NBC TV network in 1951

[old_tv_nut]

Found on ebay, unfortunately no indication of what magazine it is cut from. Back of page has photos from TV production of "Rebecca."

Two of those characters in the lower left sure seem to be Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan, who were CBS stars.

[Dave A]

Now lets identify the people. I have;

Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Ed Wynn
Howdy Doody
Gertrude Berg as Molly Goldberg
Arthur Godfrey
Kay Kaiser
Ed Sullivan (on NBC?)

Fill in the blanks.

The guy with the money is maybe Dennis James?

The couple in formal wear closest to the camera is maybe Mary Healy and Peter Lind Hayes?

[stromberg67]

Rise Stevens as "Carmen" ?

[marknyc]

Let's not forget to mention Foodini!

[Eric H]

Pretty sure the guy at the top in the blue suit is Bert Parks, who is also the guy in this Admiral ad.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by egrand

Two of those characters in the lower left sure seem to be Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan, who were CBS stars.

Milwaukee only had one channel and it carried programing from NBC, CBS and Dumont. RCA and NBC, probably owned all the cables.

[old_tv_nut]

Note that the artwork is by "Joe Kaufman." Kaufman was most likely an employee of the magazine this came from, and did the artwork adapting map info from NBC and adding the TV personalities from all networks. In reality, though NBC may have provided the info, I believe the network facilities were the province of AT&T.

[Jeffhs]

The affiliate map does not show Cleveland. The NBC affiliate there, Cleveland's second TV station at the time, has been on the air since 1948; how could whomever drew this map have missed it? The only thing I can figure is the station was not yet an NBC affiliate when it first signed on. I don't know when the station officially affiliated with the network, although, since NBC already operated a 50kW radio station in Cleveland in 1951, the television station, which was also operated by the network, would have become an NBC affiliate as well--as soon as or shortly after it began telecasting. The coaxial cable issue, however, may have had something to do with the station's actual affiliation date.

[Phil Nelson]

The map is a good illustration of why I call Washington state a "vintage TV desert," nowadays. The affiliates are thickly clustered in the Northeast and evenly spread throughout the Midwest. Now, look at the upper left corner. There's an awful lot of empty real estate between Seattle, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. Yes, there were other networks and a few other stations in the early days, but you get the general idea.

Phil Nelson

P.S. Do you have the opposite side of the page describing the TV production of "Rebecca?" Just curious.

[David Roper]

The two closest to the camera appear to be Jerry Lester (not sure of the significance of the tux) and Faye Emerson.

EDIT: Oh, what's the matter with me, that's Uncle Miltie in the tux, of course!

I think that map is really showing the AT&T Long Lines network, which carried all networks, not just NBC. AT&T's Long Lines division really was synonymous with long distance. The local Bells routed a long distance call to Long Lines, who was responsible for the major city connections. They also handled all network TV, radio, some telegraph, wire photo services, etc.

Here's a link to a 1952 Long Lines map that if you follow the legend for the coaxial cable you'll see that it's basically the same map: http://www.long-lines.net/places-routes/maps/US52.html

Here's a link from the same website for a 1947 Radio News article about how networks were going to get their programs to local stations and about the coaxial cable. Note that the opposite of what the article predicted came true. AT&T ended up routing tv over coaxial cable and phone calls over microwave instead of the other way around: http://www.long-lines.net/documents/...7/f-cover.html

Finally, from the same website, here's a picture of the Kansas City AT&T facility network tv board in 1966. This is where they fed the network feeds to local stations and passed them further along the chain to other cities.

[radio63]

There are several CBS stars pictured in this drawing: Ed Wynn, Arthur Godfrey, Ed Sullivan, and Gertrude Berg. Looks like this illustration has to do with the long lines TV transmission system of AT&T rather than with one particular network.