Early Red Sox and Braves TV history

[Kevin Vahey]

Donna I take it he used the space at 70 Brookline Av later used by
WMEX and then NESN? ( and for a brief time the last days of WITS )

No shock that Westinghouse would bump NBC for Red Sox games as
Westinghouse and NBC always had some friction. Obviously RKO General
didn't want to upset CBS so they didn't show prime time Braves games.
My best guess is RKO knew sooner or later Channel 5 would be approved
by the FCC and didn't want CBS to move there ( which of course they
finally did around 1960 )

To show how times have changed both the Red Sox and Braves turned down
rights fees that were offered ( around 30K ) in 1948 not to anger the
radio sponsors.

Donna was there a reason Boston was so late getting TV compared to the
other major markets? Most major cities had at least one station by
1947 but Boston had to wait until 1948.

On 7/29/08, Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com> wrote:
> At 12:41 AM 7/29/2008, Kevin Vahey wrote:
>>A new book details the history of baseball and television titled
>>CENTER FIELD SHOT.
>>
>>It offers some interesting tidbits about early Boston TV. Professor
>>Halper take note.
>>
>>It claims that the first televised games at Fenway date to 1931 and
>>were done by a gentleman by the name of Hollis Baird who perhaps Donna
>>knows of.
>
> Hollis Baird was an engineer who was involved with a Boston-based
> company (located for a time at 70 Brookline Ave) called Shortwave &
> Television.  He did some early TV experiments with TV, one of which
> involved Big Brother Bob Emery in fact.  He was NOT related to a
> Scottish inventor, John Logie Baird, who also was experimenting with
> mechanical TV around the same time-- Hollis Baird lived in Quincy,
> and had a long history as a broadcast engineer.  Scroll down towards
> the bottom of this page http://www.tvhistory.tv/pre-1935.htm  and
> you'll see some of what he was up to.
>
>