WX2BS Schedule, Week of May 7th, 1939
I wrote about the first week of regular, but experimental, television broadcasting in the United States last week. The first week’s programming was filled mostly with live broadcasts from the New York World’s Fair or from the W2XBS studio. I haven’t been able to find an actual schedule listed in The New York Times for the following week, which began on Sunday, May 7th.
Presumably, W2XBS stuck to the same general schedule it used during the previous week. Articles discussing the debut of television did indicate that the station was inaugurating a weekly schedule consisting of films Monday through Friday at various times, studio programs on Wednesday and Friday, and the occasional pick-up from the fair on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
I can’t say this definitively but it doesn’t appear that W2XBS was on the air during the weekend. Here’s a vague schedule that may or may not be what was actually broadcast:
Sunday, May 7h, 1939
Off the air?Monday, May 8th, 1939
11:00AM-4:00PM – Films.Tuesday, May 9th, 1939
11:00AM-4:00PM – Films.Wednesday, May 10th, 1939
4:00-8:00PM – Films.
8:00-9:00PM – Studio presentations.Thursday, May 11th, 1939
11:00AM-4:00PM – Films.Friday, May 12th, 1939
4:00-8:00PM – Films.
8:00-9:00PM – Studio presentations.Saturday, May 6th, 1939
Off the air?
A May 7th article in The New York Times notes that during the evening studio programs sets would be changed during act breaks while films were shown to hide the work of the crew members switching out scenery [1]. The same article reveals that NBC was considering the broadcast of a college baseball game if possible from Columbia University.
Works Cited:
1 Hoffmann, Rudolf H. “Notes on Television.” New York Times. 7 May 1939: X10.
Related: