KFWB?
Stanley M. Kelton
>
> Wouldn't that be Paramount Studios?
KTLA's first home was at the Paramount Studios. First in a small test
sound stage, and later from what had been an automobile or truck garage
on Bronson, which in later years was KMEX, Channel 34's studios.
> Paramount owned KTLA, and KTLA was sited on Paramount's lot, until
> Paramount sold the station to Gene Autry (Golden West Broadasters) in
> the early 1950s.
I believe the original Warner Bros. lot on Sunset Blvd. was sold to
Paramount Pictures when Warner moved to Burbank, and Paramount moved
Channel 5 to its present location on Sunset before selling Channel 5 to
Golden West in the early 1960s.
> My recollection is 'WB's first antenna was the long-wire on Hollywood
> Blvd.
> The (now single) vertical on Sunset Blvd. may have been used by KMPC,
> back when it was licensed to Beverly Hills and operated 5 kW ND (this
> would be pre-1947).
The two towers on Hollywood Blvd. are my oldest personal recollection of
KFWB's towers; however, I have seen both still and motion pictures of
two towers with a long wire at KTLA's current Sunset Blvd. location
bearing the call letters KFWB. Years ago before I learned about KFWB
being at the Sunset location, I always wondered if KMPC had previously
broadcast from the (remaining) tower, and that I still don't know.
MICHAEL HAGERTY wrote:
> KCAL (Channel 9)'s newsroom/studio is currently in a Paramount
> soundstage
> on the southwest corner of the lot (That stage was for years Desilu
> ... bought after "I Love Lucy"'s run, it was the stage where the "Dick
> Van Dyke Show" and the "Lucy" shows of the late 60s were shot).
That may be the building with the globe and radio tower on the corner of
it from the days in which it was the RKO Studios. I have never been
sure about what was Paramount, what was RKO, what was Desilu, and what
was what is now KCAL.
> The
> KCAL administration building at 5515 Melrose, separated from the
> Paramount lot by a fence, was the old KHJ Radio/TV studios ... and
> before that, the original home of Capitol Records(before the Capitol
> Tower was built in the 50s).
And also NBC radio network studios before Sunset and Vine was built,
also Mutual Radio Network studios at one time, and originally (?) a film
processing lab building for Paramount Pictures I have been told.
I wish someone who knows the chronology of the use of 5515 Melrose and
1313 North Vine would post it. I know both locations have had many
different broadcast uses over the years.
Stan Kelton
Huntington Beach
> Peter wrote:
>>> I believe their first sticks were a long wire setup at the Warner
>>> Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard, one of which still stands to this
>>> very day as the sign for KTLA, Channel 5.
>> Wouldn't that be Paramount Studios?
>> the early 1950s.
Lew Irwin
>> Paramount lot by a fence, was the old KHJ Radio/TV studios ... and
>> before that, the original home of Capitol Records(before the Capitol
>> Tower was built in the 50s).
> And also NBC radio network studios before Sunset and Vine was built,
> also Mutual Radio Network studios at one time, and originally (?) a film
> processing lab building for Paramount Pictures I have been told.
> I wish someone who knows the chronology of the use of 5515 Melrose and
> 1313 North Vine would post it. I know both locations have had many
> different broadcast uses over the years.
I can provide some of the chronology.
The current KCAL building was part of a group of store-front
structures on Melrose, which also included Nickodell's restaurant, a
favorite hangout for broadcasters in its day. Built by Don Lee, a
Cadillac dealer who also owned KHJ, the building was the home not only
of KHJ but also the Don Lee Broadcasting Co., which produced
programming for Mutual affiliates on the West Coast (as the Mutual-Don
Lee Broadcasting System), "transcribed" and rebroadcast Mutual shows
in the Pacific time zone, and made regional sales to advertisers.
In the early-30s, Don Lee began broadcasting the first television
signals in California over what is now channel 2, using the
experimental call letters W6XAO. Those broadcasts originated from the
station's transmitter on Mt. Lee in Hollywood. By the late 40s, the
station was also simulcasting, sans commercials, Queen for a Day,
every morning (the first radio-TV simulcast) and the occasional
wrestling and boxing match in the evening from Hollywood Legion
Stadium. In about 1949, it received its commercial license (as KTSL)
but continued to broadcast a very limited amount of local
programming. It mostly carried kinescoped Dumont Network shows.
In the early 50s Don Lee built the facility at 1313 Vine St., the
first building in the U.S. constructed from the ground up as a
television studio, and simultaneously switched his transmitter site to
Mt. Wilson. Besides KHJ-TV, the Vine St. building also housed KHJ
radio and Mutual-Don Lee. At about the time of the move, Lee leased
the site on Melrose to Capitol Records.
Also in the early '50s, through a series of transactions, CBS, which
at first aired its programs on the then Los Angeles Times-owned KTTV,
bought Channel 2 from Don Lee and, as part of the deal, also signed a
long-term lease on one of the floors at 1313 Vine Street. (Channel 2
also eventually took the call letters KNXT.) Lee, meanwhile, bought
Channel 9, then using the call letters KFI-TV, from fellow car dealer
(Packard) Earl C. Anthony, retaining most of the station's staff but
moving them from their previous location on Vermont (where they shared
space and performed duties for KFI radio) to 1313 Vine, where the
station became KHJ-TV. Throughout most of the '50s, KHJ-TV and KNXT
shared the same building.
CBS, in the meantime, moved its network TV operations at 6121 Sunset
Boulevard to Television City on Beverly Boulevard and converted the
old network radio auditoriums and Brittingham's restaurant, which had
occupied most of the Gower St. end of the building, to local
television facilities. The site continued to house the network's
owned-and-operated L.A. radio station, KNX, and the withering CBS
Radio Network. Shortly after Capitol Records moved into its "tower" on
Vine St., KHJ and KHJ-TV moved back to the Melrose building and 1313
was acquired by a company that leased it to independent TV producers
(Chuck Baris was among those who originated TV shows from its sound
stages) and to the L.A. public broadcasting station, KCET.
All of this, I hasten to add, is off the top of my head. I worked at
the 1313 Vine St. address twice -- first, in 1957 as a news anchor on
KHJ-TV, then in 1970 as the producer-host of The Newsical Muse, a
weekly spoof of the news, for KCET. I also produced and hosted a
number of L.A.-based documentaries for PBS there.
= Lew Irwin, STUDIO BRIEFING
Peter
> sound stage, and later from what had been an automobile or truck garage
> on Bronson, which in later years was KMEX, Channel 34's studios.
Right!
I remember KMEX's first site ... right next to Paramount as you said.
This was before the days of "all channel" TV sets.