1946–47 United States network television schedule

The 1946–47 United States network television schedule was nominally from September of 1946 to the spring of 1947, but scheduling ideas were still being worked out and did not follow modern standards.

This was the first "network television season" in the United States, and only NBC and DuMont operated networks, though other companies—including Mutual, Paramount, CBS, and ABC—had plans to enter the medium. Although experimental broadcasting had begun in the 1930s and television stations had been commercially licensed beginning in 1941, it was not until 1946 that coaxial cable connections allowed stations to share the same program schedules. Even then, only a few cities on the East Coast were connected.

Notable series on the schedule included the first network TV soap opera, Faraway Hill, the poorly-received but ambitious variety series Hour Glass, and the first network-televised game show Cash and Carry (prior game shows had been single-station only).

Few broadcasts made during this season exist in any archive, but segments of Campus Hoopla dating from 1947 exist in the Hubert Chain Collection of the earliest kinescopes still in existence, as preserved in the Library of Congress (Moving Image Collection). Audio recordings of live TV broadcasts of this show are also on file at the Library of Congress from the 1946–47 period, as recorded from WNBT-TV in New York (NBC's original flagship station in New York City, today's WNBC-TV).

New fall series that made their debuts between September and November are highlighted in bold below.

Fall schedule

Sunday

• Beginning in December 1946 on WNBT-TV, and then on January 5, 1947 on the NBC Network, Bristol-Myers Tele-Varieties, hosted by Jinx Falkenburg and Tex McCrary, aired Sundays from 8:15 to 8:30pm ET

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

References

• Bergmann, Ted; Skutch, Ira (2002). The DuMont Television Network: What Happened? Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4270-X.
• Castleman, H. & Podrazik, W. (1982). Watching TV: Four Decades of American Television. New York: McGraw-Hill. 314 pp.
• Brooks, Tim & Marsh, Earl (1979). The complete directory to prime-time network TV shows 1946–present. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-28248-5.