1930s broadcast hours?

[John Byrns]

I guess they never heard of 24/7 back in the 1930s. Listening to a December
1936 WEAF air check recording I heard the following sign off.

"(NBC Chimes) This is Station WEAF of the National Broadcasting Company 30
Rockefeller Plaza Radio City New York. This station operates on a frequency of
660 kilocycles by authority of the federal communications commission. It is now
one o'clock eastern standard time we're signing off until this morning at seven
thirty, until then we bid you all a cordial good night."

More surprising to me than that sign off was an early 1:00 AM, was that they
didn't sign on again until 7:30 AM. I would think that sign on would have been
no later than 6:00 AM, if not 5:00 AM, I don't know what day of the week this
was, could it have been Sunday morning, accounting for the late sign on? What
were the likely week day broadcast hours in the big apple at this time?

--
Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

[William Sommerwerck]

> I guess they never heard of 24/7 back in the 1930s.

I was just reading about "Lights Out". It was created at an NBC station to
attract late-night listeners -- at midnight, in this case.

I do remember, as a child, TV stations going off the air around 1AM or 2AM.
But I don't think every station did. * The FCC expected radio and TV stations
to broadcast at all assigned or permitted hours. (This is referred to in "The
Galaxy Being", the pilot for "The Outer Tsimmes".)

* AM stations on frequencies occupied by high-power stations generally went
off the air after sunset. I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station

[Michael A. Terrell]

TV stations required a lot of maintenance in vacuum tube days. Early
color cameras could take a couple hours to get ready for the morning
news. Things changed when they went solid state. Turn everything on
five minutes before it's needed, and little or no preventative
maintenance. I used to spend 1 to 3 hours after the broadcast day, and
1/2 to 1 hour before the broadcast day in a B&W station. The early
solid state cameras were temperature sensitive, and needed a half hour
to stabilize. Germanium transistors were pure crap in that application.

[Sofa Slug]

Ahhh ...Outer Limits' "The Galaxy Being". One of the best pilots EVER!

[D. Peter Maus]

I worked a station in 77-78 that was still signing off at midnight an
on, again at 6a. 7:30a on Sunday They didn't go 24/7 until Cumulus
bought them in the 90's.

When I worked in small towns, the advertisers were loathe to run
spots during hours they weren't open. So, there was little point in
keeping the station on beyond business hours.

If it weren't for the network contract, the station would have signed
off at local 8pm. We never ran local spots after 8pm. And only network
news spots after that. Sunday, spots didn't begin till 10a, and stopped
at 5p. Church, and PA during during non commercial hours.

Unusual, to say the least, that we were #1 by a landslide in 50
counties in 3 states, and yet ran no spots at all for at least 4 hours a
day. 10 hours on Sunday.

[John Byrns]

In article <byrnsj-311947....@news.giganews.com>,

I have done a little more research on this air check and the late sign on time
is beginning to make a little more sense to me. The air check was recorded on
December 25th, 1936. Since the recording was made in the early morning hours
the meaning of the date is perhaps a little ambiguous. If the recording was
actually made in the early morning hours of Friday December 25th then the late
sign on the next morning makes sense since it would have been Christmas morning!
On the other hand the 25th date could refer to the end of the December 25th
broadcast day and hence may have been made in the early morning hours of
Saturday December 26th and 7:30 sounds like a late sign on for the day after
Christmas, didn't they have to sign on early to whip everyone into a frenzy to
go out and shop the after Christmas sales?

[J.B. Wood]

On 04/22/2013 09:47 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

> TV stations required a lot of maintenance in vacuum tube days. Early
> color cameras could take a couple hours to get ready for the morning
> news. Things changed when they went solid state. Turn everything on
> five minutes before it's needed, and little or no preventative
> maintenance. I used to spend 1 to 3 hours after the broadcast day, and
> 1/2 to 1 hour before the broadcast day in a B&W station. The early
> solid state cameras were temperature sensitive, and needed a half hour
> to stabilize. Germanium transistors were pure crap in that application.
>

Hi, from someone who spent a good portion of his childhood (1953-1963)
in Cincy, OH. I remember some early '60s field trips to the NBC
affiliate WLW-T (now WLWT). (Of course if you were in Cincy at that
time you would also remember Ruth Lyons, Bob Braun, Paul Dixon, "Uncle"
Al and Wanda Lewis, Marian Spelman, Bonnie Lou and others) The studio
cameras in use at the time were RCA model TK-41. They were also used
outdoors at Crosley Field. I've got no idea how long these
image-orthicon based cams took to warm up and be adjusted or whether
they were turned off at night. I do know that in the studio a lot of
lighting was needed to produce a properly illuminated image. That
equipment did produce a great color picture even when compared to
today's TV broadcast equipment. Besides being heavy, those color cams
must've used a lot of joules, though. Sincerely,

--
J. B. Wood e-mail: arl_1...@hotmail.com

[Michael A. Terrell]

"J.B. Wood" wrote:
>
> On 04/22/2013 09:47 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
>
> > TV stations required a lot of maintenance in vacuum tube days. Early
> > color cameras could take a couple hours to get ready for the morning
> > news. Things changed when they went solid state. Turn everything on
> > five minutes before it's needed, and little or no preventative
> > maintenance. I used to spend 1 to 3 hours after the broadcast day, and
> > 1/2 to 1 hour before the broadcast day in a B&W station. The early
> > solid state cameras were temperature sensitive, and needed a half hour
> > to stabilize. Germanium transistors were pure crap in that application.
> >
> Hi, from someone who spent a good portion of his childhood (1953-1963)
> in Cincy, OH.

I got those and the Dayton TV stations during that time. Ch. 2, 6,
7, 9, 12 on VHF

> I remember some early '60s field trips to the NBC
> affiliate WLW-T (now WLWT). (Of course if you were in Cincy at that
> time you would also remember Ruth Lyons, Bob Braun, Paul Dixon, "Uncle"
> Al and Wanda Lewis, Marian Spelman, Bonnie Lou and others) The studio
> cameras in use at the time were RCA model TK-41. They were also used
> outdoors at Crosley Field. I've got no idea how long these
> image-orthicon based cams took to warm up and be adjusted or whether
> they were turned off at night. I do know that in the studio a lot of
> lighting was needed to produce a properly illuminated image. That
> equipment did produce a great color picture even when compared to
> today's TV broadcast equipment. Besides being heavy, those color cams
> must've used a lot of joules, though.

The entire video plant was left on at some stations, while others
shut down everything they could to reduce the electric bill. A few
degree temperature change could affect the linearity of the video. The
oldest RCA color cameras I used were TK44/TK46. They needed constant
attention, and lots of electrolytics. The cameras had fans to cool
them, but they had to be turned off when the studio had any open
microphones or they would be heard, on air. I remember one telethon
where they were in use 24/7 where I had to keep slipping into the studio
to change boards in the three cameras. I had over a dozen heat related
failures in seven days. It's real fun when an electrolytic blows,
inside a live camera. :(


I remember one day when the Phil Donahue show was a live local
program, and one of the studio cameras was badly out of convergence. I
had just installed a new CRT in TV and converged it. When I hooked up
the antenna, all three colors were about a half inch apart. They
probably knocked one or more of the prisms out of alignment, or didn't
lock the individual picks into position during maintenance.

[William Sommerwerck]

> The oldest RCA color cameras I used were TK44/TK46.
> They needed constant attention, and lots of electrolytics.

Like the stuff in "Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator"?

[Michael A. Terrell]

I've never heard of that.

[D. Peter Maus]

See 'Idiocracy.'

Not only will it be clear, but, you'll get an eery look into the
next era.

[Richard Knoppow]

"John Byrns" <byr...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:byrnsj-65DC1A....@news.giganews.com...

It was typical for stations to sign off at midnight on
most nights and sign back on at 6 or 7 AM. The reason was
simple; not enough overnight audience to justify the cost.
Some larger stations operated later especially on Saturday
night carrying band remotes until perhaps 2AM. A few,
mostly big city stations, stayed on 24 hours a day but were
usually off on Sunday night for maintenance.
The change came at the time Conelrad got started since
a "key" station in each Conelrad area had to be on the air
at all times. In Los Angeles, the key station was KFI and
the back-up KMPC. KFI began to operate 24 hours a day and
when off for maintenance on Sunday night KMPC would be on.
Most other stations continued to sign off at fairly early
hours. The exception as KGFJ, a 250 Watt station in downtown
L.A. KGFJ had an unlimited license and operated 24 hours a
day, except Sunday night, for many years. They served the
small but significant audience that was up all night. KGFJ
had astonishing coverage for its low power and flat top
antenna (which is still up although not used) on top of a
building.
When KFI went on the air overnight they originally
intended to just play records but AT&T had just come out
with telephone couplers so that phone calls could be put on
the air. I am not certain how it started but the overnight
man, Ben Hunter, began to take calls from listeners and
developed what I am sure was the first "talk" show. He
called it the Nightowl program and KFI copyright the name.
Ben Hunter stayed on the air until he began to have heart
problems. He later was an afternoon host on KTTV
television. I met him a couple of times but never knew him.
Since TV has come up in this thread, most early TV
stations ran very limited hours, mostly when they thought
they could get the maximum audience. In Detroit, where I
come from, there were only three TV stations (CKLW TV was
not on the air until years later) and none came on before
about noon or else came on for a couple of hours in the
morning and then broadcast a test pattern until early
afternoon when programming began.
I don't know about Detroit radio since I was a little
kid and was in bed asleep before any of them signed off.
These days the philosophy is to keep people tuned in to
a particular channel all the time. That's the reason for
the late-late-late shows on the networks; the idea is that
when people turn their sets on in the morning they will
still be tuned to whatever they were on the night before.
Broadcasting is primarily in the business of selling the
audience to advertisers and the expansion of both radio and
TV has now diluted the audience so much that they are all
struggling.


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dick...@ix.netcom.com