NBC Television Arrives in Chicago To Stay

NBC had some experience with television in Chicago in the 1930s. In February 1931, the network bought WENR radio which had visual station W9XR attached. It decided not to renew the TV license that year. Then it bought a half interest in WMAQ, which had a telecasting station named W9XAP. NBC stopped operating it in March 1933; it was interested in electronic television, not the outdated mechanical type in Chicago.

Tinkering with iconoscopes and electronics during the 1930s culminated with the company putting a station on the air in New York in 1939 for the World’s Fair, going commercial as WNBT in July 1941. RCA and NBC had bigger plans, with Chicago a part of them. Here’s the Chicago Tribune’s version of events, published March 4, 1944:

NBC CHIEF SEES MIDWEST CHAIN FOR TELEVISION
Chicago to Be Hub of Giant System.
BY LARRY WOLTERS.
A midwest television chain, with Chicago at its hub, is projected as part of the post-war television plans of the National Broadcasting company, Niles Trammell, president, disclosed yesterday. Trammell envisioned the formation of a television network radiating outward from Chicago which would include Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Des Moines, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Cleveland.
A television station now in operation in New York and another to be built in Washington will form the nucleus of an eastern network, he said. A Pacific coast chain also is planned, eventually to be linked with the two other sections to form a cross country system.
File Construction Applications.
Applications for construction of NBC television stations in Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have been filed with the federal communications commission. The chain has leased the top of the Civic Opera house for its local television transmitter.
W-G-N, Inc., recently announced plans for building a television station. The station filed an application for a construction permit with the FCC and placed an order for a transmitter and auxiliary television equipment with the General Electric company for delivery after the war or as soon as priorities permit.
Requests Zenith Frequency.
NBC, in its application for a Chicago television station, requested that it be assigned to channel No. 1, covering 50 to 56 megacycles, which is assigned to W9XZV and WTZR, television stations of the Zenith Radio corporation. The former station has been operating experimentally continuously since March 30, 1939, longer than any New York station, it claims.

An overview of the Chicago television situation was provided in Television magazine's issue of October, 1945. Regarding NBC, Frederick A. Kugel said:

This is an application for a commercial station to operate on channel 4, using CA equipment with 3 kw power, visual and aural. The NBC transmitter will be located at the Civic Opera House, 20 North Wacker Drive and the video studios at the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago.
NBC plans service to 4,143,345 people in the Chicago area. The net's original request was for channel 1, already held by Zenith in Chicago. In April 1944, Zenith informed the FCC it would oppose any attempt by NBC to take away Channel 1 on which its experimental station W9XZV is licensed to operate. NBC subsequently amended its application. NBC has estimated its Chicago station will cost $202,500 with monthly operating expenses around $6,500.

On May 4, 1946, the FCC announced commercial video grants had been awarded in Chicago to NBC (Channel 5, 76-82 mc) and Zenith (Channel 2, 54-60 mc); Zenith gave up its construction permit in January 1947. The eventual NBC station was WNTC through 1946. The call letters were changed to WBNY in 1947 and the station was granted numerous extensions by the FCC into 1948 to get on the air.

Broadcasting of Dec. 12, 1947 indicated the station was no where near ready.

NBC’s Chicago TV Plans Move Ahead
Executives to Confer This Week On Constructing Facilities
SERIES of conferences dealing with construction of NBC Chicago television facilities will be held this week in New York. I. E. Showerman, vice persident in charge of Central Division, and Howard Luttgens, the division's chief engineer, will meet with Frank E. Mullen, NBC executive vice persident; O. B. Hanson, vice president in charge of engineering, and Noran Kersta, network's television manager.
Studio, central control and some engineering facilities for WNBY, NBC's proposed Chicago television station, will be constructed in the Merchandise Mart, which presently houses Central Division headquarters. Transmitter and antenna will be located atop Chicago Civic Opera Bldg.
Network's first video newsreel coverage of a Chicago event took place Dec. 5 when an NBC television cameraman filmed highlights of the International Livestock Exposition for showing on the eastern five-station network. Films of the exposition's Parade of Champions and other exposition highlights were then flown to New York for developing, editing and dubbing-in of sound, and were shown on the video hookup the following day.
Under supervision of William Drips, NBC director of agriculture, event was photographed from the floor of the International Amphitheater by Jack Leib, NBC Chicago video cameraman. A 35-mm. newsreel camera, using some 2,000 feet of film, was utilized to telecast the farm show highlights.
Earlier [BROADCASTING, Dec. 8] Mr. Mullen, who attended the exposition, predicted that NBC television would cover the annual livestock show by 1949 at the latest through extension of the network's video link as far west as Chicago.

There was a final name change. The Hollywood Reporter, March 5, 1948:

NBC’s Chicago Video Call Letters Changed.
CHICAGO.—NBC’s television station here will be known as WNBQ, call letters reminiscent of the company’s pioneer broadcasting station WMAQ, it was announced yesterday [4] by I E. Showerman, NBC voce-president and general manager of the Central division.
Previously, the company’s Chicago video station had been assigned the call letters WNBY. NBC management felt that in time there might be some confusion in the Chicago area because of the phonetic similarity between this call and WMBI, the call letters of the Moody Bible Institute’s broadcasting station.

It was pointed out in Broadcasting’s March 8 edition that NBC discovered the WNBQ call was already assigned to a 25 watt relay transmitter operated by the network’s Central Division engineering department for special events and news relay work.

NBC had two goals: to open a station in Chicago and to internet its stations into a radio-like network. The latter depended on A.T. and T. to build the links. Let’s follow along through the pages of Broadcasting. First, June 21, 1948:

WNBQ SET TO INSTALL ITS VIDEO FACILITIES
PLANS for the Sept. 1 video debut of WNBQ, NBC's Chicago outlet, were advanced last week by arrival of the television transmitter and preparation for erection of the antenna soon after July 1.
Although a shortage of steel caused delay in shipment of the antenna and its base, Chicago network officials last Wednesday expected delivery before the weekend. The antenna, 70 feet high and 631 feet above ground level, will serve both TV and FM stations from the roof of the Civic Opera Bldg.
NBC's original plan to convert space into one huge two-floor room has been altered to include two rooms of one story each. Television and FM transmitters, now in storage until construction work is completed, will be housed in one room. Headquarters for both operations will be located on the 42nd and 43rd floors of the building.
Meanwhile, electrical contracts have been let, and installation of power cables and other lines will begin soon. A special video cable from the transmitter site to Illinois Bell Telephone Co. headquarters nearby will be laid to connect with existing cable between the Merchandise Mart, NBC AM studio site, and the phone company office.

August 16, 1948:

NBC LEASES 20,000 SQ. FT. MORE IN MERCHANDISE MART
NBC Chicago sparked its drive for fall opening date of its key video outlet, WNBQ, with lease of 20,000 sq. ft. of additional space in Merchandise Mart headquarters. Network plans to enlarge Studio A, largest in its Chicago plant, for television.
Video technical and administrative staffs will be quartered in added first and second floor space of Mart, with some 14,000 sq. ft. on first floor used for storage rooms, work shops, shipping room and video field engineering shop and office. Production offices-directors, engineers and administrative personnel-will be constructed in the 6,000-sq. ft. areas on second floor.

August 30, 1948:

WNBQ, NBC'S TV STATION READY TO BEGIN TESTS
WNBQ, NBC's Midwestern video outlet in Chicago, will operate a mobile unit, with cameras, transmitter and receivers, at National Television and Electrical Living Show sponsored by Electric Assn., Chicago, at city's Coliseum Sept. 18 to 26, for visitors wishing to see themselves televised. RCA is cooperating with NBC in presentation.

The Chicago Tribune picks up the story on September 19, 1948.

Chicago's next television station, WNBQ, a NBC affiliate, will begin transmitting its test pattern this week. A 22 kilowatt station, WNBQ will occupy channel 5. Test programming is to get underway shortly with full operations following soon thereafter.
Studios will be located in the Merchandise Mart and the transmitter facilities on the 42d and 43d floors of the Civic Opera building. The antenna tower, atop the Civic Opera building, will be 625 feet above street level.
Hub Of TV Network
WNBQ will be hub of NBC's midwest network of six stations. Cities in the net are St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Toledo, and Buffalo, it was announced by I. E. Showerman, central division vice president.
Jules Herbuveaux, NBC's central division television manager, said when the network tie is made, probably by Jan. 1, 1949, such programs as Star Theater, the Lanny Ross show, Television Playhouse, NBC newsreel, Theater Guild, and Television Theater probably will be seen in Chicago.
Studio Atop Mart
NBC's studio A in the Merchandise Mart, scene of major audience radio broadcasts, will become WNBQ's main television studio after conversion is completed.
The network recently leased 20.000 square feet of additional space in the Mart for its television operations and hired 60 additional employes.
Film projection and news commentary studios will be constructed on the 19th floor. Workshops, dressing rooms, and engineering and administrative offices will occupy space on the first and second floors.

In the meantime, Chicago’s third station, ABC’s WENR-TV, had just begun regular programming.

While Chicagoans got a signal from Channel 5 the following day, they didn’t get the big show of the day from WNBQ. The ABC and NBC Midwest networks both signed on that evening. While WENR-TV broadcast the extravaganza in Chicago, WNBQ wasn’t yet connected to the NBC counterpart.

More from Broadcasting, Sept. 20, 1948:

NBC-TV Order
ANDREW CORP., New York office, has announced it has received orders from NBC to supply and install television lines at WNBQ Chicago and WNBK Cleveland. Two outlets, key points in proposed NBC midwest TV network, are expected to begin operation shortly. Firm's engineering group also was selected to insure sound transmission line installation.

That circuit came in handy, as WNBQ was able to pick up Games 3, 4 and 5 of the World Series from Municipal Stadium. Broadcasting of October 11, 1948 revealed the station needed special permission of the FCC to carry the games and the pre-game activities. Meanwhile, the FCC granted yet another extention to Jan. 20, 1949 for completion of the station's studios. Broadcasting mentioned on Oct. 18:

Studio A Goes TV
WORK is underway in Chicago to transfer NBC's largest audience studio, Studio A at the Merchandise Mart, into a television theatre for presentation of WNBQ (TV).
video programs. Network's key Midwest TV station is scheduled to take the air at year'end. NBC has leased an additional 20,000 square feet on the first and second floors.

There was something else besides a test pattern on Oct. 31. The station began to air Philco Television Playhouse Sunday nights at 9, which was piped down the Midwest network via kinescope. The first presentation was “Counselor-at-Law” starring Paul Muni. The following Sunday was “Angel in the Wings,” the first complete production of a hit Broadway musical, starrinng Paul and Grace Hartman and Hank Ladd, who appeared in the stage production.

Election Night was Nov. 2, 1948, and there was no way WNBQ was going to be off the air that evening. The day before, Broadcasting reported:

WNBQ'S FIRST LIVE PROGRAM SCHEDULED WNBQ CHICAGO, new NBC video station, will present its first live programming Tuesday night. News Commentator Clifton Utley will appear before its cameras with a series of visual election analyses on state and local issues. Mr. Utley's remarks during the final five minutes of each half-hour will supplement a schedule of NBC election night telecasts carried to Chicago by Midwest coaxial cable from WNBK (TV) Cleveland.

The station began adding other test programming. On November 14, Sunday broadcasting began at 7 p.m. with “Stop Me,” followed by “American Song” at 7:30 p.m. and ending with an NBC Newsreel at 9 p.m. The highlight that night was Philco Television Theatre’s adaptation of Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story “Street Scene” about the tenement- dwelling daughter of a New York City stagehand who killed his wife and his wife’s lover (the milkman). Broadcasting wrote in November 15, 1948:

NBC CHICAGO ADDS THREE TV SHOWS
IN LINE with NBC's plans to link its Eastern and Midwestern TV circuits Jan. 12, Jules Herbuveaux, TV manager at the network's Central Division, last week announced addition of three shows to the program schedule of WNBQ Chicago, expected to begin full-time programming Jan. 8.
Field telecasts, he explained, will make up the majority of the live programming until NBC Chicago Merchandise Mart video studios are completed in February.
Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Co., New York, through Young & Rubicam, same city, began sponsorship of WNBQ's first mid-week program Thursday [18] with Floor Show, starring Dunninger,the mentalist, and Paul Winchell, ventriloquist, 8:30-9 p.m. CST. Chicago telecast is a kinescope recording of the original show televised on the network's East Coast video hookup, and is being piped from WNBQ via co-axial and the NBC Midwest TV circuit.Additional Sunday features supplement the programming.

And from Broadcasting, November 29, 1948:

CHICAGO LIVESTOCK SHOW TO BE ON TV
REMOTE telecasts of the International Livestock Exposition from Chicago's International Amphitheater began Saturday as the annual livestock classic opened its 10-day session. WNBQ, NBC's Chicago outlet still operating on an experimental basis, will telecast judging of the grand champion steer tomorrow (Tuesday, 2-3 p.m. CST) under sponsorship of Allis-Chalmers.
The exposition, conducted in conjunction with the International Horse Show and the National 4-H Club Congress, is also being televised by WGN-TV Chicago.

Despite going days at a time without anything but a test pattern, the station had viewers. Variety of December 1, 1948 wrote:

Chicago, Nov. 30.—Ratings on Chi's four tele stations, released by Jay & Graham Research on the basis of dairies in 450 tele homes, give WBKB the largest share of audience during the week of Nov. 1-7. The Balaban and Katz station was credited with 36.7%, as against 29% for WGN-TV, 24% for WENR-TV, and 10.3% for WNBQ, which is in its experimental stage.

On January 4, 1949, the FCC granted another extension to WNBQ to complete its studios as of July 20th. But the station began full-time broadcasting before that. Broadcasting said on January 10 that WNBQ would “convert from its experimental operations of the past three months to a fulltime commercial basis Wednesday.” That was January 12, 1949. But the station was on the air the night before, when the link Niles Trammell predicted in 1944 became a reality.

Here is one story and part of a second about it from the Tribune of Jan. 12:

East Linked to Midwest by Television
The eyes of television broadened their range last night from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, an area in which a quarter of the nation's citizens live.
Four video networks—ABC, CBS, DuMont, and NBC—combined to present a 90 minute inaugural program over a coaxial cable linking the east coast and midwest television facilities of the American Telephone and Telegraph company's Bell system. Thirty stations in 14 cities televised the show.
Four Chicago stations carried the four networks' top talent. They were THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE'S station, WGN-TV, affiliated with both DuMont and CBS television networks; WNBQ, WENR-TV, and WBKB.
Areas Linked For First Time
For the first time, television viewers in Chicago could see events happening in New York or other eastern cities. Similarly, eastern viewers could see and hear Chicago's Mayor Kennelly commending the new industry.
The new cable's official opening was made possible by completion of a $12,500,000 link between Philadelphia and Cleveland. Before that, there were eastern and midwest networks. The eastern unit connected Boston, New York City, Newark, N. J., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Va., Schenectady, N. Y. and New Haven, Conn. The western unit united St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo, N. Y. The new link added Pittsburgh, where WDTV went on the air for the first time last night.
All save Newark, Schenectady, and New Haven were connected last night.
Last night's show was a long step toward coast-to-coast TV hookups. The cable that made the eastern-midwest hookup possible contains eight wires—each about the size of a pencil lead. A single pair can carry as many as 600 simultaneous telephone conversations or two television programs, one in each direction.
LeRoy A. Wilson, A.T.& T. president, pointed out during his appearance on the program that the Bell facilities were built primarily for long distance telephone service, but serve TV also.
14 Cities Answer Roll
Wilson's appearance followed a roll call of the 14 cities in the combined network and an exchange of felicitations by presidents of the four networks. Wayne Coy, chairman of the federal communications commission, hailed from Washington the possibilities of the new medium in furthering education, arts, sciences, news' dissemination, and entertainment.
The congratulations were followed by fun and drama. During 15 minute segments allotted to each network, televiewers saw and heard Arthur Godfrey of CBS, Ted Steele's orchestra of DuMont, Milton Berle of NBC, and Stand By for Crime, a whodunit on ABC. The ABC program was the only portion of the show to originate in Chicago. The new cable goes on a commercial basis today, with the four networks taking turns.
* * *
WNBQ, NBC affiliate which went off experimental status last week, will tie into the cable for a host of east coast programs. Among those announced are [Philco] Television Playhouse, [Kraft] Television Theater, Lanny Ross show [for Swift Premium], Boxing [sponsored by Gillette] from Madison Square Garden, [Texaco] Star Theater (Milton Berle), Quiz Kids, Meet the Press [for Maxwell House], and [Admiral] Broadway Revue. There are others but these appear to be the best. All won't be available immediately but they are on the way. Quiz Kids, for instance, with the same mental moppets heard Sunday afternoons, will he seen for the first time here on video at 8 p. m. Jan. 25. A different panel of precocious youngsters will appear on subsequent shows, however. In all, WNBQ will telecast at least 15 hours this week.

The station expanded its programming, mainly thanks to New York, before the end of the month. Variety wrote on January 19:

Chi WNBQ Gets Up To 20-Hr. Week Sked Fast
Chicago, Jan. 18. Addition of six NBC Chi produced tele programs and several commercial network shows to WNBQ's schedule, boosts station's operations to over 20 hours weekly in its third full week. New network telecasts added include Colgate Theatre, Phil Silvers Show, Americana and Chesterfield Supper Club.
NBC Chi productions include Irna Phillips' These Are My Children, Walt's Workshop, debuting Jan. 24, Clifton Utley and the News, teeing off on same date, The Weatherman, five-minute spot which began Monday (17) and Take a Dare, an audience participation half-hour teeing off Wednesday (19).

Here is the programming for the first week of full operations:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1949
8:30—Coaxial Cable Opening.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1949
4:30—“Howdy Doody” (NBC). 6:50—Camel Newsreel Theatre (NBC). 7:00—Custard Pie Theatre (debut). 7:30—“You Are An Artist” with John Gnagy (NBC). 7:45—Paris Fashions with Faye Emerson. 8:00—Kraft Television Theatre, “Miranda,” comedy about a mermaid and the complications she causes in a doctor’s life, with Betty Ann Nyman, Beverly Roberts and Richard Kendrick, Gage Clarke, Peggy French, Leora Thatcher, Michael Garrett and Sue Ellen Blade. (NBC). 9:00—NBC Television News. 9:15—Musical Miniatures.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1949
6:50—Camel Newsreel Theatre (NBC). 7:00—The Phil Silvers Arrow Show, with Harry Salter's orchestra. Guests—Joey Faye, Jack Gilford (NBC). 7:30—The Lanny Ross Show, from Chicago, sponsored by Swift-Premium, with Harry Simeon’s orchestra. Guests—Martha Wright, singing star of “Music in My Heart”; Peter Donald, comedian featured as Ajax Cassidy in Fred Allen’s radio show, and Penny and Marvin, dancers. (NBC). 8:00—Feature film. 8:30—“The Bigelow Floor Show” with Dunninger and Paul Winchell (NBC). 9:00—Grand Marquee.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1949
6:50—Camel Newsreel Theatre (NBC). 7:00—Film serial. 8:00—Feature film, “Scandal in Paris” with George Sanders, Signe Hasso, Carole Landis and Akim Tamiroff. 9:00—Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. Boxing from Madison Square Garden, Vince Foster vs. Tony Pellone (NBC). 10:00—Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como (NBC).

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1949
No programming.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 1949
6:30—Richard C. Harkness, news. 6:45—“Paris Cavalcade of Fashion” with Faye Emerson. 7:00—Feature Film. 8:00—Philco Television Playhouse, hosted by Bert Lytell, “Ramshackle Inn” with Zasu Pitts (NBC). 9:00—Review of the News (NBC).

MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1949
4:30—Howdy Doody (NBC). 6:45—The Weatherman. 6:50—Camel Newsreel Theatre (NBC). 7:30—Screen Magazine (NBC). 8:00—Colgate Theatre Hour, “Fancy Meeting You Here.” Betty Garde stars as a nurse who is changing boyfriends and rents the same apartment with a girl and a boy from a scheming landlady. Also features Mary Wickes, Nancy Marquand, Peggy Van Vleet and Brooks West. (NBC). 8:30—“Americana” with Ben Grauer and a panel of high school students, sponsored by Firestone (NBC).

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1949
4:30—Howdy Doody (NBC). 6:45—The Weatherman. 6:50—Camel Newsreel Theatre (NBC). 7:00—Texaco Star Theatre with Milton Berle. Guests—Carmen Miranda, Tony Martin, Florence Desmond, Paul and Palette Trio and the Unger Twins (NBC). 8:00—Feature film. 8:30—Three Musketeers. 9:00—Hour of Fear, “Secret of Stamboul” with James Mason.

Network Television Comes to Chicago

Chicago started 1948 with one television station. By the end of the year, it had four. Two were owned by radio chains which also set up limited TV network programming before 1948 was done.

(This does not include Zenith’s station used for experimental tests).

When the American Broadcasting Company was still the Blue Network, it applied for commercial television stations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Chicago Tribune reported on September 1, 1944:

Blue Network Proposes Television Station Here
Application for authority to operate a new commercial television radio station in Chicago was filed with the federal communications commission in Washington, D. C., yesterday [Aug. 31] by the Blue network. Authority to open similar stations in New York and Los Angeles also was asked. The company asked that the Chicago and Los Angeles stations be on channel 8 [162,000 to 168,000 kilocycles] and that the New York outlet be on Channel 15 [258,000 to 264,000 kilocycles). The Yankee Network, Inc., Boston, Mass., operator of Station WAAB, Wooster, Mass., applied for a similar station in Boston on channel 2 [60,000-66,000 kilocycles].

On September 18, the FCC placed all of them (with commercial TV applications from Maison Blanche Co., New Orleans, and United Broadcasting Co., Cleveland) in its pending file.

ABC had big postwar plans for TV in Chicago, as Billboard revealed on February 2, 1946.

Chi Video Station Within 18 Months On ABC Agenda
CHICAGO, Feb. 16.—Paul Mowrey, American Broadcasting Company's television director, last week threw his hat into the Chi video ring by announcing that one of the top plans on his agenda is a television station in Chi at the earliest possible date. Mowrey could not give the exact date ABC would have a Chi video station because operation here will only take place after the FCC has granted the local video license for which the net has applied. As nobody knows when the FCC can get around to processing all its video applications, the starting date could not be set as definite, and Mowrey could only say that ABC should have its own station here not later than 18 months from now.
Mowrey plans at the beginning of the ABC video station operation here to program primarily in special events remotes an occasional program from one of the ABC studios and accent on a new type of video programing (new here, that is), the picking up of remote dramatic programs from the houses of various amateur theatrical groups such as the Jack and Jill Players and the legit groups at universities.
28 Hours Weekly
Mowrey expects to be able to program, even at the beginning of his operation, the 28 hours weekly that the FCC wants telecasters to air by June 1, 1946.
Mowrey is already starting to line up agreements with the drama groups and special events originating places, such as indoor and outdoor sports arenas.
For his drama pick-up Mowrey plans to use three orthicon cameras—one for close-ups, one for middle shots and one for distant shots. This, he reasons, will enable the video audience to see plays in a manner that could be duplicated only if they bought three seats—one up front, one half way and one at the back of the house.
Chi Shows To Be Telecast
Some of the ABC's present Chi-originated radio shows will also be used for the net's video program content here. Mowrey, will not telecast these at the same time they are broadcast over AM, but he intends to create special video adaptations, using radio personalities and program formats. Breakfast Club and Quiz Kids were among the shows he mentioned as being especially adaptable for video.
There is a possibility that ABC might get into the video picture here even before it can get its own station, Mowrey said, if he is able to work out arrangements to have some ABC-produced shows telecast on either of the two video stations now in operation here.
Formation of an ABC video staff here, Mowrey also said, would be done by having a few of the net's New York video experts come here for a few months to train the net's present AM staff in the why's and wherefore's of television production.

ABC did exactly as Mowrey speculated. It had no TV license in Chicago but found homes elsewhere for its programming. This is from Billboard, July 13, 1946.

ABC Signs Sports On B. & K. in Chi
CHICAGO, July 6.—The American Broadcasting Company, Friday (5) signed to present four sporting events on WBKB, Balaban & Katz tele outlet. They will present boxing and prize fights from the Rainbo Gardens on Wednesday nights starting Wednesday (10). An option has been taken for an additional four scannings and Paul Mowrey, ABC's tele man, states that he hopes to have the shows sponsored even before the first one hits the ether.
This makes five stations over which the network without a video outlet is photographing shows; WABD (DuMont), New York; WRGB (G.E.), Schenectady; WPPZ (Philco), Philadelphia and WTTG (DuMont), Washington. Bud Pearse, ABC tele special eventer, will handle the Chi scannings.

Less than two weeks later, ABC had its license.

ABC Gets 1st Video Outlet
WASHINGTON, July 27.—Chicago has a new television station authorized, with announcement by the Federal Communications Commission this week that American Broadcasting Company has been granted a CP for a commercial video station operating on Channel Seven, visual power of 30 kw. And aural power of 15 kw. (Billboard, Aug. 3)

Applications for television (and FM) stations piled up. Factories had to switch over from war mode into manufacturing things for consumers and businesses, things like TV sets and transmitters. Dealing with that took time. The FCC continued to allow deferrals for deadlines to get stations on the air.

We learn from the Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 29, 1948:

ABC Starts Chicago Telev. Construction
Chicago.—Construction of television facilities for ABC's new station WENR-TV in Chicago, are now under way, it was announced yesterday [28] by E. R. Borroff, vice-president in charge of the network's Central division. Although the arrival of supplies and material has been delayed during the past few months, it is anticipated that television operations will commence by September 1 at the latest.
The tower, an RCA superturnstile type, will be installed on the highest ridge of the Civic Opera building, located at 20 N. Wacker Drive. It is 118 feet in height.
Complete construction plans and antenna designs are now in the final process of approval. The main television studios will be located on the 44th floor of the Opera building and outside studio space will be rented temporarily, until such time as permanent studios can be obtained or built. The station will operate on Channel 7, with a frequency of 174 to 180 megacycles. Video is 15 kilowatts and aural is 7.5 kilowatts.

Meanwhile, progress was made on stringing together a Midwest TV feed. Broadcasting, April 26, 1948:

Chicago-Cleveland Coaxial Opened for Phone Use
TELEVISION transmission on the Chicago-Cleveland coaxial cable route moved a step closer April 19 when AT&T's Long Lines Dept. announced that the cable was available for immediate telephone use.
Designed to ease crowded long-distance circuits between the two cities, the 363-mile cable will become an integral part of the Bell System's midwestern inter-city TV network, which also will service Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Louis.
In addition, the cable will tie in with the Philadelphia-Cleveland cable which, when completed at year's end, will link the system's midwestern and eastern television networks. Cable along each route provides one television circuit in each direction.
NBC has authorization for a video station (WNBK) in Cleveland, while ABC, CBS and MBS have applications pending. Lone operating TV station there is WEWS, owned by Scripps-Howard Radio.
In Chicago one network affiliate, WGN-TV (MBS) is on the air. Two other stations, WNBQ and WENR-TV (NBC and ABC), expect to begin operation by September, and application for another, WBBM (CBS), is pending.

ABC’s sales department began lining up sponsors for its soon-to-exist network. From the Hollywood Reporter, July 15, 1948:

More Spots For Bulova
Bulova Watch, pursuing its cornerstone of time signal spots on all TV stations, has signed up three of ABC’s leading projected stations. Thought the Biow, Co., New York, it has bought 17 signals weekly on WENR-TV, Chicago; WXYZ-TV, Detroit, and KGO-TV, San Francisco.

The station wasn’t on the air in time for the Republican Convention in Philadelphia June 21 to 25, but it had a presence there as the station’s mobile unit was seconded for the event.
WENR-TV started hiring staff. This name, from Variety, Aug. 4, 1948, may be familiar, especially if you watched credits on Dean Martin’s TV shows.

Staff recruits for forthcoming WENR-TV include Gregg Garrison, lately of WFIL-TV [Philadelphia]...Garrison as staff director.

A new date was set for WENR-TV’s debut. Variety, Aug. 11, 1948:

ABC-TV’s Sept. Chi Bow
ABC’s WENR-TV beams its first test patterns this week, with the formal teeoff coming Sept. 17. Station studio and offices will be located on the 44th floor of the Civic Opera Building.
Amateur bouts from the Madison Athletic Club are among the shows set for lensing, with “Breakfast Club” and “Ladies Be Seated” earmarked as sure futures. Station also plans to organize a stock company of pros and amateurs.
Chicago Daily News, which has no affiliation with WENR-TV or ABC, will issue a special tele supplement to mark the TV bow.

There was a slight problem. To broadcast a test pattern, you need a test pattern. Variety, Aug. 18, 1948:

No Harm Meant
Chicago, Aug. 17
Engineers ready to telecast the first test pattern of WNER-TV Thursday (12) found that the regular slide hadn’t arrived, so they called a camera shop and got a Walt Disney product. Slide showed the Big Bad Wolf and two little pigs.
Viewers at Chi’s two other tele stations, WBKB and WGN-TV, interpreted the slide as a sly rib, but WENR-TV engineers insist it was used merely because of its linear quality.

The station needed additional studios, post-haste, for September 17. This is from the Tribune, Aug. 24, 1948:

WENR-TV TO CONVERT CIVIC THEATER INTO TELEVISION STUDIO
The Chicago Civic theater, site of legitimate theater productions since October, 1929, will be converted into a television studio by the American Broadcasting company as headquarters for its new video station WENR-TV, which begins operation Sept. 17, it was announced yesterday by John H. Norton Jr., ABC vice president, and James Thompson, president of the Wacker corporation, owners of the Civic Open building.
Extensive reconstruction and redecoration of the theater already is underway and will be completed prior to the opening. The studio, leased for approximately five years, will be equipped with the latest types of studio, motion picture, and field cameras and will accommodate 878 persons.
The WENR-TV transmitter is on the 44th floor of the Civic Opera building and the antenna is on the building's roof.

20 North Wacker Drive, Chicago 6, III. When the station went on the air it had two studios at 20 North Wacker Drive, approximately 25-by-46 feet, plus a 32-by-71-foot studio in the Civic Opera Building. It had six studio cameras, six dollies; two 16mm. and two 35mm. film projectors; two slide projectors; two sets remote equipment; four remote comeras (info from Oct. 1948 issue of Television magazine).

WBKB had been telecasting play-by-play sports a-plenty—hockey, baseball, college football (even installing a circuit to South Bend, Indiana, to pick up the Green Bay Packers). It was natural WENR-TV would want a piece of that. Here’s Variety, Sep. 8, 1948:

Chi TV Deals on Tap For Bears, Cardinals
Chicago, Sept. 7
Local tele expects to come to terms with the Chicago Bears and Cardinals, pro football teams that failed to rush into video this season. ABC already has signed the Card tussle with the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 19, paying a reported $2,000 to carry the game on WENR-TV.

T-Day on September 17, 1948 got closer. The Trib had this preview on the 12th:

WENR-TV, THIRD VIDEO STATION, TO OPEN FRIDAY
Plan 30 Hours a Week of Programs
BY LARRY WOLTERS
Chicago's third television station, WENR-TV, will start regular programming next Friday evening [17]. A gala 4 hour dedicatory show will be presented from 7 to 11 o'clock, most of it emanating from the Civic theater which the station will use as its main studio. WENR-TV will operate on channel 7. It plans to present about 30 hours of programs a week.
Thus, Chicagoland viewers will have considerable choice in video fare henceforth. WGN-TV, W-G-N's television station, operates on channel 9; WBKB, the Balaban and Katz station, on channel 4. And a fourth Chicago station is in prospect. WNBQ, NBC's local video station, expects to be on the air with a test pattern next week and will begin programming sometime this fall. Both WENR-TV and WNBQ will have their transmitters and antennas atop the Civic Opera building, NBC's Studio A atop the Merchandise Mart is being reconverted into a modern television studio for WNBQ.
Opening Night's Show
WENR-TV's opening night's show is to start with a half hour dedicatory feature in which state, city and civic leaders, and representatives of ABC, which will operate the new station, will participate.
The show to follow will be in some measure a preview of the station's programs. It will include film telecasts of Candid Microphone and Bride and Groom, two of ABC's shows. The Breakfast Club gang, regularly heard in the morning on the network, is down for a nocturnal appearance before the cameras. WENR's Amateur Hour will be telecast on the premiere.
Ladies Be Seated, an audience participation show, with Tom Moore as master of ceremonies, will be viewed. This show is to be telecast regularly. Victor Borge, pianist and comedian, will be featured.
Whiteman To Conduct
A one hour variety show will wind up the premiere. Paul Whiteman, ABC's musical chief, will conduct a 60 piece orchestra in a performance of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The "Rhapsody" has been identified as Whiteman's musical signature since he introduced it in Carnegie Hall Feb. 12, 1924. Earl Wild, young pianist-composer-conductor, will be soloist.
WENR-TV will telecast regularly a half hour show tentatively titled Video Varieties. Vocalists, instrumentalists and combinations as well as novelty and dance acts will be featured. Among those already engaged for this series are Jack Owens, the "cruising crooner"; Patsy Lee, songstress of the Breakfast club; the Honey Dreamers; Johnny Hill, baritone; Lola Ameche, radio and night club vocalist; Ralph Martine conducting a Dixieland group: Don Lindley and his Music in Velvet, the Adele Scott trio and the George Barnes octet.
Promises Fine Pictures
Paul Mowrey, television director of the network, said that WENR-TV viewers are assured of the finest reception. "Conclusive evidence of this," he said, "is the overwhelmingly tine response directed towards the station on the excellent clarity of the WENR-TV test pattern which currently is being transmitted."
Mowrey said that channel 7 is "in the middle of the dial"— a position little subjected to interference from nonbroadcast (amateur) transmitters and from industrial, scientific and medical devices.
The Civic Theater gives WENR and WENR-TV a studio with a seating capacity of 878. The Breakfast club's morning radio shows will be aired from this theater.

How did the premiere go? Here’s Variety’s review.

WENR-TV INAUGURAL
With Lou Holtz, Paul Whiteman, Victor Borge, Ginny Simms, Jerry Colonna, Buck and Bubbles, Margaret Harris, Szonyis, Montana Jack, Maple City Four, Indian Dancers, "Breakfast Club" with Don McNeill, Jack Owens, Patsy Lee, Fran Allison, and Sam Cowling; "Ladies Be Seated" with Tom Moore; WENR’s "Amateur Hour" with Bob Murphy; Herbie Mintz, Beulah Karney, Herb Newcomb, Wayne Griffin; conductors Rex Maupin, Ed Ballantine and Mary Hartline.
Producer: Harold Stokes
Directors: Jack Gibney, Greg Garrison
4 Hrs., 52 Mins.; Fri. (17), 7 p.m. Sustaining
WENR-TV, Chicago
In preeming the new Civic studio and WENR-TV, its second o-&-o tele station, ABC gave Chicago viewers a modified version of the recent WJZ-TV bow. The "dream bill" device was tossed out, along with any sentimental hark back on vaude. The net simply assembled the best array of talent offered so far on local video. Result couldn't help being the most impressive tele show eyed here to date.
Kickoff cost ABC $7,800 for talent, exclusive of musicians. In relation to the entertainment level of Chicago tele, however, brilliance of the WENR-TV bow was up to that of its New York sister. Preem bucked football and baseball on two other stations, but, according to phone data compiled by ABC researchers, it captured and held 80% of the audience.
In the course of five hours the show inevitably had sagging periods in which quantitative rather than qualitative factors held sway. The entertainment content in one 90-minute stretch might well have been boiled down to 45 minutes, with quarter hours allotted for each of what played as three 30-minute shows. A snack, rather than a full meal, would have sufficed.
"Breakfast Club" came off surprisingly well via the use of visual stunts lifted from its regular format.
The WENR "Amateur Hour" and "Ladies Be Seated" emerged as straight radio shows made visible even to the standing mike in the tyro show. The half-hour remote from the National Television and Electrical Living Show was the weakest seg, offering two male singing groups in close order, plus Indian dances of anthropological interest. Montana Jack's bull whip cracking went best, with a good assist from Don Ward.
Variety show, emceed by Lou Hotz [sic], set a high for NBC and CBS to shoot at when they enter Chi tele. Holtz turned in his standard job, using Lapidus and other stand-by stories throughout.
Buck and Bubbles repeated the sock bits viewed on the WJZ-TV preem. Jerry Colonna punched over two songs via popped optics and eyebrow acrobatics. Margaret Harris, child pianist, was effective in her brief spot. Ginny Simms was plenty sightworthy in lilting her brace of pops. Victor Borge's piano routines were top stuff but his needless worries over mike volume would have been better left to the engineers. Evidently stretching it while the orch set up, his punctuation familiar tapered off for a wan close.
Camera work was skittery at times, especially for the Szonyis terp session in which a payoff over-head lift was dampered. Of the four cameras used, two failed temporarily with consequent limiting of shots. Really choice lensing came during Paul Whiteman's batoning of "Rhapsody In Blue." Sight and sound were expertly interwoven, so expertly in fact that previous camera handling suffered by contrast.
Show went into rehearsal at a late hour, which accounted for some small defects. All in all, however, viewers must have felt that their investment in a receiver had brought a good dividend. Meanwhile until tele is perfected, there won't be perfection. Baxt. (Variety, Sept. 22, 1948)

Two days after the start of programming, the company outlined its programming plans to the Tribune.

WENR-TV, THIRD STATION, TELLS PROGRAM PLANS
Following its debut Friday evening [17] WENR-TV, Chicago's third television station, has started regular daily programming. Shows will be telecast daily during the evening hours, excepting for day time sports events, Harold Stokes manager of the ABC video outlet, announced.
A varied schedule of shows ranging from an amateur hour to a Great Books forum has been arranged.
A program fashioned after the Sachs Amateur Hour will be telecast on Sundays. This program completed its 14th consecutive year on the air on Aug. 29 over WENR. Since its inception in 1934 it has offered nearly 9,000 contestants, ranging in age from 4 to 110, a chance for public recognition.
Dollars and Sense, an audience participation program during which contestants will receive cash awards for cunning use of their senses of touch, taste, sight, sound and smell, will be telecast Sunday evenings.
Plan Video Varieties
During the week a musical and variety program tentatively titled Video Varieties, will be telecast, featuring top vocalists, instrumentalists and musical combinations as well as novelty and eccentric dance acts unique to the television field.
Talent which will be seen thruout this series includes Jack Owens, heard regularly on ABC's Breakfast Club; the five swinging Honey Dreamers; Johnny baritone, a recent radio discovery from St. Louis; the Breakfast Club's comely Patsy Lee; Ralph Martire, trumpeter, conducting a Dixieland group; Don Lindley with his Music in Velvet; and the Adele Scott Trio, which has appeared on many commercial radio programs as well as the Arthur Godfrey program in New York.
Candid Microphone, the production in which the "man with the hidden mike" carefully records unexpected and unpremeditated conversations, will be presented on film on Sundays.
A half hour program of mystery and suspense, as yet untitled, will be presented at 9 p.m. Sundays and at 9:30 to closing at 11, a feature film will be telecast. WENR-TV will experiment in a program primarily designed to interest children.
Boxing And Wrestling
Stump the Authors, which permits fans to hear the plots of complete original stories in the making, also will be televised. This program formerly was heard on ABC and received notable praise from critics a few months ago when it was produced over WBKB.
From 9 to 11 p.m, Tuesdays amateur boxing bouts from the Rainbo Arena will be telecast. From 8:30 to 11 p.m. Wednesdays wrestling matches will be presented.
A television program adapted from the Great Books forums which are conducted thruout the nation will be an extraordinary feature of WENR-TV. Chancellor Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago and chairman of the Great Books Foundation will participate in the forum.

Three days after sign-on, ABC had a regional network set-up. The Trib reported on Sept. 20, 1948:

A midwestern television network, with coaxial cable and radio relay facilities provided by American Telephone and Telegraph company, begins operation tonight. Two way service is provided between St. Louis, Chicago, Toledo, Detroit, and Cleveland. Branches will carry programs to Milwaukee and Buffalo, N. Y., but for the present none can be sent back from these points. This Midwestern network will be linked with the east coast video network by the end of the year.
WENR-TV, ABC video outlet here, will originate several programs on the network to be piped to stations in Milwaukee, Toledo and Cleveland. Stump the Authors, on WENR-TV at 7:30p.m., will be carried on the video net, in addition to a variety hour from 8 to 9.

The circuit had to be used by both NBC and ABC. Variety reviewed its “opening night” the following day.

ABC’s Commercial TV Kickoff Gets Nod Over NBC’s Midwest Video Inaugural; 7-City Feed Uneven
Chicago, Sept. 21.
Television networking was born in the midwest last night (20). Both ABC and NBC celebrated the occasion—inauguration of the Bell System's 2,000-mile coaxial circuit from St. Louis to Buffalo—with special programs piped to outlets along the cable. But, on three scores, ABC copped the laurels.
For (1), ABC jumped on the circuit at 6 p.m., getting a full-hour beat on NBC in debuting web TV operation; (2) ABC kicked off its networking with a commercial show ("On The Trail," a variety stanza, for Admiral Radio, 6-6:30 p.m.), whereas NBC teed off sponsorless; and (3) ABC announced plans for regular web programming, while NBC confessed that, owing to expense, its three-hour inaugural was a one-shot web affair and no further networking is on the books for the moment. Of course, if a sponsor turns up, that'll be different. Or if a special event warranting it comes along, a web feed will again be ordered. . . .
ABC originated its web debut from its new Chicago owned and operated station, WENR-TV, which took to the air only three days before. New Admiral variety show was fed to WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee; WBEN-TV, Buffalo, and WEWS, Cleveland. It'll be a weekly stanza. Net says at least two or three additional shows, all sustaining, will be fed over the coax skein weekly to start.
Hookup last night marked official identification of WEWS, Scripps-Howard station, and WBEN-TV, Buffalo News-owned, as full TV affiliates of ABC. Web's Detroit station, WXYZ-TV, linked by micro-wave via Toledo, will get into the web picture Oct. 9. . . .
ABC plans networking 10 hours of programming weekly. Initial schedule includes: Sunday—"Dollars and Sense," "What Do You Think?" and as yet untitled half-hour show; Monday—"Stump the Author" and 30-minute variety show; Tuesday—two hours of boxing; Wednesday—two hours of wrestling or auto races; Friday—"Music in Velvet" and "Platter Party"; Saturday—"Skip Farrell Show," "Stand By for Crime" and full-hour "Super Circus."
Commercials set for the ABC net include, besides the Admiral variety show, four Notre Dame grid games starting Saturday (25) with Admiral also as sponsor; balloting results Nov. 2 under Kaiser-Frazer aegis, and a sked of boxing bouts tagged by Motorola. Paramount's WBKB, Chi, has exclusive on ND grid games, so ABC airing will be via affiliates outside the Windy City only. Fact that it has commercial shows ready for the new mid-west coax will be roundly plugged by ABC to cement affiliations.

Once the network was in place, two large events were sent out on WENR-TV. The station aired the World Series, but only the games from Cleveland as there was no coaxial with Boston, where Games 1, 2 and 6 took place (it could be heard on WGN radio). On Election Night, November 2, the station combined with ABC radio’s WLS to bring viewers a preview at 6:45 Central, and then complete returns at 7 p.m. WENR-TV would adopted the WLS call letters in 1968.

The first week’s listings in the Trib look pretty local.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1948
7:00—Official opening of WENR-TV, with Mayor Kennelly, Lt. Gov. Hugh Cross, officials of ABC, Paul Harvey, Beulah Karney, Herbie Mintz, Tommy Bartlett and Bob Elson. 7:30—Candid Microphone (film). 8:00—Breakfast Club with Don McNeill. 9:00—Ladies Be Seated with Tom Moore. 10:00—Variety, with Ginny Simms, Victor Borge, Jerry Colonna, Paul Whiteman’s orchestra.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1948
8:00—Skip Farrell show. 8:30—Mystery Quiz. 9:00—Pickup from Television and Electrical Living show at Colesium.
Chicagoans will have an opportunity to see regular telecasts of Chicago's three video stations—WGN-TV, WBKB and WENR-TV—put on the air at the National Television and Electrical Living show, opening at 11 a.m, today in the Coliseum. The show will continue for nine days. Visitors also may be televised and see themselves on video receivers.
More than 300 television receivers of every type and price—the largest number ever assembled under one roof—will be on exhibition, Harry Alter, chairman of the Electric association, which is sponsoring the show has announced.
A hundred manufacturers and distributors of radio and television, washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and various electrical appliances will display their newest wares. A feature of the exposition is a search for Miss Television of Chicago, with a 13 week contract with WENR-TV as one of the rewards. Fifth army headquarters and the navy electronics laboratory at Great Lakes will exhibit the newest in military communications equipment. The show will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. (Tribune)

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1948
No programming.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1948
7:00—News. 7:15—Film. 7:30—“Stump the Authors” with Sidney Breeze. 8:00—Variety Hour with radio and theatre stars.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1948
7:00—News. 7:15—Film. 7:30—Jack Owens. 8:00—Feature Film.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1948
7:00—Sports News. 7:15—Feature Film. 8:30—Remote telecast. 9:00—Remote telecast.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1948
No programming.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1948
7:00—Music in Velvet. 7:30—Platter Party. 8:00—TV Film.

TV For Shepard Wasn't As Easy as Pie

It took 20 years, but John Shepard the 3rd got his TV station.

Shepard was the owner of pioneer radio station WNAC in Boston. In late 1928, he tried, and failed, to get a license for a television station. After the death of mechanical television, he tried again. WNAC-TV finally reached Bostonians in mid-1948.

The Yankee Network of radio stations was founded by Shepard around 1930. During World War Two, it joined the large number of companies that wanted to take a risk and get into television. The Christian Science Monitor reported on September 1, 1944.

Boston Radio Seeks Permit For Television
A Yankee Network radio official today said that the current modern studios of the regional chain at Kenmore Square in Boston would be adequate to take care of the initial stages of television in its present state of development. The Network, which operates Station WNAC in Boston, WEAN, Providence, R. I., WAAB, Worcester, and WICC, Bridgeport, Conn., yesterday [Aug. 31] applied for a permit from the Federal Communications Com-mission for television station in Boston. The application asked for Channel 2 in the current television band, between 60 and 66 megacycles.

Shepard talked to the Monitor about the problems of television. Here’s part of a story from Sept. 13, 1944 where his predictions were extremely accurate when it came to WNAC-TV.

Though he placed high hopes in the future of both frequency modulation radiocasting and television, John Shepard, III, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yankee Network in Boston, held to the opinion of many observers in the radio industry that it will be from one to five years after the war before television will emerge as a household feature.
Mr. Shepard, whose network applied recently for a television license for Station WNAC in Boston, was inclined to favor the prediction of T. A. M. Craven, Federal Communications Commissioner, who has stated his opinion that it will be two years before television is an accepted commercial proposition.
After disclosure of plans to apply for television licenses for network stations in Providence, R. I., and Hartford, Conn., Mr. Shepard explained that the tremendous cost of television programs would invariably [sic] slow up progress. He declared that costs would force individual stations into networks in order to average off, and hazarded the opinion that stations would be on the air for possibly not more than two hours a day for quite a period. The inaugural output of network television stations would probably consist mostly of films, occasional live shows, and an occasional sports pickup, he said.

The application turned out to be a false start. Here’s Broadcasting magazine, March 25, 1946:

ENTHUSIASM of many television applicants has been cooling, for two major reasons.
1. The campaign of CBS in behalf of ultra-high frequency color video.
2. The cost, as evidenced in FCC hearings. ...
John Shepard 3d, chairman of the board of Yankee Network, said Yankee had withdrawn its Providence application and planned to withdraw from Boston and Hartford because “we feel that the future of television lies in the ultra-high frequencies with color and finer definition in black and white...Also in cities where television broadcasting has not yet been established, we do not think we should encourage the public to buy receivers which in our opinion under those circumstances would be obsolete in two years’ time.”

The application was withdrawn April 5, 1946.

Things settled down, and some of the companies that decided to get out of the TV business decided to get back in. Broadcasting of June 9, 1947 reported:

YANKEE AGAIN SEEKS BOSTON TV STATION
YANKEE NETWORK applied to FCC last Thursday [5] for a new television station at Boston. It requested Channel 7.
Yankee had previously filed for a video affiliate of its WNAC Boston, but withdrew with the intention of entering the color television field if FCC approved commercial color operations. It withdrew applications for Hartford and Providence at the same time.
Five video channels have been allocated to the Boston area. Two of these have been assigned: One to Westinghouse Radio Stations Inc. for WBZ-TV Boston and one to Raytheon Mfg. Co. for WRTB Waltham. In addition to the Yankee Network application, which was filed by Thomas N. Dowd of the Washington law firm of Pierson & Ball, New England Theatres Inc., is seeking a television station at Boston.

The FCC made a decision several months later. From Broadcasting, Oct. 6, 1947:

A GRANT to Yankee Network for a new television station at Boston was issued by the FCC last Thursday [2]. The permit authorizes use of Channel 7 (174-180 mc) with 32.7 kw visual and aural power and antenna height 566 feet. The network, which is licensee of AM station WNAC Boston, estimated construction costs at approximately $280,250. It plans to operate the station 28 hours weekly.

Now it was a matter of getting equipment and some programming. The latter was made easier when a series of relay stations linked Boston with TV-producing networks. That happened about a month later.

New Television Circuit Links Capital, New York, Boston
NEW YORK, Nov. 13 (U.P.)—Television was sent over a 500-mile wire-radio circuit today, linking Washington, New York and Boston. It marked another step toward coast-to-coast television network programs.
The new system, opened experimentally today, will enable Boston to share New York's and Washington's television programs. In all, it is expected that 25,000,000 persons will be able to see television.
Officials of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. and the Bell Laboratories which developed the system, said that a network to Chicago is now being constructed and should be in operation by spring. This will enable millions more to be included in the television luxury.
The system demonstrated today included use of the coaxial cable between New York and Washington, and a new microwave radio relay between New York and Boston.
The Boston part of the program was broadcast by an experimental station, with the signals being transmitted through a series of hilltop repeater stations. These are located at Bear Hill, Waltham, Mass., Asnebumskit Mountain, northwest of Worcester, Mass.; Bald Hill, east of Stafford Springs, Conn., John Tom Hill, Glastonbury, Conn., Spindle Hill, north of Waterbury, Conn., Birch Hill, about three miles south of Pawling, N. Y., and Jackie Jones Mountain, west of Haverstraw.
These stations, located about 20 to 30 miles apart, are necessary to television which does not follow the curvature of the earth. With the stations operating automatically, the television signals are picked up before they shoot off into space, and are relayed on to the next station. The demonstration today showed that pictures could be sent by the radio relay as clearly as they can by the coaxial cable, which has been in operation between New York and Washington for some years.
Walter S. Gifford, president of the A. T. & T., said the radio relay also would be used for the transmission of telephone communication. He and other company engineers said many thousands of telephone calls might be made over the relay at the same time.
The microwaves, used in the transmission, are of high frequency, and are not interrupted by storm or magnetic disturbances to a great degree. Static also is eliminated.

From the Boston Globe, Nov. 22, 1947:

WNAC Signs for TV Equipment
John Shepard 3d, chairman of the board, Yankee Network, signed contracts this week with R. L. Hans, New England manager of the General Electric Electronics Dept.; William C. Jaeger, district representative, and A. A. Brandt, general sales manager of G. E. WNAC will use complete G. E. transmitting equipment for its new television station. Transmitting facilities will be located at Medford. WNAC plans to be on with television early in 1948.

A report on March 8, 1948 from the FCC said a petition had been made to drop requests for a modification of WNAC-TV Boston construction permit. The station sought to switch from Channel 7 (174=180 mc) to Channel 13 (210-216 mc).

From Broadcasting, April 12, 1948:

TEN TELEVISION receivers will be awarded as prizes in contest being conducted by WNAC-TV Boston, in co-operation with Boston Daily Record, American and Sunday Advertiser, and Electric Institute of Boston. Receivers will go to writers of ten best letters of 50 words or less on, "I would like a television receiver in my home, because . . . " Contest, which started April 1 and will run until April 22, is being promoted on the air by WNAC and in daily features by the newspapers. Prize receivers also were on display April 3-10 in the WNAC-TV booth at First Annual Electric Show in Boston's Mechanics Bldg. WNAC-TV is scheduled to go on the air in June.

And local sports clubs were anxious to be seen in homes, too. Broadcasting reported on May 3, 1948:

TV RIGHTS FREE
3 Sponsors for Boston Baseball Telecasts
IN A GESTURE unprecedented in major league baseball advertising the Boston teams (Braves and Red Sox) have granted television rights without charge to the Atlantic Refining Co., Narragansett Brewery, which co-sponsors the baseball AM broadcasts, and the Boston Herald-Traveler, it was revealed last week at a meeting of the principals.
The three advertisers were reported to have previously offered an estimated $30,000 for television privileges, but both Tom Yawkey, president of the Boston Red Sox, and Louis Perini, president of the Boston Braves, turned down the bid. They explained that they had investigated television and had decided that there were an insufficient number of sets in Boston.
However, Mr. Perini maintained that they were so pleased with the AM broadcasts and the way the advertisers and WHDH Boston were handling them that in "fairness to the sponsors" they were giving them the video rights free of charge.
In granting the free telecasts Mr. Yawkey told the sponsors, "We feel we like to help speed the growth of television ... and render a service to the Boston fans." The baseball president went on to as-sure the advertiser representatives that the baseball telecasts would be in "their hands."
Thus, effective May 20 the games will be seen on WBZ-TV Boston (which goes on the air for the first time the day before, May 19) sponsored by Atlantic Refining, the brewery and the newspaper. The games are also scheduled to be carried on WNAC-TV when that station takes the air.

Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1948:

Yankee Network Pictures Early Television Debut
While a definite date has not been set for the debut of the Yankee Network's television station WNAC-TV, work at the site in, Medford, on the Malden line, is progressing rapidly.
Linus Travers, Executive Vice-President and General Manager of the Yankee Network, disclosed that Boston's second television station will offer a varied program of network and local television programs.
WNAC-TV, Mr. Travers disclosed, will exchange television programs with WCBS-TV, the Columbia Broadcasting System's station in New York, on an experimental basis. Local lookers-in he said, will have available all the CBS network programs sent over the Eastern Seaboard Network.
The summer dramatic productions at the Wellesley College Summer Theater will be relayed exclusively by WNAC-TV, Mr. Travers disclosed. Noted Broadway and Hollywood actors, and students will take part in the series which runs for five weeks from July 5 to Aug. 14.
Lester Smith, Yankee's director of special events, will give the color and commentaries at the home games of the Red Sox and Braves which will be telecast in conjunction with WBZ-TV from Fenway Park and Braves Field. Transformation of Yankee Network's old Studio One at the Hotel Buckminster into a new television studio is nearly completed, Mr. Travers said.
In addition, Yankee Network will relay its frequency modulation (FM) programs from the new location in Medford. A pioneer in FM radiocasting, the new station will be the Yankee Network's third station radiocasting in this medium.
WNAC-TV, according to Mr. Travers, will serve the metropolitan area of Boston and an outlying area hounded approximately by the New Hampshire-Maine state lines on the north, on the west by Worcester, to Providence on the southwest, and to the southeast of Plymouth or approximately 49 miles from Boston.

Finally the station was set to take to the air with programmes, just in time for the Republican Convention in Philadelphia. The Boston Globe reported on June 19, 1948.

Both WNAC and WBZ to Televise Convention
Boston's second television station, WNAC-TV, will be on the air today with test patterns on Channel 7. And on Monday, WNAC-TV will join WBZ-TV in bringing the highlights of the Republican National Convention opening in Philadelphia. Thereafter daily events of interest at the Convention will be seen by television.
However, WNAC announces Monday will not be its "T-Day." Formal dedication of WNAC-TV will take place in the middle of August, when a gala celebration will mark the official opining of television for the Yankee Network. Linus Travers, vice president and general manager, says the telecasting of convention activities is for test purposes.
All told, 18 stations along the East Coast will be hooked up with the convention through television, extending from Richmond, Va., to Boston. Operation will be under a pool arrangement with NBC. CBS, ABC and DuMont Stations throughout the Middle West and on the Coast will get their convention scenes by film because network hookups are not yet extended that far and won't be until 1952.
Telecasts of the convention will come to Boston over the microwave system from New York. Only one Boston television station can use it at a time. When WBZ-TV is on with convention pickups, WNAC-TV will resort to test patterns.

The programming week looked like this:

MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1948
Republican Convention pickups, times indefinite.

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1948
10-10:45 a.m.—Test Pattern. 10:45-11:15—Republican Convention. 8-8:45 p.m.—Test Pattern. 8:45-11:15—Republican Convention.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1948
(Informal Program Schedule)
10-10:45 a.m.—Test Pattern. 10:45-1:15 p.m.—Republican Convention. 8:30—Test Pattern. 9:00—Convention. 10:00—Indefinite. 10:30-midnight—Convention.

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1948
10:15-10:45 a.m.—Test pattern. 10:45-1:30 p.m.—Republican Convention. 1:45-2:15—Test pattern. 2:15-5:15—Republican Convention. 8:30-9:00—Test pattern. 9:00-10:00—Republican Convention. 10:00—Joe Louis-Jersey Joe Wolcott fight. 10:30-2 a.m.—Republican Convention.

FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1948 through MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1948
No schedule available.

WHAC-TV didn’t have any studio programmes for the nonce (do people still say that?), so it found some more outside sources. Broadcasting, June 28, 1948:

WNAC-TV Boston Starts Experimental Programs
WNAC-TV Boston has announced plans for formal opening August 15 with a full schedule of video programs.
First test pattern was carried June 19 according to Linus Travers, executive vice president and general manager. Experimental programming last week included pooled broadcasts from Republican Convention and interviews with leading candidates which were filmed by Life magazine.
WNAC-TV is on Channel 7 (174-180 mc), with transmitter and tower located at Medford, Mass. Licensee is the Yankee Network.

The Christian Science Monitor, July 1, 1948:

WNAC-TV Arrange 2 Network Deals
Completion of agreements for the temporary telecasting affiliation of WNAC-TV with both the Columbia Broadcasting System and the American Broadcasting Company picture networks, was announced today by Linus Travers, Executive Vice-President and General Manager of the Yankee Network.
Effective tonight, WNAC-TV of the Yankee Network will telecast programs of both networks during its present period of informal programming. WNAC-TV has been relaying CBS television programs.
Tonight the local station will carry three programs of the ABC network from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m.
The formal dedication of WNAC-TV is scheduled for about the middle of August, Mr. Travers said. The Yankee Network is affiliated with the Mutual Broadcasting System for standard (AM) and FM (frequency modulation) programs. Mutual's telecasting plans are in the formative stage.

Once it was ready, the station split Boston baseball play-by-play with WBZ-TV, which went on the air less than two weeks before WNAC-TV. The Globe also had specifics of its first day of network programming, convention aside.

TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1948
8:00—Test Pattern. 8:30—Boston Braves vs New York Giants at Braves Field.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 1948
8:00—Test Pattern. 8:30—Boston Braves vs New York Giants at Braves Field.

THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1948
10-noon—Test Pattern. 3:30-4:30—Test Pattern. 5:30-6:00—What’s New? (ABC/WFIL-TV) 6:45—CBS Film. 7:00—Fabrielle, songs (ABC/WFIL-TV). 7:15—Face the Music. (CBS). 7:30—CBS Television News (CBS). 9:00—Presidential Timber: Henry Wallace (CBS). 9:30—Winner Take All (CBS).

WNAC-TV wanted additional programming, meaning the test phase would have to continue. Variety, July 14, 1948:

DuMont Network is building its own relay system on the way to Boston. The DuMont relay already extends to New Haven, Conn., where the web’s affiliate, WHNC, has been receiving programs for several weeks.
DuMont starts feeling programs to WNAC-TV, Boston, this Sunday (17), but over AT&T’s microwave relay.

Broadcasting, July 1948:

BOSTON YANKS TO BE ON TV
Owners of Boston Yanks pro football team have agreed to permit television coverage of home games by WNAC-TV Boston, starting with season opener against Green Bay Packers night of Sept. 17. Agreement is for 1948 season only as is in nature of trial run.

Billboard, Aug. 28, 1948"

Second N. Y.-to-Boston Relay To Be Opened in September
BOSTON, Aug. 21. — Additional television network productions are virtually assured for this area as the result of a decision by American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) to permit use of the protection circuit in the New York-to-Boston microwave relay system for relaying two different video programs at the same time.
In effect, the agreement reached between AT&T and WBZ-TV and WNAC-TV officials enables both stations to take eight hours of network relays a day instead of the present arrangement of sharing eight hours between them. The project is expected to go into effect sometime in September and continue thru November and will be operated on an un-protected basis.
Up until now one of the two circuits north to Boston has been utilized as a spare, over which television programs have been automatically switched when trouble developed in the overland relay system. While telephone and video engineers are inclined to discount the possibility of any serious break in the service, disruption of either circuit might wreck a telecast until engineers at any one of the seven intermediate radio relay stations between the two cities could restore normal service.
The move to turn over the protection circuit for added relays was deemed necessary to avoid an impending wrangle over the allotment of the facilities. WBZ-TV, tied in with the National Broadcasting Company, was obliged to struggle along with about one-quarter of the eight hours a day, while WNAC-TV, still operating on an informal schedule, had title to the remaining time by virtue of their interim affiliation with DuMont, the American Broadcasting Company and Columbia Broadcasting System television networks.
Telephone officials intimated that a new protection circuit should be in operation around November 1.

The formal debut of the station was supposed to be Oct. 3, “but Hub newspapers, which use any excuse these days to get out video supplements, couldn’t cover the ad field in time,” Variety told readers. “Sunday papers for Oct. 10, however, bloomed with special video spreads, Herald, Post, Globe, Advertiser and Christian Science Monitor publishing video sections.”

WNAC-TV staff and viewers may not have been concerned about the delay. They were handed a programming gem—the 1948 World Series between the Boston Braves and the powerhouse Cleveland Indians. WNAC-TV produced all three broadcasts from Braves Field. Unfortunately, there was no cable link between WEWS in Cleveland and the eastern stations, and the Stratovision system of relaying signals from airplanes was ruled out because of possible interference, so fans had to rely on radio for the two games from Cleveland (Variety, Oct. 6).

Here’s a preview column from the Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 9, 1948:

Hub Television Network To Begin 7-Day Schedule
By Albert D. Hughes
Radio Editor of The Christian Science Monitor
WNAC-TV, the Yankee Network's television station in Boston on Channel 7 will inaugurate a seven-day schedule of programs with its formal opening on Sunday [10].
The station has been operating for more than three months with an informal schedule of approximately five hours daily of programs.
Formalization of station operations will not at first imply that the Yankee Network is undertaking a larger program schedule. Rather it does mean that the station management is now definitely committing itself to a program schedule. A slogan of "Seven on Seven" adopted by the Yankee Network indicates that programs will be telecast seven days on Channel 7.
CBS One Big Source
WNAC-TV will, as it has in the past weeks, continue to retelecast programs from the Columbia Broadcasting System, American Broadcasting Company and DuMont television network. The network shows will be supplemented with extensive local sports pick-ups.
These will include Harvard, Boston College and Holy Cross football games, the Boston Yanks Pro football, the Manning Bowl high school football games from Lynn, boxing and wrestling.
The Yankee Network has nearly finished the reconversion al a large sound radiocasting studio in the Buckminster Hotel into a television studio for local picture programs.
Relay From Medford
The television programs are relayed from a new station in Medford near the Malden line. From the same location the FM (frequency modulation) staticless programs of WNAC-FM also are radiocast. The programs emanate from an antenna located at 509 feet altitude, thus providing a good signal in an area of approximately 50 miles radius from the transmitter. The video, or picture signal, is transmitted with a power of 26:6 kilowatts and the audio, or sound, is radiocast with a power of 13.3 kilowatts.
Among the network television shows scheduled for the opening Sunday telecasts on the formal schedule include: the Original Amateur Hour, 7 p.m.; Actors Studio, 8:30 p.m.; Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town," 9 p.m.; and the Gallup Election Poll, 10 p.m.

The Globe had no fewer than nine stories (and plenty of photos) about WNAC-TV when it formally began broadcasting on October 10, 1948. Here is the main story.

WNAC-TV Presents Video Magic
WORLD SERIES GAMES HERE STEM FROM YANKEE T-V STATION
Boston Station Formally Launches Channel 7
Tele Formal announcement today that WNAC-TV the Yankee Network's television station, is launching a broad program of informative, educational and entertaining programs places Boston among the top television cities in America.
With WNAC-TV a fall-fledged Metropolitan class television station, this city now has two of the 37 stations in the entire country as of early October. It is estimated that there are 16,4000 television receiving sets in Boston, in excess of 6000 more than Detroit, for example.
"Our interim affiliations with the Columbia Broadcasting System; American Broadcasting Company and DuMont Television gives us a wider variety of programs than is telecast by any other station, and as full a schedule as is seen in any television city in the country," said Linus Travers, vice president and general manager of WNAC-TV.
The WNAC-TV executive disclosed that the station will telecast a total of approximately 63 hours each week. Already he stated an abundance of requests for types of programs desired by tele-viewers have been received. Placing emphasis on sports, which, he said, lead all television popularity polls, Mr. Travers commented:
"WNAC-TV takes its place as Boston's station for sports events. We'll have the World Series, Callahan A. C. boxing bouts, Paul Bowser's wrestling matches and Boston College, Harvard and Holy Cross football games.
"WNAC-TV will telecast the Manning Bowl high school football games. In the professional ranks, we’ll telecast the Boston Yanks home games. And we are negotiating in addition for the final period of the Bruins Boston Garden hockey games.
"Whenever our schedule permits, we also include nationally-originated fights, football games, tennis, polo and wrestling. During one tele-cast day, for example, we gave our audience a local baseball game, a local football game and the tennis matches from Forest Hills. That night, for good measure, we added two of New York's highest-rated talent shows, Dumont's 'Ama-teur Hour,' and Columbia's ‘Talk of the Town.’"
The things that can and can't be done in television rapidly are being learned through the trial and error method, Mr. Travers pointed out. Elaborating on the subject, he explained.
"The dramatic nature of the system, and the vast amount of publicity it has received have combined to give the owner of a television set an inflated expectation of what the industry can do at the present time.
"With the cooperation of the set distributors and installation crews we have been making every effort to give the un-colored facts about television to viewers in Boston and the surrounding communities. Once the set owner is given these facts, we have found him mast understanding and helpful in developing the art.
"The television set owner never is casual. He is intense, critical and full of suggestions for which we are most grateful. The requests for types of programs have been most helpful to our planners, who already have put into production study a half-dozen which originated with our audience."
Continued expansion of WNAC-TV's television program will, Mr. Travers asserted, involve installation of equipment, training of personnel, clearances of film, music copyright and union negotiations "However," he put it, "current enthusiasm of set owners is high, and serves as an incentive for continued efforts by our staff and management to increase our service."
WNAC-TV studios are at 21 Brookline av. Its transmitter is at Medford.
The Yankee Network Institute, familiar to New England listeners over the last two years, is planning extensive television activities over WNAC-TV.
Jurists, lawyers, medical men, educators and scientists heard on its award-winning radio shows now are to be seen on the television screen during the "Medical Center of the Air" and other panels. A Mental health series for television also is being considered. The institute is making plans or television appearance of the country's greatest psychologists and psychiatrists. James S. Powers, director of the institute, sees in WNAC-TV a fine opportunity to extend its social usefulness.
In announcing its broadened television program, WNAC-TV, the Yankee Network's television station, makes profitable use of the opinions exchanged and views !expressed during its Yankee Network Television Clinic, sponsored earlier this year.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1948
1:45—Test Pattern. 2:15—Football Game Manning Bowl, Malden Catholic High vs. St. Mary’s High, Lester Smith. 6:00—Scrapbook Junior (CBS). 6:30—Key to the Missing (DuMont). 7:00—“Original Amateur Hour” with Ted Mack (DuMont). 8:00—“Hollywood Screen Test,” Elissa Landi, Neil Hamilton with ten-year-old Jimsey Somers (ABC). 8:30—The Actors’ Studio, “The Giants’ Stair” with Michael Strong, Peggy Meredith and Julie Harris. (ABC). 9:00—Toast of the Town with Tony Canzomeri, Mark Plant, Joey Adams, comedy; Mayo Brothers, Deep River Boys, Hammond’s Birds, Don Henry Trio, Bill Robinson and host Ed Sullivan. (CBS). 10:00—“America Speaks,” George Gallup Election Report (CBS).
A unique feature of the football telecasts done by WNAC-TV on Channel 7 each week from the Manning Bowl in Lynn, the largest schoolboy stadium in the East, is the live lineups.
At most games an announcer reads the lineup. Fred Foye, who assists Les Smith by giving color and doing interviews at the game, has each boy come to the microphone, give his name, number and position. This gives the people at home a chance to make their own score card and chart and at the same time see what the lads look like.
After the game Foye takes part in another unusual telecast. He interviews the “Men of the Game,” boys who have been outstanding on the field of play for that particular game.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1948
10:00—Test Pattern. 12:45—World Series Game Six, Cleveland vs. Boston at Braves Field. 5:15—Test Pattern. 5:30—Cartoon Teletales (ABC). 6:00—“Small Fry Club” with Bob Emery (DuMont). 6:30—Russ Hodges’ Scoreboard (DuMont). 6:45—Film shorts. 6:50—“Shawmut Nightly News Teller” newsreel. 7:00—“News and Views,” Gordon Fraser, H.R. Baukhage and Jim Gibbons. (ABC). 7:15—“Places Please” with Barry Wood (CBS). 7:30—CBS Television News (CBS). 7:45—“Face the Music” with Johnny Desmond, Tony Mottola Trio, Sandra Deal (CBS). 8:00—“Quizzing the News,” Alan Prescott and guests (ABC). 8:30—“Swing Into Sports,” Wendell Rollins and Reggie McNamara, cyclists (DuMont). 9:00—Film shorts (DuMont). 9:30—“Court of Current Issues” (DuMont).

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1948
1:00—Test Pattern. 2:15-4:30—Football game at Manning Bowl, Somerville vs. Lynn Vocational High School. 5:15—Test Pattern. 5:30—Ireene Wicker, the Singing Lady (ABC). 6:00—“Small Fry Club” with Bob Emery (DuMont). 6:30—Russ Hodges’ Scoreboard (DuMont). 6:45—Film shorts. 6:50—“Shawmut Nightly News Teller” newsreel. 7:00—“News and Views,” with George Hicks; Sports. (ABC). 7:15—Film Shorts; West Point (ABC). 7:30—CBS Television News (CBS). 7:45—“Face the Music” with Johnny Desmond, Tony Mottola Trio, Sandra Deel (CBS). 8:00—“Operation Success” (DuMont) 8:30—Film shorts (DuMont). 9:00—“We, the People” (CBS). 9:30-10:00—“The People’s Platform—Straws in the Wind,” Lyman Bryson, Elmo Roper and guests (CBS).

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1948
10:00-noon—Test Pattern. 1:00-4:30—Test Pattern. 5:30—Cartoon Teletales (ABC). 6:00—“Small Fry Club” with Bob Emery (DuMont). 6:30—Russ Hodges’ Scoreboard (DuMont). 6:45—Film shorts. 6:50—“Shawmut Nightly News Teller” newsreel. 7:00—“News and Views,” with George Hicks; Sports with Joe Hasel. (ABC). 7:15—“Places Please” with Barry Wood (CBS). 7:30—CBS Television News (CBS). 7:45—“Face the Music” with Johnny Desmond, Tony Mottola Trio, Sandra Deel (CBS). 8:00—Gay Nineties Revue with Gus Van, Lulu Bates and others (ABC). 8:30—“Winner Take All” with Bud Collyer (CBS). 9:00—Wrestling Matches from Turner’s Arena, Washington (ABC).
Two unblemished local records will be threatened tonight at Turner’s Arena where Bibber McCoy seeks his fourth straight victory in the feature wrestling bout with Laverne Baxter and the Golden Superman attempts to keep his slate clean in a special match with Gino Garibaldi.
The headlined Baxter-McCoy bout is a grudge battle of villains. McCoy was the top mat meanie here several years ago until he rassled a bitter draw with Baxter and then went into the service. Since then Baxter has been the No. 1 villain here. The bout tonight should settle the question of supremacy among the bad men of the mat. (Washington Star)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1948
10:00-noon—Test Pattern. 1:00-4:30—Test Pattern. 5:30—Film shorts. 6:00—“Small Fry Club” with Bob Emery (DuMont). 6:30—Russ Hodges’ Scoreboard (DuMont). 6:45—Film shorts. 6:50—“Shawmut Nightly News Teller” newsreel. 7:00—“News and Views,” G. Fraser; Sports, Hasel (ABC). 7:15—Film shorts: “Football 40 Years Ago” (ABC). 7:30—CBS Television News with Douglas Edwards (CBS). 7:45—“Face the Music” with Johnny Desmond, Tony Mottola Trio, Sandra Deel (CBS). 8:00—“To the Queen’s Taste” with Mrs. Dione Lucas (CBS) 8:30—“Club Seven” with Johnny Thompson (ABC). 9:00-11:00—World’s Championship Rodeo, Madison Square Garden (CBS).

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1948
10:00-noon—Test Pattern. 1:00-4:30—Test Pattern. 5:30—Film shorts. 6:00—“Small Fry Club” with Bob Emery (DuMont). 6:30—Russ Hodges’ Scoreboard (DuMont). 6:45—Film shorts. 6:50—“Shawmut Nightly News Teller” newsreel. 7:00—“News and Views,” Pauline Frederick; Joe Hasel, sports (ABC). 7:15—“Places Please” with Barry Wood (CBS). 7:30—“Touchdown,” film. 8:00—“Sportsman’s Quiz,” film short. 8:15-11:00—Boston College-Villanova football.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1948 No programming.