it-registrationsstlmediahistory

First Local Color Telecast Originated By KSD-TV On June 11, 1956

​The first live color telecast originated by a St. Louis station was presented by KSD-TV on June 11 [1956]. The show originated in a special studio on the ninth floor of the downtown store of Famous-Barr Company and marked the opening of an eight-day color television exhibit and demonstration staged by the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corp. It was seen in color on approximately 400 sets in the area.

While the Post-Dispatch station has for several years been telecasting films and network programs in color, this was KSD-TV’s first live color show. It was produced by Frank Eschen, director of special events for the station, who also served as master of ceremonies.

Singer Vaughn Monroe headlined the half-hour program. He sang a medley of old favorite tunes, his newest record hit, “There She Goes,” and joined Charlotte Peters, star of KSD-TV’s weekday Charlotte Peters Show in “Share the Luck,” a tune which he recorded. Charlotte sang the song first in the Red Cross musical “Banners High,” which marked the Red Cross anniversary June 4. She learned the tune from Vaughn’s record, since she does not read music.

Appearing on the program were Mayor Raymond R. Tucker; Morton D. May of the Famous-Barr Company; George M. Burbach, general manager of the Post-Dispatch station; Howard Niepp, Midwestern regional sales manager for the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corp., and Marge Moody, fashion coordinator for the department store, who presented a fashion show.

Others from the Post-Dispatch station appearing on the color telecast were Wilma Sim, home economist on the weekday Homemaking with KSD-TV program, and Harry Gibbs, who is known as Wrangler Texas Bruce to youthful televiewers.

Wilma exhibited a special fruit bowl in front of the television camera, made from a hollowed out watermelon half, and containing colorful cantaloupe balls, cherries, pineapple and other fruit.

Gibbs, who has accepted Hugh O’Brien’s challenge to all television cowboys who think they are faster on the draw than Wyatt Earp, was joined by Vaughn Monroe in a contest before the camera.

Also appearing on the initial color telecast were Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial. They participated in a baseball skit featuring Charlotte Peters on the mound. Charlotte sang a chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as a finale.

A Dumont color camera was used for the telecast in a special light-protected studio four by six feet in size. The camera was used after the telecast for in-store color telecasts on a closed circuit to 16 receivers.

The special program was directed by Keith Gunther, chief producer-director for KSD-TV. Technicians from the station working on the telecast included Elmer Peters, Eugene Burnett, Paul DeWitt and Monte Walpole. Also assisting were Charles Leroi and Bud Noerterman, stagehands.

(Originally published in the P-D Notebook, 7/1956).

Changes Are Being Made on St. Louis’ First TV Show For Women

​John Roedel, announcer on the KSD staff for six years, became host of KSD-TV’s “To the Ladies” show March 16 [1953], and Betty Barnett of the directing staff took over as its producer-director. The change was made with the departure of Harry Honig, former host and producer, who moved to the West Coast to become associated with a business firm.

The show, to which Betty is now devoting full time, has taken on a new format, and includes interviews with members of women’s organizations as well as vacation tips, fashion ideas, household hints and a variety of other information of particular interest to women in the viewing audience.

The quiz portions of the show have been brightened by the addition of Stanley Kann, popular organist, to the regular complement, which enables inclusion of musical questions. He also provides accompaniment for singers appearing on the show for the first time.

Charlie Sherwood, who worked with Honig for some time, spearheads the special features department of the hour-long program heard at 12:15 p.m. Monday through Friday.

(Originally published in P-D Notebook 4/1953)

Wilma Sim has been stirring up audience approval as well as tasty recipes during her first month in the kitchen of the “Homemaking With KSD-TV” program. Miss Sim succeeded Esther Lee Bride on the daily, Monday through Friday television show April 3.

A graduate in home economics education from the University of Minnesota , Miss Sim formerly was associated with the home economics department of Swift & Co.

Miss Bride has returned to her full time duties with Union Electric Co.

(From the P-D Notebook May 1950).

The Last Days at Channel 30 News
After Investing in a News Operation and Staff in 1995, KDNL Pulled the Plug On the Operation Six Years Later

In January 1995, the start of the New Year brought something new to St. Louis television, KDNL (Channel 30), the then-Fox affiliate in St. Louis, began broadcasting a 9 p.m. half-hour newscast seven days a week. Working as an assignment editor at Channel 30, I remember the optimism among the staff. Even though there were some mispronunciations of streets and names, and technical difficulties, there was little doubt we’d succeed. Fast forward to Sept. 28 of this year [2001]. During our afternoon editing meeting, news director Jeff Alan told us regardless of the circumstances, make sure all employees were in the newsroom for the 3 p.m. meeting called by General Manager Tom Tipton. Immediately employees began speculating the 5 p.m. news would be cut because of low ratings. Based on an anonymous tip I received earlier in the week, I braced for much worse. A dismal Tipton walked into the newsroom shortly after 3 p.m. and announced Sinclair Broadcasting was shutting down KDNL’s news operation effective October 12.

“Stunned” described the mood. After so many budget cuts and layoffs over the last three years, I looked around the room and thought this is what soldiers must look like after they’ve been told “the war is over, you’ve lost, now just go home.” Some employees reacted with disbelief. Others seemed relieved by the announcement. The bottom line was we were all out of a job.

During the meeting we were told that all full-time employees would be given a severance package based on their tenure at the station. But we were also informed that insurance coverage would also be terminated on our last day of employment. That’s great! Fire an employee. Take away their income and now tell them they have no insurance. A family insurance plan without employer assistance costs approximately $700 a month. I was one of the lucky ones. I had just switched to my wife’s insurance coverage the month before, but the majority of employees depended on their health benefits for their families.

When I arrived for work the following Monday morning, Alan had already begun posting a list of job openings on the bulletin board. Unfortunately for most of us, none of them existed in St. Louis.

The mood was very quiet and somber that day. I don’t think anyone had his or her mind on covering the news, although a short talk with Channel 30 reporter Paul Brown left a lasting impression. Brown called a little after 8:45 a.m., just as he had every day for the past three years. Instead of talking about our fate, Brown was more interested in what we were going to cover that day. He said it wasn’t over yet. “Let’s keep covering news to the end.” For the remaining two weeks, Brown kept that attitude. I have to applaud him. I still don’t know how he could have achieved such enthusiasm. But maybe like the rest of us, he couldn’t stand the thought of something he loved coming to an end so abruptly.

As the week went on it became increasingly tough to perform the job. As expected, employees were calling in sick or had physician appointments. I remember once having one reporter and three photographers to cover the entire day. That Friday, a photographer told me, “Hey, you know I haven’t done much shooting this week and you know I’m going to be doing even less next week.”

The Monday of our final week the newsroom began to resemble a mortuary. Reality was setting in. Whenever you visit a funeral home, although solemn, loved ones always share fond memories about the deceased. In this case we were sharing our favorite stories about a once-vibrant newsroom that was now dead. Each recollection would take on the same mood. We would laugh about it, followed by a brief period of silence and ending with a heavy sigh. In one instance, several people were in Assistant News Director Nancy Tully’s office talking about all the people who had worked at Channel 30. Tully suddenly became misty-eyed and politely asked us to leave. Being the tremendous leader that she is, she didn’t want to show any weakness. She wanted to be strong for the rest of us. Shortly afterward, she came out of her office and apologized. There was obviously no need to be sorry.

The last two days were agonizing. We shot no news. The priority was making sure everyone had time to follow job leads, work on resumes and put audition tapes together. My worst moment came at home that Thursday night. Fearing that Sinclair would pull us off the air a day early, we finished our 10 p.m. news with a sign-off segment that covered the promising beginning and the unfortunate end. Watching that piece brought back so many memories of all the effort, sacrifice and teamwork that went into making the newscasts work over the years. Knowing that I was losing such great co-workers and friends in my everyday life left a tremendous void, and tears in my eyes. I hope I can experience that camaraderie again.

On the last day, the consensus was to get it over with. Everyone was sick of the lingering misery.

After tying up loose ends with management I did something I hadn’t done in my almost seven years on the assignment desk. I went out to lunch. Photographers Julie Taylor and Carol Lawrence and I went to the South City Pizza Hut and had a relaxing meal. This may seem insignificant, but as assignment manager, I never felt comfortable leaving the newsroom for any long period of time. I wonder why I gave so much to a company that cared so little about its employees.

Former Channel 30 reporter Jean Shepherd summed it up best during her speech at the party after the last newscast: “Because we’re professional, we gave Sinclair better than they deserved.”

By Terry Cancila

(Used with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 11/2001).

KETC-TV Has Relied On Its Audience For Major Financial Support Over the Years

The three years leading up to Channel 9’s first broadcast were challenging, but the need for educational television had been recognized, and the community was determined. Among the influential founding members of the station’s organizing commission was Arthur Holly Compton, president of Washington University and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.  Also on the committee were the Reverend Paul C. Reinert, president of St. Louis University, Arthur B. Baer, president of Stix Baer and Fuller, and Ray Wittcoff, a promising young businessman. Filmmaker Charles Guggenheim was appointed general manager, but by the time of Channel 9’s first broadcast, Martin Quigley had assumed the position.

Channel 9 received its KETC call letters from the FCC, but needed additional funds move forward. Support came from the community when PTA members from more than 100 school districts went door to door to raise the $100,000 Channel 9 needed. Schools were so eager for televised programs in classrooms that 25 school districts offered to pay Channel 9 for its services at $1 per student. By the fall of 1954, Channel 9 was ready for its first broadcast.

At 9:00 p.m. on September 20, 1954, Channel Number 9 went on the air in a black-and-white broadcast from a temporary studio in the women’s gymnasium of Washington University’s McMillan Hall. After a welcome from Martin Quigley, and the station’s board chairman, Arthur Holly Compton, Channel 9 broadcast its first program, “The Second Opportunity,” a play that dramatized the necessity of free thought in society.

Six months after Channel 9 went on the air, Powell B. McHaney, president of St. Louis Civic Progress, said: “KETC has become an important community institution. It has demonstrated its enormous potential value as a means of improving the quality of instruction in our schools, of providing our young people with helpful entertainment, and of bringing to a significant adult audience stimulating and unfettered discussions of public affairs and the elements of liberal education. It has made an excellent beginning.”

Only one year after its first broadcast, Channel 9 moved into its own building on the northwest edge of the Washington University campus.  Funded by Arthur B. Baer and named in honor of his parents, the Julius and Freda Baer Memorial building.

was the first in the nation to be constructed specifically for educational television, and it would remain Channel 9’s home for the next 43 years. St. Louis artist Fred Conway was commissioned to paint a mural in the entrance. The mural’s title said it all: “Education Through Television.”

Financial trouble struck again in the late 1950s, and Channel 9 was forced to reduce staff, cancel evening programming, and go off the air during the summer. This time, when door-to-door collections failed to provide the necessary funds, Channel 9 began to solicit $10 memberships, and financial stability was ultimately restored. Membership became and remains Channel 9’s primary source of revenue.

In 1970 Channel 9 completed construction of a high-power color transmission center in South St. Louis County, and in 1971 began color transmission. In 1974, the station began broadcasting on Saturday mornings, then in 1976 added Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, and by 1977 Channel 9 was broadcasting from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in non-school periods. In 1978 Channel 9 became one of the first PBS stations to receive programs via the Westar I Satellite.

The founders of Channel 9 were successful educators and business leaders who understood that progress in a new age would require relentless innovation. They did not know how it would be done, but they knew why it should be done. With a groundswell of support from the community, they created and sustained one of our nation’s first educational television stations, and 14 years later would witness its evolution into a public television station known for its innovative programs.

(From the KETC website)

KTVI’s Management Appears to Get Serious About the Station’s News
Channel 2 Brings Back 6 p.m. News

After a two-year absence, the 6 p.m. newscast is back on KTVI-TV, Channel 2.

Station officials have announced that beginning Monday, Jan. 7 [1991], the 6 p.m. edition of Channel 2 News will replace the syndicated program A Current Affair, which will move into the 4 – 5 p.m. time slot with fellow infotainment mainstay Hard Copy.

“The exact reason for us bringing it back at this time is to be competitive with the other stations,” said Bill Berra, news director at KTVI. “The perception was that we were not competitive because of the lack of the 6 o’clock, that we were being beaten to stories or didn’t have the staff.”

The reasons for the initial yanking of the local programing did indeed have to do with both editorial and advertiser-related dilemmas. The station cited Channel 2’s declining news ratings and the high costs of presenting a low-rated and sparsely advertised-in newscast.

In the last 15 months, though, KTVI has taken some steps to restore the luster of its heavily tarnished news operation. Newscasts in the morning and middle of the day have been added, and the staff has been built up, reversing the shrinkage of several years ago. The station has also invested heavily in modernizing the news department’s technical operation. There are new cameras and edit equipment, plus a heavily used satellite truck to enable the station to originate news segments from anywhere around the country.

KTVI’s editorial product has also improved. Its coverage of major events, such as the recent dangerous weather in St. Charles, has won plaudits from local television critics.

Berra expects the editorial focus of the new broadcast to stress local news with a mixture of local and national at 5 and 10.

Eric Mink, long-time television critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said that the move was probably geared toward positioning the station toward a run at the start of 1991.

“You just get the sense that the first of the year is when they’ll make the move,” Mink said. “They’re picking up “Arsenio” then, and that should help strengthen the late news. And they possibly wanted a month to try out Dana King and see how well she works with (Don) Marsh. They seem reasonably comfortable with that. I’m sure they also promised Berra that it would come back when they hired him.”

The 6 p.m. program will be anchored by KTVI’s primary anchor team of Don Marsh and Dana King. They will also anchor the station’s 10 p.m. newscast. Station veteran Donn Johnson and current morning anchor Tom O’Neal will take over the 5 p.m. newscast. O’Neal will continue to anchor KTVI’s mid-day news with Kathryn Kiefer. As for the morning newscasts, Kiefer will replace O’Neal to co-anchor with John Auble in the 6:30 a.m. slot.

Whether anyone is watching all these new arrangements is another matter. Mink pointed out that the 6:30 a.m. broadcast is currently being beaten by cartoons, while the 5 p.m. newscast is being edged out by Channel 30’s reruns of “Cosby” and is just edging out Channel 11’s household sitcom “Growing Pains.”

But Berra would not use the word “credibility” when describing the return, even ratings seem to be a decidedly lesser concern here.

“Credibility…how do you define credibility?” Berra asked.

Mink was shocked by this answer, saying “I can’t imagine how anyone there could say such a thing. That sounds so bizarre to me that you should probably go back and check again with the source. There’s no question that they lost a lot of credibility, though they have done much to repair and improve things dramatically.”

Whatever the reasons, Channel 2 is sounding optimistic.

Said Berra: “This shows Channel 2 is back.” At the very least, it’s far better than having “Geraldo” wage the 6 o’clock battle for KTVI.

(Used with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 1/1991).