September 4, 1951…America’s First Coast To Coast TV Broadcast
September 4, 1951…America’s First Coast To Coast TV Broadcast
65 years ago today, the first live transcontinental television signals were transmitted from San Francisco to New York, as President Harry S. Truman’s opening speech before the Japanese Peace Conference was broadcast across the nation.
This was the debut of AT&T’s new route of long lines and state-of-the-art microwave technology, with the microwave transmission covering about a quarter of the route west of Denver. The historic broadcast was picked up by 87 stations in 47 cities on all 4 TV networks. (ABC, CBS, Dumont, NBC).
Part of the speech can be seen here.
This is was the configuration of the new coast-to-coast AT&T broadcast net for television. There was a total of 109 operating TV stations serving 64 markets. There were 40 one station markets, 10 two station markets 10 three station markets, and 4 four station markets. At the time, only 63 cities were connected to the AT&T net to receive live television broadcasts. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
In 1951 there was still a “freeze” on new station licenses; the last pre-1948 licensed station, WLTV Channel 8 (now WXIA Channel 11) in Atlanta, signed on on September 30; the 108th station on the air. Tampa and West Palm Beach were mentioned; at the time only WTVJ Miami and WMBR (now WJXT) Jacksonville were on the air; there would be no more stations in the Sunshine State until 1953.
They have labelled Terre Haute as Indianapolis and Louisville as Bloomington.
At WBJA in Binghamton, our ABC feed was received over a microwave network that served cable headends. We actually rebroadcast WABC out of NYC, cutting away for local breaks or programs. For backup, we had a yagi halfway up the tower getting Syracuse off air.
It’s interesting that Tampa, FL, Portland, OR, Las Vegas and nearly a dozen whole states didn’t much count in those days.
I am so amazed how far Advanced we are in just a few short years ….. no other period in history have we made such a leap technologically …..
And now it’s all done at the speed of light by using……….light….
Was microwave transmission an old technology? In 1975 I was stationed at Fort Greely, Alaska and they dismantled our AFRTS TV station as we began receiving microwave transmissions from Fairbanks, a hundred miles away.
I know until satellite distribution came along that WJRT Flint had their own microwave to bring in ABC from WXYZ, and WEYI did the same with CBS from WJBK.
At WXYZ we used to have an air receiver on WDHO Toledo in case any construction projects broke the network cable to us.
Happened to catch a kinescoped episode of “What’s My Line?” on cable. At the end, John Charles Daly said, Tune in again next Sunday night at 10:30 Eastern time (no 9:30 Central). For other locations check your local listings.” I assume this was for the benefit of stations not hooked up to the coax who got a kinescope. What puzzled me is why Goodson and Todman thought viewers didn’t know when the show was on in their areas as they watched it and would have to get a newspaper or TV Guide to look it up.
Looks like Indianapolis is really Bloomington, and Bloomington is Louisville, and the “real” Indy has no label. I wonder if Jackson MS was on the line since there is a branch there.
The first TV station I worked at in 1974 was NBC affiliate WYEA-TV in Columbus, GA. The station was located outside of the city and had no coaxial cable connection to the NBC Network. The ABC affiliate WTVM was in town and had coaxial connections for their own ABC and for our NBC feeds. A set of microwave transmitters were installed at WTVM in order to relay both feeds to our station; one was for WYEA’s own NBC feed and the other was used to relay ABC on to yet another TV station south of WYEA. In addition, our NBC feed was also relayed on to WALB-TV in Albany, GA, since they ALSO had no coaxial cable service in Albany. So WYEA acted as the relay point for two other stations farther down! These were the days when there was no satellite delivery of TV feeds.
Here’s a photo of the WYEA receive/relay equipment. Be sure to read the description explaining how it was all connected:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557863392/
Up here in canada, we were very close after and actually had microwave coast to coast…..according to one of our well known (at least to canadians) “Heritage Minutes” which got a lot of play as PSA fill for american TV shows (this one was produced in the 90s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF1LBsXjnwc
Interesting to the markets that did not participate. Back then they were too small. Not included are Las Vegas and West Palm Beach among others.
My first thought on seeing this was Seven Days in May. The plot of this film used the configuration of the national TV interconnect as a major plot device.
When I was with Michigan Bell in the early ’70s they still talked about how many times the coax cable was dug up in Toledo. In Central Iowa the only TV station was WOI-TV at Iowa State in Ames carrying all bits of four networks. They hadn’t figured out EDTV yet. So the signal goes trough Des Moines with a spur to Ames.
I remember when I was in grade school Washington D C was very proud to be one of the four stations cities. That would have been around 1953.
Bloomington=Louisville? HA
The original AT&T (hereinafter referred to as Ma Bell) is gone. Coax is obsolete and replaced by satellite (also developed by Ma Bell). Any Baby Boomers born that day can now apply for Medicare (Harry Truman got the first Medicare card). If AT&T had gotten coax up and running a little sooner, “I Love Lucy” would have been done live from Columbia Square and all we might – might – have would be some kinescopes.