that horrible BEEP

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 21 Jan 2008 at 15:52, A. Joseph Ross wrote:

> I wonder whether there's any way to check these things. I do know that
> somewhere I have a special Sunday edition of the Albany Times- Union
> celebrating their 100th (I think) anniversary, which has an article in
> it on Albany broadcasting.  I'm not sure where it is, but I'll try to
> find it, and if I do, I think it contains some helpful information.  

I found it! I was thinking of scanning the article in question, but 
the paper is too fragile.  I'll have to summarize the answers to our 
questions that I've found there. If I get ambitious, maybe I'll copy 
out the entire article for later reference.

Anyway, this is indeed the Centennial edition of the Albany Times-
Union, dated Sunday 22 April 1956.  I don't have the entire paper, 
but I have a number of special sections that I saved.  The one in 
question is entitled "Communications."  It consists mainly of the 
history of the Times-Union and of the print media in Albany in 
general.  There is no article about radio, but there is one about 
area television history.

The article describes how, in 1926, GE engineer Dr. E. F. 
Alexanderson gave the first public demonstration of television (the 
rotating perforated disk system) at his home that January.  In May, 
WGY began a schedule of three regular television broadcasts a week.  
The station carried the first remote telecast of an outdoor event in 
1928 when Governor Alfred E. Smith gave an outdoor speech accepting 
the Democratic nomination for President

The first long-distance reception of "modern high-definition 
television" (!) took place in the Helderberg Hills in 1939, where the 
Schenectady station received pictures of King George VI and Queen 
Elizabeth touring the New York World's Fair.

The first television network went into operation on 12 January 1940, 
when the General Electric relay station and transmitter W2XB 
rebroadcast programs from New York City to the Albany area.

As of the date of the article, there were only two television 
stations in the area:  WRGB and WCDA-WCDB.  WTRI was scheduled to 
resume in August on channel 35 as an ABC affiliate.  The article said 
that it was no longer connected with WTRY radio.  WMBT-TV (sic) was 
hoping to return to the air by 1 July when it replaced its storm-
damaged antenna.  WCDA-WCDB was scheduled to become a full CBS 
affiliate on 1 August, at which time WRGB would replace the CBS 
programs it was then carrying with more NBC programs.

After the end of the FCC freeze, there were six Albany-area groups 
vying for the three commercial UHF allocations.  By June 1953, things 
had sorted themselves out by mergers and withdrawals, and the FCC had 
granted construction permits for channel 41, WROW, channel 35, WTRI, 
and channel 23, Patroon Broadcasting Co. (WPTR).  The last had not 
been built to date, and apparently never was.

WROW-TV went on the air in October 1953 with a temporary 100-foot 
mast, switching to a permanent tower with full power a few months 
later.  WTRI started on 28 February 1954, but suspended operations 11 
months later, when it lost all network programs.  

WMGT "became a strong factor in the area TV picture" when it moved 
from channel 74 to channel 19 in December 1954.  The station was off 
the air after a storm toppled its tower on Mount Greylock "this past 
February," but hoped to be back in July.  

WROW changed its name to WCDA-WCDB "this spring" when the channel 29 
relay went on.  Channel 17, reserved for a non-commercial station, 
also had not been used at the time, though I think it has been since.

Since I distinctly recall a later article indicating that channel 19 
would return to the air as part of Hudson Valley Broadcasting, which 
I knew at the time to be WROW-WCDA-WCDB, the takeover by Capital 
Cities could not have happened by this time.  Whether it happened 
later, before we left the area in May 1957, I can't say for sure.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 92 State Street, Suite 700                   Fax 617.507.7856
Boston, MA 02109-2004           	         http://www.attorneyross.com