WNHC-TV New Haven – July 1948 Highlights

RGJ — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:49:29 +0000

On April 10th, 1948 The New York Times reported that the DuMont Network would soon have an affiliate in Connecticut thanks to station WNHC-TV in New Haven [1]. The station was owned by the Elm City Broadcasting Company and the plan was to be on the air roughly by the start of May. But the station didn’t start test patterns until early June and wasn’t officially on the air until 6PM on June 15th, 1948 [2]. Even then, it was only broadcasting in a test capacity to ensure that it could successfully relay DuMont programming from New York City.

Here are some daily schedules from early July of 1948. Of particular interest to me are the fifteen-minute broadcasts of Mary Kay and Johnny.

Friday, July 2nd, 1948 [3]
10:00AM-12:00PM: Test Pattern
2:00PM-5:00PM: Test Pattern
6:00PM: Small Fry
6:30PM: Russ Hodge’s Scoreboard
6:45PM: Film Shorts
7:30PM: Camera Headlines
7:45PM: Film Shorts
8:00PM: Fashions on Parade

Monday, July 5th, 1948 [4]
5:00PM: Teletunes
6:00PM: Small Fry Club
6:30PM: Russ Hodge’s Scoreboard
6:45PM: Film Shorts
7:00PM: Doorway to Fame
7:30PM: Camera Headlines
7:45PM: Sylvia St. Claire
8:00PM: Film Shorts
8:30PM: Swing Into Sports

Tuesday, July 6th, 1948 [5]
5:00PM: Teletunes
6:00PM: Small Fry Club
6:30PM: Russ Hodge’s Scoreboard
6:45PM: Film Shorts
7:00PM: Alan Dale Show
7:15PM: Mary Kay and Johnny
7:30PM: Camera Headlines
7:40PM: Tele News
8:00PM: Court of Current Issues
9:00PM: Boxing, Jerome Arena

Wednesday, July 7th, 1948 [6]
5:00PM: Teletunes
6:00PM: Small Fry Club
6:30PM: Russ Hodge’s Scoreboard
6:45PM: Film Shorts
7:00PM: Photographic Horizons
7:15PM: Mary Kay and Johnny
7:30PM: Camera Headlines
7:45PM: Film Shorts
8:00PM: School Days with Happy Felton
8:30PM: To Be Announced
9:00PM: Boxing, Jamaica Arena

Sunday, July 11th, 1948 [7]
1:40PM: Baseball Fanfare
2:00PM: Yankees-Washington Baseball Game
5:00PM: Teletunes
6:00PM: Film Shorts
6:30PM: Key to the Missing

On October 5th, 1948 WNHC-TV affiliated itself with CBS in addition to DuMont [8]. I believe the station also carried ABC and NBC programming. Today, as WTNH, it is still on the air in Connecticut as an ABC affiliate.

Works Cited:

1 Gould, Jack. “The News of Radio.” New York Times. 10 Apr. 1948: 28.
2 “WNHC-TV Today Starts Television Broadcasting.” Hartford Courant. 15 Jun. 1958: 1.
3 “Television.” Hartford Courant. 2 Jul. 1948: 18.
4 “Television.” Hartford Courant. 5 Jul. 1948: 5.
5 “Television.” Hartford Courant. 6 Jul. 1948: 16.
6 “Television.” Hartford Courant. 7 Jul. 1948: 7.
7 “Television.” Hartford Courant. 11 Jul. 1948: C9.
8 “Radio and Television.” New York Times. 6 Oct. 1948: 58.

NBC Makes Historic Scheduling Change

RGJ — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:00:19 +0000

You can read the particulars at all the big and small TV industry websites (Broadcasting & Cable, The Hollywood Reporter, TV Week, TV Guide, Variety) but the tall and short of it is simply this: NBC has announced it will give its 10-11PM time slot to Jay Leno starting some time next year. In other words, Jay Leno will helm a talk show five days a week, effectively cutting back the network’s output from fifteen hours Monday through Friday to ten hours. The New York Times calls the move a “novelty” while Variety points out that NBC has twice considered “stripping” a 10PM non-scripted program.

Reading about what I’m certain will be seen as a “historic” scheduling change on the part of NBC (whether history will be kind to the concept depends on how the Nielsen numbers pan out) led me to wonder when was the last time one of the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) actually aired the same program five nights a week, Monday through Friday? In the late 1940s and early 1950s when the networks and commercial television were still in their infancy it wasn’t uncommon for programs to be shown ever weeknight. Airing the same program Monday/Wednesday/Friday was also fairly routine. But these were mostly fifteen-minute shows and were variety or talk shows.

For eight weeks in the summer of 1949, NBC aired a fifteen-minute version of Mary Kay and Johnny Monday through Friday from 7:15-7:30PM. And for many years in the early 1950s DuMont broadcast Captain Video five nights a week, at times even six nights a week, expanding to include Saturdays. I’m sure there must be other examples of scripted programs shown five nights a week but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

For a few years in the mid-1960s serialized half-hour programs were all the rage and at one point ABC was showing Peyton Place three times a week (other twice weekly offerings included Batman, Shindig and Dr. Kildare — I’m sure there’s a Television Obscurities article somewhere in this) but the trend died out quickly. As many of the articles on NBC’s announcement mention, daytime soap operas are shown five days a week. MyNetworkTV made an ill-fated attempt to bring the daily, serialized soap opera to prime time during its first season on the air (2006-2007).

The last time a scripted network series was shown more than once a week on a regular basis that I can think of was NBC’s Committed, which ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two weeks in January of 2006 before settling down to once a week. However, game shows and news magazines are often shown two or three times a week (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Deal or No Deal, Dateline). I’m willing to make the bold prediction that Jay Leno’s new daily talk show will do well during its first week on the air, and certainly its premiere should attract many interested viewers. How the second week will perform is another matter.

11:04PM Update

I thought something was different about The New York Times‘s article. As I was writing this, article on the paper’s website changed. It used to contain the following sentence:

No broadcast network has ever before offered the same show in prime time five nights a week.

That sentence was replaced with this one:

Running the same show in prime time five nights a week would be a novelty for a broadcast network.

TVbytheNumbers has the original line. I thought I was imagining things.

NBC Fall Preview to Debut August 8th

Television Obscurities » Mary Kay and Johnny

WNHC-TV New Haven – July 1948 Highlights

NBC Makes Historic Scheduling Change