Re: WNAB

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

Martin J. Waters wrote:

>  I believe the company set up to buy and run the Blue Network
> initially was called Blue Network, Inc., or something along those lines,
> and kept the old on-air name, too, from 1943 to 1945.
>
Here's the way it happened:
"The first step in the divorce of the Blue Network from the National
Broadcasting Company system was taken yesterday with the formation of
the Blue Network Company, Inc., as a separate and wholly owned
subsidiary of the Radio Corporation of America." (New York Times,
1/10/42)
"David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America, announced
yesterday that an agreement had been reached to sell the Blue Network
for $8,000,000 in cash to Edward J. Noble, former Under-Secretary of
Commerce and chairman of the Life Savers Corporation." (NYT, 7/31/43)
The FCC approved the sale October 12 and transfer was completed October
14, 1943, when Noble gave Sarnoff a check for $8M and got a thousand
shares (the entire capitalization) of Blue Network stock.  The Blue
Network identification was dropped in favor of the American Broadcasting
Company on June 15, 1945.  Prior to that, some Times stories refer to
Noble's company as the American Broadcasting System.

I wrote:

> ...on Saturday, November 2,1946, when WABC and WABC-FM became WCBS and WCBS-FM.
>
> The same day saw WEAF and WEAF-FM change to WNBC and WNBC-FM.
>
and A. Joseph Ross responded:

> This is certainly a definitive history, as far as it goes.  It leaves the
> television stations, WNBT and WCBW.  I believe that WNBT kept those call
> letters until it became WRCA-TV in the early 50s, and eventually became
> WNBC-TV sometime in the 60s, along with corresponding changes in the call
> letters of its sister radio stations.  But when did WCBW become WCBS-TV?
>
Television?  Television???  Who cares about that??? Oh, all right, as
long as I'm looking at the Times microfilm...
The Channel 2 change is easy...WCBW became WCBS-TV November 2, 1946, the
same day the CBS and NBC flagship radio stations changed calls.

As for Channel 4, the Times reported WNBT was to change to WRCA-TV at
midnight on Sunday, October 17, 1954.  The same time was given for the
transition of WNBC and WNBC-FM to WRCA and WRCA-FM.  Program listings in
that day's paper reflect the new calls but an ad placed by NBC indicates
the change was actually October 18.

The WNBC calls returned to New York AM, FM, and TV at noon on Sunday,
May 22, 1960.  A special program called "The Switch Is on to NBC" aired
at 11:30 a.m. on both radio and TV that day.

[If we didn't already have a thread going, I was going to call this one
"I read the New York Times from 1954 so you don't have to."]