Atlanta tv history

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atlanta television had its roots with Atlanta Journal-owned radio station WSB AM. The Journal had launched the south's first radio station, WSB AM ("Welcome South Brother"), in 1922. In the late 1920s, the Journal experimented with a mechanical version of television but abandoned it.

Television finally came to Atlanta viewers on September 29, 1948 (called "T-Day" by the Journal) with the debut of WSB TV channel 8. The newspaper led up to the TV station's launch with front page countdowns designed to boost excitement and sell TV sets. The inaugural WSB TV program, which began with a recording of the Star Spangled Banner and a close up of a tiny American flag waving in the wind powered by an electric fan featured announcer John Cone ("WSB TV is on the air!"), newscaster Jimmy Bridges and a host of dignataries from the city that aired from the station's state of the art building at 1601 West Peachtree Street, down the road from its sister radio station broadcasting from the Biltmore Hotel.

WSB TV, in its abbreviated 4pm to 10pm broadcast day, aired a mix of kinescopes three days late from the NBC Network (WSB AM was a longtime NBC radio network affiliate), Atlanta Crackers baseball, local news, kids shows ("Woody Willow," a marionette and a show featuring a man who built toys) and...when a transit strike crippled the city...a daily four hour "infomercial" for Rich's Department Store, whcih was crippled by the strike. In its earliest days, the station aired a test pattern for hours each day. Early employee Mike McDougald recounted, "I would drive from WSB AM to WSB TV and see people congregated outside the store windows watching the test pattern. They were fascinated by it."

Crosstown radio station WAGA AM launched a station on channel 5 in the fall of 1949, taking CBS and DuMont shows. Its mascot, owned by the station's janitor, was a (real) yorkshire terrier named "waga". The two stations served Atlanta for two years before a third station arrived with the merger in March, 1950 of the Cox-owned Atlanta Journal and its crosstown rival, the Atlanta Constitution. The Constitution owned a construction-permit for WCON TV on the more desirable channel 2, which was to have been the city's fulltime ABC network station. With the merger, WSB TV moved to channel 2 amid great hoopla. WCON-TV never opened for business, and its sister radio station, WCON 550 AM, was reassigned to nearby Gainesville, Georgia, where it is now WDUN AM.

WSB TV's move to channel 2 opened an opportunity for a new station to operate on channel 8. In 1951, a group of Atlanta businessmen, including an executive from the local Davison's departmernt store chain, pooled their capital and launched WLTV as Atlanta's first full-time ABC TV affiliate. WLTV's studios were installed in a small building directly behind WSB TV, because that allowed the station to utilize WSB's old channel 8 transmitting tower. WLTV operated on a very tight budget and offered a smattering of local programming like cooking and fashion shows, rip and read local news coverage, and a show featuring the city's famous Mayor, William B. Hartsfield, who had a regular slot where he answered viewer mail. The station also offered the first "all negro" program in Atlanta, a Saturday evening variety show.

In late 1953, eager entrepreneurs around the country were constructing UHF TV stations to meet the demand of television-hungry viewers. Southeast radio group owner Robert Rounsaville took the plunge, opening a UHF station off Atlanta's Peachtree Street in the same house where his AM good music station WQXI 790 operated. An employee remembered that the station owned a huge, lumbering TV camera that they trucked from room to room for local talk shows. The AM station promoted the TV station incessantly, but the September, 1953 sign-on was met with indifference from Atlantans. Without much in the way of programming apart from old moves, an occasional show from the crumbling DuMont network, and a local Saturday night "Barn Dance," there wasn't incentive for viewers to plop down $40 for a UHF converter. WQXI lasted about nine months.

Cincinnati-based Crosley Broadcasting, meantime, purchased channel 8 WLTV, provided an infusion of capital and a new name, "WLW-A," in keeping with its WLW group branding. Among the personalities from WLW-A's early days: Dick Van Dyke, who hosted a twice-daily lip synch show where he and his female partner mouthed the words to hit records.

Two months later, up the road, 50 miles to the northwest, a local radio station in Rome decided to get into television.

WROM AM operated a television station, channel 9, from 1953 until 1959, branding it "Dixie's Largest Independent." The station ran a late-afternoon and prime-time schedule of old movies, "hillbilly" music performances (which were common on southern TV stations in the 1950s) and occasionally, ABC TV network fare such as "Omnibus."

WROM's sign-on and and its subsequent move to Chattanooga years later changed Atlanta TV history and caused a fruit-basket turnover of southeast TV frequencies. As soon as channel 9 in Rome and channel 8 in Atlanta were operating simultaniously, viewers in northwest Atlanta and to the south of Rome began experiencing trouble watching either station. Crosley also wanted to increase transmitting power at its new station, which necessitated a change to present-day channel 11 (now WXIA TV).

By 1958, WROM's owners were making moves to cash in on their investment. The station began carrying a full prime time slate of ABC Network programs, overlapping programming with WLW-A.

In 1959, WROM's owners accepted an offer to sell their TV outlet to a group of Chattanooga-based investors. Chattanooga had only two VHF stations at the time, WRGP TV channel 3 (NBC) and pioneer broadcasting outlet WDEF TV channel 12 (CBS). Chattanooga offered channel 9's investors a better economic model than Rome, so the station moved and became Chattanooga ABC affiliate WTVC. That move 60 miles to the north opened opportunities for other television broadcasters to the south.

Atlanta regained channel 8 as a frequency, though it was reclassified as a non-commercial facility, clearing the way for the University of Georgia's Athens-based educational station, WGTV (which, years later, relocated to Atlanta.) Columbus, Georgia NBC affiliate WDAK TV 28 was able to move to VHF channel 9, while Dothan, Alabama CBS affiliate WTVY moved from channel 9 to the more desirable channel 4 and Columbus CBS affiliate WRBL moved from channel 4 to channel 3.

Ironically, Rome lost a second television frequency 40 years later, when UHF station channel 14 moved to Atlanta after several years of operation. Rwarner1956 17:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)Richard Warner