TV shows on film

[David Roper]

It was a hint untaken....

[Reece]

I remember in the early fifties when the feed bringing network shows down to southeast Texas would go flooey, the card put up on the screen said "Cable Trouble." The ladies upset at missing their show would say, "Why don't they just fix that cable for once and for all."

[bgadow]

I've noticed that some of the filmed shows I'm seeing on MeTV/AntennaTV look really great-I think Kojak, for instance, is amazing. When I was a kid my favorite station was WTTG/5 from DC, known for lots of cartoons throughout the day. That "we are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by" really got a workout! Sometimes it seemed like it got used at least once a day. All those old reels of short films, I guess. I wonder if they were still using DuMont equipment? Back then I use to think that there was an announcer sitting there at the station the whole time, ready to do that announcement live as needed...how do I know he really wasn't?

My one filmed TV episode is a copy of My Little Margie, plus a reel previewing the new CBS shows for the fall of 70 as I recall. Film did hang on a long time. I've read that when our area got a new station in 1980 (WMDT) they were a real pioneer in the use of videotape; the competition was still using all film for news gathering.

[kramden66]

don't forget that 16mm films were used as back up at the affiliates of a network like abc for example , they were run at the same time the network feed was coming in incase they lost the feed they could switch to the 16mm and keep the show airing , saw it happen a few times , 16mm telecines were at stations everywhere so sending film was the easier way , back in the day a lot of back up prints had the commercials removed and then sent out in syndication or reruns if you prefer on local stations so the films were recycled , tape being inferior and bigger and small independent stations not being equipped to handle it , all had 16mm equipment.
mike