Usually, I don’t have the option of actually scanning the newspapers I use as references. But I got my hands on a few pages from the Wednesday, October 16th, 1963 issue of The Hartford Courant and, luckily, included were the television listings, which I’ve scanned.
You can’t tell from the following image but the paper has browned considerably. The left edge is curled and quite brittle and actually torn in several places. These are some of the problems faced with trying to store newspapers. I’ve also scanned the day’s television previews, which cover Glynis, Saga of Western Man and The Danny Kaye Show.
Here are the listings:
October 16th, 1963 Hartford Courant TV Listings
And here are the previews:
October 16th, 1963 Hartford Courant TV Previews
Interesting comparison to what New York area viewers were watching on a typical weekday in October 1963, and those tuning in in Hartford. The network schedules were configured somewhat differently in most areas of the country, depending on the time zone and the size of the “market area” (some communities had only ONE or two stations, and some of those often carried elements from all three networks at the same time!).
Channels 3 and 12 were CBS stations; channels 8, 20 and 40 carried ABC’s programming, and 10, 22, and 30 were NBC outlets. Channel 24 was the “educational” {public broadcasting these days} station, and 18 was an “independent” station that also carried “subscription” [pay] TV at night; this meant you paid for the use of a box on your set to unscramble the signal the station sent out in the evening that telecast “recent” movies and sporting events, uncut and commercial free. This was the forerunner of what became “cable television” in the ’70s.
Now, as to the network daytime schedules:
Note that Channel 3 doesn’t carry the network repeats of “I LOVE LUCY”, “THE REAL McCOYS” and “PETE AND GLADYS” from 10:30 to Noon, and “TO TELL THE TRUTH” (at 3:00) and “THE SECRET STORM” (4:00) in the afternoon {neither did 12 on “STORM”}. I saw WTIC’s listings in TV GUIDE back then, and eventually discovered they made more money pre-empting some of the CBS daytime “feed”, right into the early ’70s, in favor of local movies [they also presented a feature film in multiple parts for a half-hour each day, at 1:00] and “RANGER ANDY” (a local children’s show host, appearing at 4pm). They DID carry “THE CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE” at 6:30- but the paper doesn’t mention “THE CBS MIDDAY NEWS WITH HARRY REASONER” at 12:25, or “THE CBS AFTERNOON NEWS WITH DOUGLAS EDWARDS” AT 3:25.
ABC’s daytime schedule is almost the same “duration” it is today, only they don’t broadcast any national programming from 12-12:30 and after 4pm, as they did in ’63. Channel 8 {WNHC} carried “QUEEN FOR A DAY” at 2pm {instead of its scheduled 3pm(et) time period} while the network was “down”, so they could preempt “WHO DO YOU TRUST?” (with Woody Woodbury as host, who replaced Johnny Carson in October 1962) and carry the “WAGON TRAIN” repeats [“MAJOR ADAMS, TRAILMASTER”] at 3, followed by an hour of their local kids’ show host, “ADMIRAL JACK”, at 4- while 20 and 40 carried all three at their scheduled times.
The NBC affiliates carried their network schedules to the letter, with ONE exception: the scheduled 4:30pm repeats of “MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY” [“THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW”] were replaced by local movies on 10 and 22 {Channel 10, though, DID carry it on a delayed basis at 1:30, while NBC was “off” between 1 and 2pm(et)}.
“THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY CARSON” originally started at 11:15pm(et), and lasted for an hour and 45 minutes- until January 1967, when Carson finally insisted the show begin when HE came on at 11:30, and not Ed McMahon, who often handled the first 15 minutes. Johnny had a very good reason to complain…most affiliates, including 22 and 30, carried the show at 11:30, because of a trend in expanded half-hour local newscasts at 11. Only channel 10 aired the opening 15 minutes.