History From A Different Angle…NBC Radio City West
History From A Different Angle…NBC Radio City West
The street on the left is Sunset Boulevard and the next cross street is Vine Street. Less than a block behind the photographer is CBS Columbia Square and less than a block up on Vine Street was ABC’s broadcast center. This whole area was radio city!
Someone asked recently about when ABC went into that Vine Street location, and I can’t find a date on it, but I did find another interesting fact. When NBC sold the Blue Network to Edward J. Nobles for $8 million, that Blue package contained leases on land-lines and on studio facilities in New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles; contracts with talent and with about sixty affiliates; the trademark and “good will” associated with the Blue name; and licenses for three stations…WJZ in New York, San Francisco’s KGO, and WENR in Chicago.
The lease allowed them 10 years to relocate the studios and transmitters. That happened in 1943, so, per the agreement, ABC could have operated from the NBC facilities until ’53, but I think they may have only stayed about six or seven years. I think that ABC Radio center was there on Vine before they built KECA TV in 1949 and I think that was at the Prospect Lot. Anyone have any information on the ABC Radio Vine Street facility? Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
The 3M History Of Video Tape…Introduction, Part 1
The presentation of this information will be as much of an experiment for me as 3M’s creation of a commercial line of video tape in only 22 hours.
On Thursday of last week, November 13, I posted the only online copy of the 3M video presentation of their “20 Years Of Video Tape” special that ran at the 1976 NAB show. That came from Neil Gjere, who has also sent along some extremely rare things you will be seeing here. Among them is a fantastic 18-page report written by Melvin Sater, who led the 3M project to develop the first commercial line of video tape.
Jonathan Winters presents Mel Sater an Emmy Award.
Before I post that, I need to post a few things that will get you familiar with the people and events that lead up to this, and this is the first introductory piece, or what the newsmen among us would call “a backgrounder.”
First, here is a 3M announcement that Mel Sater is receiving an EMMY for his work in video tape. In the section called “Sader’s Scramble,” you can read about the call from Ampex the day before video tape recording was introduced in 1956.
Here’s a 1982 article from a 3M house publication that commemorates Mel’s induction into the Video Hall of Fame.
And here’s a neat little profile of Mel Sater from 1984.
And now that we know something about the man behind the innovation, here is Mel Sater’s personal account of this historic achievement. Enjoy and share! – Bobby Ellerbee
Happy Birthday To Mickey Mouse…86 Years Old Today
Happy Birthday To Mickey Mouse…86 Years Old Today
On November 18, 1928, ‘Steamboat Willie’, starring Mickey Mouse, was released and shown in theaters across the country. It was wildly popular. This was the first cartoon with synchronized sound and was the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack which distinguished it from earlier sound cartoons.
Although animation filmmakers Dave and Max Fleischer’s Inkwell Studios had already produced seven sound cartoons, part of the Song Car-Tunes which started in May 1924, those failed to keep the sound fully synchronized. ‘Steamboat Willie’ was produced using a click track to help with musical cues. The click track was sufficiently useful as a synchronization tool as optical marks were made on the film to indicate precise timings for musical accompaniment.
In 1994 professional animators voted Steamboat Willie 13th in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, which listed the greatest cartoons of all time. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
By the way, Walt is the voice of Mickey in this historic cartoon, and although Mickey Mouse had been seen in theaters before this, his official birthday is marked as today in consideration of the success of ‘Steamboat Willie’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4
The classic Mickey Mouse cartoon
November 13, 1976…Carol Burnett’s ‘Went With The Wind’ Sketch Debuted
November 13, 1976…Carol Burnett’s ‘Went With The Wind’ Sketch Debut
One of the funniest and most memorable moments in American television came to us thirty eight years ago this month.
In the clip below, Carol talks about the sketch and the dress. In another interview, I’ve heard her say that only she and Harvey Korman had seen the Bob Mackie dress. She had to let Harvey in on the site gag or he would break up to and not be able to do his lines to set her up for the big payoff line, “I saw it in the window and couldn’t resist”. Harvey actually makes for a pretty convincing Rhett Butler doesn’t he? Have a laugh, enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0dqnZ2qyj4
Time Life’s The Carol Burnett Show — The Ultimate Collection: Now available! 50 episodes on 22 DVDs http://bit.ly/TLCarol BONUS: Showcase Collector’s Box + …
Bonded Cellular = Live TV Anywhere, Anytime With No News Van?
Bonded Cellular = Live TV Anywhere, Anytime With No News Van?
This is just amazing. It may be old hat to a lot of you, but I’m just learning about this and thought I’d pass this along. This video is a demonstration of how the top of the line, LiveU LU 70 backpack mobile unit works.
To explain just what Bonded Cellular is, here is how LiveU describes it at their website. http://www.liveu.tv/
“The LiveU solution bonds up to 14 cellular (3G/4G – LTE/WiMAX) modems over multiple carriers, as well as multiple LAN and even BGAN satellite connections. This creates a reliable, broadband video uplink pipe over multiple narrow-band pipes. Using any camera, the fully-integrated self-powered compact unit provides video resolution ranging from CIF through D1 (SD) and up to 1080i HD. The bonded 3G/4G solution aggregates all data connections simultaneously to achieve high bandwidth and smooth transmission, even as bandwidth and signal levels change across the different connections.”
We learn something new everyday don’t we? Thanks to CNN’s Andy Rose for bringing this to my attention. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfPn8rgeaKQ
LiveU is the live unit that allows you to Go Live Anywhere, Anytime. www.LiveU.com. LiveU is the Live Unit we all have dreamed of, and Ari Epstein of LiveU I…
How The Yellow Down Marker Appears In Football
By Request…How The Yellow Down Marker Appears In Football
In a comment on yesterday’s CBS/NFL video, Pat Phos Martin wondered how the yellow first down markers and blue line of scrimmage marker magically appear on our screens.
By the way, on the Sport Vision site, you can see how other sports graphics work too.
This Day in Football: The Heidi Bowl
November 17, 1968…’Heidi’ Trumps The Jets – Raiders Finale On NBC
I remember watching this…I had just turned 18. Did you see this?
For all intents and purposes, it looked like the Jets had won and with only a minute left, there was no way for an Oakland comeback…BUT, comeback they DID! Here’s a great video recap of what happened and how it happened. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 1
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 1
The Bedrock History And Timeline…Please Start Here
Below is a history of how this all started and by understanding this timeline and these events, you will better understand the parts that follow. It’s a story that I will need to tell in several parts and am composing this in my head as we discover this fascinating history together and as you will see, there is a lot of history that leads up to the November 15, 1926 debut of NBC.
AT&T had constructed and licensed radio station WEAF in New York in June of 1922. It’s first ‘network’ ‘broadcast occurred on January 4, 1923, between WEAF in New York City and WNAC in Boston, Massachusetts. In early 1924, AT&T made the first transcontinental network broadcast, between WEAF in New York City, and KPO in San Francisco. By early 1926, the “WEAF Chain” had increased to nineteen cities in the Northeast and Midwest, as it slowly spread from its base in New York City. Through these efforts, from 1922 until 1926 AT&T was the most important company in the programming side of U.S. broadcasting.
A year before AT&T began radio, Westinghouse signed on WJZ in Newark, New Jersey in 1921 and operated the station till it was sold to RCA in 1923. That year would also see the debut of WRC in Washington DC which RCA built and was their first construction.
The first network broadcast by RCA occurred in December 1923, and involved only WJZ and the General Electric Co.’s station WGY at Schenectady, N. Y. The connection was made with Western Union telegraph wires. WRC would soon be linked in too.
RCA would have have liked to have used AT&T lines, but AT&T would not make them available to a competitor. The telegraph lines were not very good but RCA did the best they could with what they had.
By late 1925, in the midst of hard-fought battles over patent rights, AT&T abruptly decided that it no longer wanted to operate stations or run a radio network. In May, 1926, AT&T transferred WEAF and the network operations into a wholly-owned subsidiary, the Broadcasting Company of America.
Then came the bombshell announcement — AT&T was selling WEAF and its network for $1,000,000 to the “Radio Group”. The sale included the right to lease from AT&T the telephone longlines that had been found to be essential for linking together a national network. Moreover, the negotiations had also given the “Radio Group” the right to sell airtime, which was the subject of the long fought court battles.
Here, we need to explain the “Radio Group” which was proposed in a June 17, 1922 memo from David Sarnoff. It suggested RCA take the lead in the organization of “a separate and distinct company… to be controlled by the Radio Corporation of America, but its board of directors and officers to include members of the General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric Company and possibly also a few from the outside, prominent in national and civic affairs”.
The first effort from the “Radio Group” came shortly after AT&T began organizing its radio network in 1923. The three major companies that comprised the “Radio Group” — General Electric, Westinghouse, and their jointly-owned subsidiary, the Radio Corporation of America — responded with an expansion of their own efforts, which initially would produce a small radio network centered on WJZ (now WABC) in New York City, but would ultimately develop into the most dominant broadcasting company in the country…The National Broadcasting Company.
These are photos I took on the second floor at NBC, just outside the Broadcast Operations Center that commemorate the formation of The National Broadcasting Company on September 13, 1926, and the first broadcast on the NBC Radio Network just two months later.
Much more to come in the next several parts! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 2
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 2
The Basis Of The Red And Blue Networks
In part one, we laid out the important basics of how all this came to be, so if you haven’t read that, go there first and this will make a lot more sense.
Many believe that NBC created the first radio network but that is not exactly the case. As we saw in Part 1, AT&T’s first network radio broadcast was January 4, 1923 between WEAF in NYC and WNAC in Boston. RCA’s first network broadcast was in December of 1923 between WJZ in NYC and General Electric’s station WGY in Schenectady.
Below are some very interesting images from those first days of network radio. The first shows the WEAF Network which would in 1926 become the basis for the NBC Red Network. There are 17 stations on the network.
The second photo shows the performers on one of network radios first shows and was broadcast on the WEAF network. The star of the show is on the far right…that’s Will Rogers with The Waldorf Astoria Orchestra on ‘The Eveready Hour’ in 1923.
The next image shows the WJZ Network which had only four stations. This was the basis for the NBC Blue Network. The final image is a shot from the very cozy WJZ studios of one of their first network broadcasts.
More on all five of the early NBC networks in Part 3. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 3
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 3
The “Color” Networks…Red, Blue, White, Gold And Orange
If you thought there was just Red and Blue, think again, but these didn’t all occur on November 15, 1926.
In the beginning, NBC operated two networks: NBC Blue, headed by station WJZ, and NBC Red, headed by WEAF. This situation arose, due to NBC then owning two stations in New York City (WEAF and WJZ). WEAF and the ‘Red’ Network became the flagship network and offered most of the established shows…and advertisers. NBC Red was the larger radio network, carrying the leading entertainment and music programs. In addition, many Red affiliates were high-powered, clear-channel stations, heard nationwide. NBC Blue offered most of the company’s news and cultural programs, many of them “sustaining” or unsponsored.
How did they arrive at the names ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’? The legend is that it was either the red and blue pencil marks on the engineering map or the red and blue push pins on the management’s maps.
NBC White was NBC’s Religious Programming network, also referred to as The Watchtower Network, and operated from about 1928 to 1936.
NBC’s Orange Network was it’s West Coast affiliates, KGO, KFI, KGW, KOMO, and KHQ, beginning operations in 1931. NBC also operated a ‘Gold Network’ comprised of KPO, KECA, KEX, KJR, and KGA, soon after disbanded and absorbed by the Orange Network in 1933.
NBC’s Blue Network became ABC in 1943, due to a landmark Supreme Court Ruling that held that NBC had specifically maintained the two parallel, Red and Blue, networks for the express purpose of stifling competition. NBC subsequently extricated itself by selling ‘NBC Blue’ to Edward Noble of the Lifesaver Candy Company, who first called his new network, simply ‘The Blue Network’. That name was followed by ‘The Blue Network of the American Broadcasting Company’ and eventually in 1945, dropped the ‘Blue Network’ appellation altogether and was simply called the American Broadcasting Company.
Below is a map that shows the Red, Blue and Orange network stations. Next up, some great audio from those early NBC days. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 4
November 15, 1926…The First NBC Radio Broadcast, Part 4
Excerpts From The First Broadcast And Amazing Stories
If this page comes up for you the way it does for me, in the upper right hand corner, click to play program 2 with Ben Grauer as our host. Around 2:20, you’ll hear parts of that first broadcast which went out on a network of 26 stations.
I think you’ll enjoy this from the very start. Radio lovers like me will want to hear all five hours of this…it’s just amazing! 50 years of NBC Radio history is packed in and edited to perfection with some of the best storytellers ever. This is Entertainment at it’s best! Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_NBC_50_Years_Of_Radio_Singles
Original Edit…’This Week With David Brinkley’, Berlin Wall Remote
Original Edit…’This Week With David Brinkley’, Berlin Wall Remote
As we saw earlier in the week, the Berlin Wall opened on Thursday, November 9, 1989…this is the 25th Anniversary. When the Sunday talk shows rolled around that weekend, this was still the top story. Ed Eaves has been with NBC News in NY since 1998 as an editor and producer, but from ’83 till ’98, he was with ABC News and helped edit this piece. I think you’ll enjoy seeing this and the spaces left for the Washington bureau to plug in graphics, video and live feeds. The text details with the video are from Ed and quite good at letting us know what we are seeing. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
http://vimeo.com/111801697This is the ABC News This Week with David Brinkley on-location remote edit portion of Jack Smith’s backgrounder report produced and edited by David Verdi and Ed…
The Latest From 3000 West Alameda…Former NBC Burbank
The Latest From 3000 West Alameda…Former NBC Burbank
Thanks to Ray Rivera, here are some recent photos from what is now, The Burbank Studios. I think most of these were taken in the area around what was KNBC Studio 10. Except for Studio 3 which Clear Channel took over and made into the iHeart Radio studio, all of the others are intact. In Studio 1, ‘Access Hollywood’ is still in production, but I think they move next year. ‘Days Of Our Lives’ is still in Studios 2 and 4. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it seems that perhaps some of the scenery storage areas are being converted into some other kind of space…maybe a new studio? Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
How The Ultra Rare 3M ’20 Years Of Video Tape’ Survived…
How The Ultra Rare 3M ’20 Years Of Video Tape’ Survived…
A few days ago, I heard from Neil Gjere who told me a very interesting story and today, we get part one of the story in the form of the historic video in today’s first post and this…the backstory of how it is that this rare video survived and is seen here for the first time since the 1976 NAB convention. Below the line is Neil’s account. Many thanks to him for the rare video and for more photos and videotape history he is sending soon. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
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“Back in ’79, and fresh out of school I was given the opportunity to work in the television studios of the public relations department for a “small” company known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing what we all know today as the 3M Company. The division at that time was basically responsible for providing video services to all of the various corporate sales divisions and the products they were responsible for.
One of my primary duties assigned to me was to duplicate completed programs that had been created in the studio with the intention of distribution to the corporate sales forces worldwide. One evening, I was approached by a department head clutching a two inch quad reel and a 3/4″ umatic tape and a request to dub the program for a corporate client he was wooing to get some work out of.
The title on the quad reel? ’20 Years of Videotape’ Being fresh out of school and absorbing everything television related I could find to expand my future career chances in the business, I asked the department head If he wouldn’t mind If I made a copy for myself to watch later. “Sure!” he said. “I’d like to hear your opinion, what you think of the program!”
From that moment, the request took the priority of “Rush Job” not only because it was needed for a breakfast meeting the following morning, but because I was excited to see for myself what exactly took up twenty minutes of quad tape space and had clearly taken up a large amount of studio time to produce. I grabbed a nearby 3/4″ umatic tape, shoved it into a nearby machine, and pushed record.
Well, for whatever reason, I was unable to get around to actually viewing the tape until much, much, later and I ended up carrying it around with me in the hopes that my viewing time would coincide with the availability of a 3/4″ playback deck. Once I was able to actually watch the program, I determined that it was a sales presentation used at 3M’s 1976 NAB convention sales booth to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the creation of video tape recording.
I enjoyed watching it, but clearly it was a sales presentation so technical in nature, my 19 year old brain just couldn’t appreciate the historical significance it was trying to convey. It came out of the deck and into the void that was my life at the time, never to be seen again. Until one day, 30 years later, a conversation with my high school radio/tv teacher came about. “I have a number of old video tapes from my teaching days and I’d like to see if you can tell me what’s on any of them.” These were old black and white reels in the old JEDEC helical format that was popular back in the day for educational and industrial uses. I have yet to find a deck to play these on to determine if there’s anything useful I can give back to him.
We met for lunch and he gave me a large bag of tapes that upon seeing brought me right back to his classroom in the late 70s. I told him I would see what I could do bluffing my way through lunch without the slightest idea how in fact I was going to view these things. A couple of weeks go by and I figured I’d ignored my requested missive long enough. So I began to go through the stack of now “vintage” recorded material.
After digging through case after case of 7 inch reels, I reach to bottom of the bag and discover a differently shaped case. As I go to pull it out, the label reveals: ’20 Years of Videotape’. Really.
Apparently, without truly remembering the moment, I had given the tape I’d dubbed so many years ago to my teacher who, was still teaching at the time with the thinking that maybe he could use it in one of his lectures back in the day. After he left teaching, it became another item in his career archive pile. And like some sort of time travelling boomerang, Here it ends back up on my doorstep. Weird.
As I look at the 3/4″ Umatic tape in my hand, I began to reminisce of the moment all those years ago, THIRTY years ago when I had shoved that very tape into one of the twenty five duplicating machines we had on hand to record the material that I now realize may be the only surviving recording of a Master that may have been a victim of decades of cast off departmental records purges.
A very real possibility after hearing of many of my colleagues in the department being let go shortly after my departure in 1980. And I realize, “How the HELL am I going to play this thing back?”
Considering our facility was paring back the number of 1″ machines in our inventory with the goal of eliminating all of them within a years time, and knowing the LAST 3/4″ machine departed with the parade of analog Beta machines that had just been emptied from our racks a year earlier, the likelihood of ever being reminded what was on that tape was fading quickly.
Back into the bag it went. By some divine archival intervention a few months later I overhear a conversation between a couple of colleagues regarding a freshly purchased 3/4″ machine and who was going to install it. As it turns out, a program project had paid to purchase a machine to dub needed material that was ONLY available on 3/4″ and the school had gotten rid of their machines ten years prior with no one giving any thought to future access of their programming.
It was only several weeks after that I spied the now dark machine in the equipment rack that I was reminded of my own recovery project. Out of the bag it comes. I decided if I was going to run this thing through a machine of that vintage, with a tape of that vintage, it would probably be a good idea to get it recorded on as many various digital devices that I could get stock for with the thinking I may only get one chance.
By the time I rolled tape for that pivotal moment, I had ones and zeroes flowing to no less than seven different recording devices. It played perfectly. Not one clog, not one dropout, and little if any evidence of degradation despite sitting on a reel for the better part of thirty years without so much as an inch of movement in that time.
And as I sat and watched the clearly 1976 production, I was reminded how much we gained not only in technical abilities, but in production values and capabilities as well. And the names: Ginsburg, Wetzel, Sater. Mel Sater to be exact. Mr. Sater played a prominent part in this story as you will soon discover in my next chapter.” -Neil Gjere
ULTRA RARE! 3M’s 1976 “20 Years Of Videotape”
This is one of only 2 or 3 surviving copies of 3M’s 1976 NAB tribute video called ’20 Years Of Video Tape’ and covers, in amazing detail, the history of video tape starting even before the unveiling of the VRX 1000 at the 1956 NAB convention and goes all the way to 1976. This was the 20th Anniversary of the introduction of videotape.
This is historical in every way and this is the only place you will see it, so please share this with your friends! You will see and hear things here that you’ve never seen or heard before!
This is 20 minutes long, so sit back, enjoy and remember to share this! It’s the only way your friends can see it. Thanks to Neil Gjere for sharing it with us! -Bobby Ellerbee
Television’s First Electronic Zoom Lens…The RCA Electra Zoom
Television’s First Electronic Zoom Lens…The RCA Electra Zoom
As we saw in the article just before this, Zoomar came to television in the middle of 1949 and was the first zoom for TV use. The first use of the RCA Electra Zoom lens was at NBC New York, and I think arrived a month or so prior to the debut of the ‘Today’ show in January of 1952 for cameramen to get the feel of it’s operation. We see it in use there on the debut broadcast.
Included here is the RCA catalog listing and, an original prototype model built by it’s creator, Joseph Walker, who was a pioneer of zoom and fixed lenses at Paramount Pictures. Some of the earliest uses of a zoom lens in motion pictures are due to Walker’s work in the 1930s. In 1950, he added an electric motor to one of his earlier models for smoother action. In late 1951, RCA and Zeiss bought the invention and took over the manufacturing and sales. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
The Hidden History of the Zoom Lens
The Zoom Lens And Television…The First Uses
Many have asked what the first use of the zoom lens was in television and here is your answer. It was the long, 23 element Zoomar Field lens created by Dr. Frank Back. This 3 minute video gives us a short but sweet history.
The first ever Zoomar lens for television, Serial #1, was sold to WMAR in Baltimore in 1949. WBKB in Chicago heard about this and bought one to use on their new puppet show…’Kukla, Fran and Ollie’. Although it was a long lens, meant for outside broadcasts, WBKB used it in the studio and became the first to do so. When KFO moved from WBKB to NBC’s WMAQ, a Zoomar was purchased for use on the show at WMAQ too. Up next, the first electronic zoom lens for television. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
The Hidden History of the Zoom Lens
This is a video summarising the research behind my doctoral thesis on the history of the zoom lens in American film and television. It was made in response to the…
Long Forgotten Production Tricks…
Long Forgotten Production Tricks…
Back in the early days of television, most local stations didn’t have the money for expensive “extras” like pedestals and dollies. Instead, they mounted cameras on wheeled tripods that they could use in the studio or in their remote unit, if they had one.
Among the early staples of local daytime television were home and cooking shows. Since you can’t elevate a tripod to see the top of the counter or stove, overhead mirror systems like this were used.
I am told there were larger versions of this mirror system in use when broadcasting another staple of early local programming…wrestling. Anyone have any more old tricks up their sleeve?
By the way, this is KOTV in Tulsa in 1953. They may not have had pedestals, but the did spring for an RCA Electa Zoom lens. More on zoom lenses in today’s next few posts. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
NBC Radio City West…Now And Then
NBC Radio City West…Now And Then
In 1938, construction began on NBC’s west coast showplace at Sunset and Vine Streets in Hollywood. A scant twenty six years later, it was torn down and replaced by a Home Savings bank. It’s now a Chase bank.
Taking it’s cue from homebase at Radio City in New York, it was named NBC Radio City West, but in actuality, the entire two block area around it was in itself “radio city”. On the other side of Vine Street and less than a block up was ABC and a block away, on the same side of the Sunset was CBS Columbia Square.
Thanks to Glenn Mack for sharing the present day photos and there is more detail on the photos, so be sure and click through them. By the way, the building was a beautiful pale green. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
Up Close And Personal…Vinyl Records Like We’ve Never Seen Them
Up Close And Personal…Vinyl Records Like We’ve Never Seen Them
It still amazes me that when you put a record on the turntable and place the tone arm on it, you get sound. These are electron microscope photos at 100X and 1000X magnification. I thought you might be as fascinated by these as I was. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
