NBC Coverage of JFK Assassination

[bgadow]

Among the things found in the stash of VHS tapes I picked up recently is a copy of the NBC coverage of the JFK assassination. This was reaired at least a couple times-the one I have was done by PBS in 1993. It is 6+ hours, uninterupted, starting shortly after the special coverage began. A truly amazing time capsule; I was particularly surprised at how much information they were able to get out-by the end of the recording they were able to air a recorded interview that Lee Harvey Oswald had done with a Louisiana TV station. There are all sorts of technical problems they encountered throughout the day but overall they made excellent use of their facilities.

Some questions, for those "in the know":
The recording is primarily b/w. I'm assuming the NBC news studios were not color equipped at the time? They do numerous remotes from WBAP-TV, the earliest ones in color. There was another remote later on in color from somewhere else. I wonder, were these broadcast live (and recorded) that way, or were they initially bw to the network, with color recordings edited in later?

[Sandy G]

I've always thought they looked like they were made in a different century. (no pun intended) The cameras were obviously primitive, even for 1963 standards, w/many "artifacts" & distortion. I don't remember "live" programs from then looking so bad. Kinda looks like they drug the oldest junk they had out of the storage barn, slapped it on the side, & made do...

[etype2]

For anyone living at the time, will never forget the week. You may have heard, " I remember exactly what I was doing when the news broke" It's true, I was 17 at the time and the announcement came over the PA system in study hall. I was living with my parents and they did not have a color TV.

Back then (1963) color TV was limited to a few hours in prime time, so I suspect most or all live remote broadcasts were B&W. I remember that the networks went mainstream with all day color telecasting in 1966-67. That was a big incentive to buy a color TV which were expensive then. My first was a 67 RCA purchased late 1966. :-)

[holmesuser01]

My mom was laid up in bed with a slipped disc in her back. My dad bought her a brand new GE 19" portable B/W set with a stand that morning so she could watch TV. Then, the assassination happened, and we all watched the events unfold at the foot of my parents bed for the next few days.

I still think the networks did an incredible job with coverage of the event.

[Sandy G]

I was in 1st grade. It was a GLORIOUS fall day, that "chrome-blue" it only gets that time of year. We had just come from Recess into the school cafeteria. They had the radio playing over the lunchroom PA, I remember my 1st grade teacher, Lois Armstrong, her eyes got big as saucers. We went back up in the room & prayed for him. Seems like they let us outta school early that day, & the kids outside were eerily quiet...

[NowhereMan 1966]

I have that 1993 tape somewhere that I taped myself. BTW, one of my co-workers was a young kid at the time and he told me that he remembers getting angry because they cancelled the cartoons in the afternoon.

[Vidiot]

Originally Posted by bgadow

some questions, for those "in the know":
The recording is primarily b/w. I'm assuming the NBC news studios were not color equipped at the time? They do numerous remotes from WBAP-TV, the earliest ones in color. There was another remote later on in color from somewhere else. I wonder, were these broadcast live (and recorded) that way, or were they initially bw to the network, with color recordings edited in later?

Yes, most broadcast TV was B&W prior to about 1965-1966. 1966 was the big changeover year, when prime-time went pretty much 100% color for American networks.

NBC did showcase color specials and some limited color programming (like Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza on Sunday night), but most of their news was B&W. I'd say 100% of the assassination coverage was B&W.

Like some of the older farts here, my memories of November 22nd, 1963 are pretty much seared into my brain. I was 9 years old, and had just seen Kennedy 3 times in the motorcade parade through Tampa, Florida four days earlier on November 18th. It was a huge shock for everybody in my home town when Kennedy was killed.

I often say, the 1950s really ended when Kennedy died, in terms of innocence and pop culture. And the 1960s really began in January of 1964, when the British Invasion exploded.

Note that 2013 will be the 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of TV coverage about it. We keep waiting for the smoking gun, some guy on his deathbed to finally confess the whole story... but it hasn't happened yet.

[colorfixer]

Wasn't JFK's funeral in color?

I remember hearing from a tech at a tv station I worked at telling me that the cameras of the day took so long to stabilize that the networks and their news affiliates had to go to air really quick, which meant that the b/w cameras had to be used and even those took a long time to fire up.

[Dennman6]

[QUOTE=colorfixer;2997860]Wasn't JFK's funeral in color?

I remember seeing the CBS black & white videotape coverage on a special in 1993. The only color footage I've ever seen from the JFK funeral has been film sourced, probably 16mm Kodachrome. So far I've not ever been aware of color videotape. But if there WAS any, even limited amounts of it, I'd expect to see it come from NBC since they'd been doing colorcasts since 1954.

[Dan Starnes]

I was in 1st grade. Principal stepped in the room and told us right after lunch. Old school and had no PA system. We had B&W set so I dont know if any of the coverage was in color. My memory is the footage was standard quality for the day.

[Dave A]

There were not enough color remote units in the day available on the east coast and on short notice to cover the entire funeral route in color. B&W on all the archives is what was broadcast of the route via the pool of
DC networks and local stations.

The few remote trucks of the day only had a handful of TK-41 (the camera of exclusivity) on-board. NBC did baseball in color with only four or five cameras from the NYC truck. Probably all they owned in the remote trucks of the day.

NBC had one remote truck in NYC, perhaps a second on the west coast. Not sure about DC. CBS was 1965 or so for color and only in studios, and ABC was the same.

There were a handful of independent remote trucks like Red Skelton but that was only four more cameras out west.

The end result is that there were a handful of color remote trucks and not enough to do the coverage. B&W is what we saw.

Most any presidential event is a pool situation, but the pool looks awfully low in 1963 for color. The pool would have been all the nets and locals in B&W.

The archive footage we can see will confirm the paucity of color at the network end. Steve D is invited to correct my remberance of color history with my apologies.

RCA kept selling color sets anyway.

"Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story". Richie Ashburn

[alespn]

Originally Posted by colorfixer

Wasn't JFK's funeral in color?

I remember hearing from a tech at a tv station I worked at telling me that the cameras of the day took so long to stabilize that the networks and their news affiliates had to go to air really quick, which meant that the b/w cameras had to be used and even those took a long time to fire up.

I also seem to remember that the funeral, or at least part of it was in color on NBC. I assume they just set up a side by side with the pool gear. I also watched a replay of the coverage, I think on CSPAN. I remember that the early reports from WBAP in Dallas were in color... mainly because the videotape unlocked verytime the color source was placed on the air. Not too much later the same reports were in black & white. Someone at NBC must have told them to shut off the color.

[West]

The events of that depressing weekend seem like yesterday. I was in my last year of high school.

I had a 17-inch console Philco black-and-white set that my aunt had given me. It had razor-sharp video and the color subcarrier (a crawling cross-hatch pattern) could easily be seen on color shows. I was "into" color at the time and usually watched for this. (I wanted a color set so bad and in December of 1963 I finally got my Heathkit color set.)

As far as Los Angeles television was concerned, when the Kennedy news coverage started, as I recall, all the stations, even non-network stations, dropped their normal programming and provided wall-to-wall network coverage, so color just completely disappeared.

Normally we had NBC on channel 4, of course, and ABC on channel 7 with a small amount of film color ("The Jetsons" and "The Flintstones") along with KHJ-TV channel 9 and KCOP channel 13, both of which had color film capability.

It wasn't until the last night of that event, either on Sunday night or Monday night (I think the funeral was on Monday) that KHJ aired a religious film program in color. As I remember they got some criticism for breaking away, but after almost four days of non-stop coverage, I, and I'm sure a lot of other viewers were completely burned out.

[Dude111]

Yes this is quite sad........

[MelodyMaster]

I have a 24-hour replay of NBC's coverage,as aired during the early days of A&E and recorded to several SuperBeta tapes. I remember just two studio inserts as being in colour, the rest is black and white.