[BC] delays on radio and TV (old timer question)

[Harold Hallikainen]

> A friend of mine is working on a book, and media usage is part of it,
> since
> it takes place in the time (early to mid 50s) when news was changing over
> from exclusively radio to network casts on TV.  He found some newspaper
> articles which mention that they radio used to do three broadcasts of news
> and soap operas and whatever on the networks-- one for the east coast time
> zone, another for the midwest, and a third for the west coast.  But he
> asked me if this was just a radio thing-- I do not have a lot of expertise
> in early TV technology, so perhaps somebody on the list could tell me.  In
> the 1950s, there was still no general use of videotape and things had to
> be
> filmed, right? SO if a breaking news event occurred, I assume it was still
> easier back then to get it on radio first and then later get it filmed and
> onto TV.  Am I correct?  What would the process have been-- let's say the
> president gave a spontaneous talk out at some event in (let's say)
> Billings
> Montana.  It's 1955, and I wanna get a portion of his remarks on the
> air.  If I am a radio reporter, isn't it still easier for me to get it
> onto
> the next radio newscast than it would be for me as a TV reporter to get it
> onto the TV cast?
>

True, but TV could always report on it in "talking head" mode, just no
recorded video. They MAY be able to air live video if they had a microwave
link from the site. Up until about 1972 or so, the local TV station in San
Luis Obispo, CA used film for everything. They did not have a studio in
town, so everything was run from the transmitter site. The news staff
would race up the mountain with reels of film for the 6:00 news. There was
a news studio at the transmitter site. A little while later, the FCC
permitted remote control of VHF TV stations, so they moved the studio to
town where the offices (and film processing) were. Stuff continued to be
run off film (and slides with audio carts) for a while, then they moved to
2 inch tape. There was an overnight job making up the "dub reel" of all
the commercial breaks that were to run the next day. During the day,
they'd just start and stop the dub reel for breaks. This was later
replaced with an RCA 2 inch video cartridge machine. I haven't been in
close contact with them since that time. I imagine they use hard drive
servers now.

So, the breaking news would be announced in a newscast, then they'd say
"Film at 11."

Harold



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