"RC" and "RCA" in Call Letters (Was: Re: WNAB)

[PublicRef2 <norwood@mln.lib.ma.us>]

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The call leters "KRCA" never appeared in San Francisco (as the 680
station there went from KPO to KNBC and by the early 60's, to KNBR).

The KRCA call letters were the call letters for NBC's television O & O
in Los Angeles during the late 1950's/beginning of the 1960's (maybe the
same time their New York stations were known as WRCA). I believe by
1961, the station had become KNBC-TV. The station was originally known
as KNBH from it's 1949 sign-on until it became KRCA (1955?).

Also, IIRC (if I remember correctly), NBC's Los Angeles facilities were
originally at the corner of Sunset and Vine in what they called
Hollywood Radio City. Woefully inadequate for TV, NBC built it's Burbank
facilities in (three?) stages between (aprox.) 1952 and 1959. I believe
that by 1959, the network facilities had been consolidated in Burbank,
but that Hollywood Radio City was still home to KRCA/KNBC-TV for a few
more years. I believe another addition to Burbank was constructed around
1962 or 1963, and once completed, KNBC moved to join the rest of the NBC
Los Angeles-
area facilities in Burbank.

Although not directly part of this discussion, but brought up because of
NBC's gradual move from Sunset and Vine to Burbank: CBS faced something
similar with a Columbia Square (Sunset Boulevard, a few doors down from
the onetime NBC Hollywood Radio City) that was too small for TV. In
1952, CBS built Television City (which has been expanded several times
since), and moved it's Hollwood TV network operations there. However, to
this day, CBS' local Los Angeles TV and radio stations still have their
studios/offices at Columbia Square.

Joseph Gallan
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