicycle” on Steve Allen’s show was just an old wives tale. Not so! Here it is!
If you remember, Allen had gone with NBC in 1953 to do a local late show on WNBT and in ’54, began the ‘Tonight’ show, but in ’56 also took on the Sunday night ‘Steve Allen Show’. That ran till ’60 and wrapped up, with the last year or so, coming from NBC Burbank.
From 1962-1965, Allen re-created the Tonight Show madness on a new late-night ‘Steve Allen Show’ syndicated by Westinghouse TV. The show, taped in Hollywood at “The Steve Allen Playhouse”, which was just the television show’s name for the venue, which was really the Vine Street Theater. Notice the slate at the front of the show…it was a Glenn – Armistead production done with the truck I’ll post below in the comment section.
The show was marked by the same wild, unpredictable stunts, such as ‘Man In The Street’ and comedy skits that often extended down the street to a supermarket known as the Hollywood Ranch Market. He also presented Southern California eccentrics including health food advocate Gypsy Boots, quirky physics professor Dr. Julius Sumner Miller and comic Prof. Irwin Corey.
During one episode, Allen placed a telephone call to the home of Johnny Carson, posing as a ratings company interviewer, asking Carson if the television was on, and what program he was watching. Carson did not immediately realize the caller was Allen.
One notable program, which Westinghouse refused to distribute, featured Lenny Bruce during the time the comic was repeatedly being arrested on obscenity charges. Enjoy and share.
Like in the ‘Tonight’ story just posted, I occasionally mention the Vinten Merlin. In case you have never seen one, here you go. This one is on the ‘Today’ set in 1A, but as I understand it, all of NBC’s large studios in New York have one. Beautifully compact and extremely versatile with only one operator needed, these pedestal mounted jib arms became available in the early 90’s but for some reason, did not catch on. I think Vinten quit making them in the early 2000s, so when you see one in person, take a good look because they are rare birds. Thanks to Dennis Degan for the photo.
Eyes Of A Generation EXCLUSIVE! Unseen Late Night History!
Thanks To Glenn Mack for making this available to us just in time for a Sunday morning look back at the start of late night television. This great 9 minute clip, hosted by Conan O’Brien shows us many rare scenes, including NBC’s Pat Weaver who was the father of this all. At around 6:20, we get to see some of the rare video of Jack Paar’s departure and return to ‘Tonight’ and much more, including interview footage of Jerry Lester, who hosted ‘Broadway Open House’ and some rare footage of Steve Allan’s local WNBT show, along with his first night as ‘Tonight’ host. And…there are Johnny Carson’s first minutes too. Enjoy and SHARE!
With yesterday’s posts of the great time compressed video and the camera crew listing, I felt the need to take another peek into NBC’s legendary Studio 8H.
Above is our friend Eric Eisenstein, who in addition to being an SNL cameraman, is also a sports director. In the center is one of the most important fixtures on the floor…the stage managers podium. On the bottom is one of SNL’s most vital areas…Q card central where all the scripts and the many changes are written up.
By now, we are used to the cast reading their lines from Q cards, but if you wonder why the do it, instead of memorizing their lines, like in the movies or other TV shows, let’s take a look at the most daunting production schedule in television. By the way, Bob Hope was one of the first major stars to use Q cards, starting with his first special Easter Sunday, 1950.
Production on an SNL episode will normally start on a Monday with a free-form pitch meeting in Lorne Michaels office between the cast, writers and producers including the guest host. The host is invited to pitch ideas too. Although some sketch writing may occur on Monday, the bulk of the work revolves around pitching ideas.
Tuesday is the only day dedicated purely to writing the scripts, a process which can extend through the night into the following Wednesday. Writing may not begin until 8pm on the Tuesday evening. At 5pm on Wednesday, the sketches are read during a round-table meeting in the writers room, attended by the writers and producers present during the pitch meeting, and technical experts like set designers and makeup artists.
There are usually forty or fifty people at this meeting where thirty of forty sketch ideas are read-through, lasting three hours or more.
After completion of the read-through, Michaels, the head writer, the guest host, and some of the show producers will move to Michaels’ office to decide the layout of the show and decide which of the sketches will be developed for air. Once complete, the writers and cast are allowed into Michaels’ office to view the show breakdown and learn whether or not their sketch has survived. A this point, the scenery builders are making lists too.
Sketches may be rewritten starting the same day, but will certainly commence on Thursday, as will blocking rehearsals. Work focuses on developing and rewriting the remaining sketches, and if a sketch is still scheduled beyond Thursday, it is rehearsed on Friday and Saturday.
On Saturdays at 8pm, there is a dress rehearsal before a live audience, which is taped, just in case. That dress will always run long as several optional sketches are included and the audience reaction will help determine which of the extra sketches will go to air or be shelved.
After the dress rehearsal, Michaels will review the show lineup to ensure it meets a 90-minute length, and sketches that have made it to this point, may have to be tweaked (shortened or lengthened) a little to make the final sketches fit. At this point, writers and Q card central is in overdrive revising scripts and Q cards.
As you can see, this often results in less than two days of rehearsal for the eight to twelve sketches that have made it to the stage that then may appear on the live broadcast. The guest host’s opening monologue is given lower priority and can be written as late as Saturday afternoon.
Now you know why Q cards are a necessary evil. With so many changes, such spit second timing and the volume of text for the actors to deliver, it just has to be this way. Oh…and did I mention that this is all done LIVE in front of a national television audience?
The only other way to do this is with an earpiece for each actor. When I do on camera commercials, I prerecord the script and have it played back into a small earpiece. Without reading a prompter, all I have to do is repeat my own delivery by saying what I’ve already recorded with the same inflexions and emphasis. I’ve also done this with a producer reading the script into my ear.
‘Today’…The Transition From Studio 8G to 3B, June 1990
This is a great clip and shows the last minutes in 8G and the first minutes in 3B. Although Bryant Gumble say’s, in a slip if the tongue, his goodby to 8H, he meant to say 8G. Due to the demands of SNL production, a daily show could never be done in 8H.
Their last day in 8G was Friday, June 9, 1990. The next day, the show debuted from studio 3B. Prior to the 8G location, ‘Today’ had come from studio 3K where it began to be broadcast in color after moving “inside” form it’s former street side locations in the RCA Exhibition Hall and later, the Florida Showcase studio.
This is quite an interesting clip and shows Deborah Norville, Gumbel and Willard Scott taking a close look at the new digs. The cameras look to be Ikegami HK 322s perhaps. Enjoy and share!
During the northern hemisphere summer of 1990 the bright, chic living room style NBC Today set, in use since 1985, was dismantled and partly re-assembled ups…
Just For Fun…One Of The Best Jonathan Winters Bits Ever
When Jack Paar left the ‘Tonight’ show in the summer of 1962, he took a few months off, but returned to NBC in primetime with a weekly Friday night show. ‘The Jack Paar Show’ debuted on September 20, 1962, about three weeks before Carson’s ‘Tonight’ debut. For the next three years, he owned the 10-11 ratings but ended the show in September of 1965. One of his favorite guests, on both shows, was Jonathan Winters. On this 1964 appearance, Paar told the audience to just watch what would happen when he gave Winters a simple stick as a prop. The rest is comedy history!
NBC Brooklyn, Not The Only Vitagraph Studio To Go Television!
In the photo above, we are seeing a 1956 broadcast of ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’, which made its national debut on July 2, 1955. It was initially produced at the Hollywood Palladium, but moved to the ABC studios at Prospect and Talmadge shortly afterwards. For 23 of its 27 years on the air, the show would originate there.
The property we know as the ABC Television Center at 4151 Prospect Avenue was built by Vitagraph nine years after their Brooklyn location was finished in 1906. This studio was built in 1915 and in 1927 was sold to Warner Brothers who used the new Vitagraph sound process both here and in Brooklyn while shooting ‘The Jazz Singer’.
In 1948, the property was sold to the newly formed American Broadcasting Company, and the film lot was transitioned into the new world of television as the ABC Television Center. ABC proceeded to place their new Los Angeles television station, KECA-TV (now KABC-TV) in the newly purchased lot a year later.
Construction on the studio lot to bring it to its current form took place in 1957. ABC still uses the Prospect facility as a network retransmission center for its programming. Many memorable television shows, including those produced for ABC, other networks or syndication, have been produced in the studios.
‘American Bandstand’ started recording there in 1964 (moving from Philadelphia). ABC’s longest running program, ‘General Hospital’, now in its fifty first year on the air, has been taped at this location since the mid-1980s after relocating from the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood. Many other classic television shows were also produced there including ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’, ‘Barney Miller’, ‘Fridays’, ‘Mr. Belvedere’, ‘Welcome Back Kotter’, ‘Benson’, and ‘Soap’. Barney Miller, Benson and Soap were also shot at Sunset Gower Studios.
The lot was renamed The Prospect Studios in 2002 and underwent a major renovation to position its facilities for the future and new technical innovation.
Video Tape’s Unintended Consequences…Agony & Ecstasy
This is a story you have never heard. It is about the advantages and headaches caused by the introduction of video tape. We’ll start on the hard part…The Agony.
When video tape use began to really take off with network use in 1957, it caused what was then referred to as “time shifting”. This is when a show that had been produced live daily, was suddenly able to tape several episodes the same day…usually a weeks worth.
With the advent of video tape, all three networks reduced their production staffs by up to 40%. Cameramen, lighting men, stagehands and engineers were let go in droves because the “time shift” had eliminated the need to setup and strike every set, every day. Another difficulty was editing the tape, which for many years, was a major production in itself.
The Ecstasy part is obvious…instant high quality replay, but…in 1957, there was another phenomenon to deal with which was why the networks pushed to hard to get video tape in place by then.
It seems that in the mid ’50s, Daylight Savings Time had become a big issue and several states were bucking the national standard for some reason. Some of these problems were brought on by lawsuits from drive-in theater owners and some were “states rights” issues. Among the rebellious states were Tennessee, Wisconsin, Indiana, Arizona and Minnesota.
A lot of this was in court, but the networks wanted to be able to tape delay programs in these five states if need be. A three hour delay for Kinescope playback of New York shows from Los Angeles was OK, because in that period of time you could get a pretty good, fully processed kine. But, with one hour delays, you had to do a hot kine with below average results.
