Amazing tidbits -1950 TV Forecast

[old_tv_nut]

This TV Forecast magazine (recently found on that auction site) from August 5, 1950 has an amazing array of articles on TV at the time - complete listings for Chicago, plus abbreviated for Milwaukee WTMJ (channel 3 at the time, Chicago had channel 4) and even a page for WLAV Channel 7 in Grand Rapids, MI, which carried programs from ABC, CBS, NBC, and DTN (Dumont)! Note that the latter page lists the times of day during which test patterns will be broadcast!




(2.5 MB pdf file)
http://www.bretl.com/tvarticles/tvfo...ast05aug50.pdf

For someone who grew up in Chicago, the names mentioned are really nostalgic: Linn Burton ("Linn Burton for certain!"), a long time pitchman for used cars and other things; Jim Moran ("the Courtesy man"), a new car dealer (Hudson at the time, I believe, later Ford.) Moran eventually had fluorescent studio lighting installed at his dealership on Grand Avenue, and would sponsor a feature film on the weekend starting at 10 p.m. He would show 20 minutes or so uninterrupted, then do 20 minutes of car sales, followed by uninterrupted completion of the movie. The car sales were done live from the dealership using the two huge WGN remote vans that were also used for Cubs games. My dad worked as his service manager for a few years some time later, and one year went on a free employee vacation to Cuba when the dealership had a banner year.

There is even an ad for a chicken restaurant called Pick'n Chick'n. My dad worked at a different Ford dealer nearby after 1956, and being a widower who patronized the place for lunch, would park me and my sister there after school. "Johnnie" (Ruth) the waitress/manager would watch us do our homework until my dad got off work. My dad is gone nearly 30 years, but Ruth and her husband John are still in touch from their retirement place in Maryland.

The cover article is about WGN broadcasting from a remote studio built on the lakefront in conjunction with a Chicago Fair being held there.

Enjoy!

[David Roper]

WLAV carried a little something from all four networks? This is the first time I had heard that. It explains why there would be viewer mail to the Du Mont program Down You Go from Holland, MI. When I saw a kinescope of that show I wondered if the Holland viewer might have had a very tall antenna aimed at Du Mont affiliate WGN or just caught a little summertime skip, but their watching it out of GR makes much more sense.

WLAV would eventually change from channel 7 to channel 8, narrow its network affiliation to NBC only and change its calls to WOOD.

[old_tv_nut]

David, I am always amazed and gratified how a little "tickler" information posted here brings out so much more.

[Robert Grant]

Just beautiful.

I like the fact that the early discovery of sporadic-E skip TV DXing is mentioned twice in the first four pages!

KPRC/KLEE, mentioned in the "Letters to the editor", was the station that English swindlers would make a phony ID slide of. They told prospective "investors" that they had built a device that would allow British viewers to receive American TV directly, and showed a KLEE ID slide (fake) to "prove" it, not knowing they had changed their call to KPRC.

The urban legend that people had seen a TV signal from three years in the past persisted for decades!

[old_tv_nut]

that's funny!