NY Times old TV story

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by bgadow

When I was 10-15 y.o. there were many times when I'd stay up well past midnight...or get up at 5am. (but probably not both in the same day!) I used to know all the station sign-ons and offs. A couple stayed on all night: I remember WMAR-2 in Baltimore airing "Private Secretary" at 3am. WRC-4 in DC would just have the station logo up with a periodic i.d. by the announcer. Many nights I'd fall asleep watching Letterman or SNL. If I was watching WRC, I awoke to the announcers voice in the middle of the night. If I was tuned to WBAL-11 I'd awake to what I thought at first was wild applause but it was actually static, as they'd signed off for the night. Around that time I picked up a 60s Emerson portable (still have it) with a sleep timer, so that solved the problem.

I was like that too. I'd stay up until the Cleveland TV stations signed off for the night, and I also knew every station's sign on and sign off announcements--even when the UHF stations came in (starting with NET [now PBS] channel 25 in 1965, then, three years later, channel 43, then channel 61 (they both signed on the same year), and finally, in 1985, channel 55. I would get up at 5:30 a.m. some mornings to see the stations sign on. Channel 3, the NBC station in Cleveland, had a rather unique test pattern with a color test chart actually built into the pattern--that is, the different colors were shown as wedges in between the resolution and video bandwidth indicators.


Channel 3 sign on: "WKYC TV channel 3 in Cleveland now begins its broadcast day. WKYC-TV is owned and operated by the National Broadcasting Company, with studios and offices located at 1403 East 6th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. Portions of today's programming is recorded and on film."

Channel 5: "This is WEWS-TV, your Scripps-Howard station, first in Cleveland. WEWS-TV opperates on channel 5, 76-82 megahertz, with studios located in the WEWS building, Euclid Avenue at East 30th."

I don't recall channel 8's sign on anymore, nor those of the UHF stations. Channel 8 used to run all night on Friday nights with horror films, returning to its standard 5 a.m. - 1 a.m. schedule the next day.

All three stations carried the announcement pertaining to rebroadcasting that station's programming without written consent. "The programs broadcast by this station may not be used for any purpose except exhibition at the time of broadcast, on receivers of the type used for home reception, in places where no admission, cover, or mechanical operating charges are made." The Cleveland stations stopped these announcements when they went to 24-hour telecasting, but some stations, such as WMAQ-TV in Chicago, would make the announcement at sign on and sign off well into the 1990s. The WMAQ sign off is now available on YouTube.