June 21, 1948…First TV Network Pool Event & Debut Of RCA Kinescope
June 21, 1948…First TV Network Pool Event & Debut Of RCA Kinescope
The first official use of kinescope recording would come on June 21 at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, but it was not used in the way we generally think of kinescopes, which is recording programs to film and expressing them to affiliates not able to connect to the network live. Here’s the story…
This event was also the first ever pooling of equipment, and lines by the television networks including NBC, CBS, Dumont and ABC.
There were four pool cameras (RCA TK30s) in the hall, and one at a quieter spot for representatives from each network to do a 15 minute per hour commentary. The 4 hall cameras were on the main line out, and the single commentary camera was on a second line out. Only NBC had the ability to record their commentary and insert it at a more opportune time, rather than interrupt a major speech on the floor, when their 15 minute live slot came up.
All together, the pooled convention coverage was shown live on 18 stations in 9 cities, which included New York, New Haven, Newark (ABC), Boston, Albany-Schenectady, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond.
In July, The Democratic National Convention was held at the same arena, and the same pooling process was used by the networks again. At this link is Harry Truman’s acceptance speech, and as you can tell by the haloing on the mikes, this is a recorded video signal, and not film, so you can see how good the results were on this kinescope from NBC.
NBC Chief Engineer O. B. Hanson said in the June 17 press release (included below), that the system had been used for testing a few weeks before this. At the link, is perhaps the first kinescope recording of a major NBC program…”Puppet Playhouse”, with Howdy Doody, from July 2, 1948. However, I have seen private Doody kinescopes from as early at February of 1948, so I know they were testing much earlier.
NBC’s engineering department was quite busy that spring of 1948. They debuted not only the new Studio 6B (for television), but that same night, debuted “The Texaco Star Theater” there on June 8, 1948.
Just months before, NBC Television added Studio 8G, 3A and 3B, and around May of ’48, converted Studio 3H (Howdy Doody) from Iconoscope cameras to TK30 Image Orthicon cameras. All the while, preparations were being made for the Republican National Convention which was a historic first for television all around, with over one million viewers watching on the biggest nights of the convention on about 340,000 sets in those 9 cities. TV set manufacturers had ramped up production in the two months before the June convention to 45,000 a month and never backed off to a lesser volume. TV was on it’s way! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
Those ‘private & early’ Howdy kinescopes, do any of them have the early ‘ugly’ Doody?
But can it core a apple?
$10k back then could buy a house!
Thanks Bobby. Interesting that the TV guys wanted Truman to lower the mics. as they were blocking the shot. Of course radio didn’t care. And either did Truman.
I had encountered a soft estimate that kinescopes technology dated to circa 1947. I never had the chance to run that down for sure. But this is terrific information on their network TV news debut and the network pool TV debut. I will definitely be able to tap this for my doctoral dissertation on radio and TV space coverage from 1923 to the present. I probably spent some 200 hours going through NBC press releases for 1952-1972 at the UMCP Broadcasting Archives and probably 30 or more hours at the LOC in DC for some later years through 1989 and some earlier years, but I do not think I yet had the opportunity to check on 1948, though I sure will when in better shape.
The sadly late Israel Reuven Frank of NBC News did a marvelous, detailed article on 1948 national political convention TV coverage some years ago, with pix. As I recall, it ran in The New York Times Magazine.