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Re: [ARSCLIST] "Aircheck" history



I have a copy of a late 40's or very early 50's Radio & TV News magazine where the cover show's ABC's facility in Chicago. A room of then very costly tape machines (Ampex 200's) would record material coming from Hollywood or NY across the network line and then send it out for delay-broadcast to the different time zones so affiliates could move away from on-site disk transcriptions. The tape era solved many problems.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 1:37 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "Aircheck" history



By 1951, I'm sure a great many shows were being "transcribed", following Bing
Crosby's lead in 1947 and ABC's having ignored the self-imposed ban of the
other two networks on using recordings. Tape made everything easier by that
time and the networks were pouring production money into television.

The CBC seems to have had no problem in using transcriptions for the west and
mountain regions..they had a delay center in Winnipeg which recorded programs
off the line and re-fed them an hour or two later. Vancouver even recorded
programs off the line (complete with horrible hum and whistle and amplification
noises) and sent them up to Prince Rupert for broadcast the following WEEK,
which is why a lot of programs exist in the Archives at all.

dl

Rod Stephens wrote:

Tom,

I just checked a number of our Family Theater radio shows that
originated on the Mutual Network from Hollywood (KHJ) and found several
different conditions as far as delayed broadcasts.  In 1948, probably
due to scheduling difficulties, a show opened with "A program
transcribed from Hollywood" which meant they didn't play the show live,
and instead had recorded it earlier to transcription disks.  Usually,
"transcribed" meant that it had been recorded at previous time to be
used for a later or delayed broadcast.  Later that year, the announcer
just said,"Transcribed" at the beginning of one of the shows, so I guess
that meant that my set of disks were made from a previous set of
transcriptions.

Of course, maybe all of my disks were made and used for Hollywood
rebroadcasts while the shows went out live over the network to New York
and the east.  Or, maybe they did the show twice (not as likely) for the
two time zones.  I think I've heard of that being done.  I don't have
any direct information on that.  If anyone does know what Mutual
actually did, we at Family Theater would like to know to add to our
database and archival background.

On 8-29-51, the show opened with "The following feature was transcribed
from Eastern Mutual".  I would guess something happened to our
transcription masters in Hollywood, so they rerecorded the show in
Hollywood from the disks made and fed from New York.  That reinforces my
idea that the shows were done live and fed to New York (who recorded
them for protection) and also recorded in Hollywood at the same
(earlier) time for feeding later for west coast air time.

On 12-19-51, the show opened with "The following is transcribed", so it
would seem these were special situations, since none of the other shows
had this disclaimer at their opening.

Of course, there were a few rebroadcasts via transcription (reruns) of
earlier shows to periodically fill the schedule, since the show went
year round without any hiatuses; quite an accomplishment considering
they were done with a new music score and script every week without
stopping.

So, I guess these were all delayed broadcasts in some way or another.
My hat's off to those people of "yesteryear".

Rod Stephens
Family Theater Productions

Tom Fine wrote:

<snip>

> Now here's a followup question. If an affiliate recorded a program off
> the network feed line for delayed broadcast, is that an air-check or
> something else?
>
> -- Tom Fine

<snip>


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