Sales of UHF-Ready TVs Surge
All 77 Cardinal baseball games played on the road will be telecast to the St. Louis area over WTVI-TV, Channel 54. First telecast is scheduled Thursday, April 15 [1954], from Milwaukee, at 1:30 p.m. The Cards open the season here April 13, and then go to Milwaukee for games with the Braves.
WTVI will telecast 30 afternoon games, 30 night games and 17 Sunday afternoon games. All plays will be described by Harry Caray with Jack Buck assisting. Jack replaced Gus Mancuso who joined the Cardinal scouting staff.
Immediate reaction to the announcement was an upsurge in sales of converters and new sets already equipped to receive UHF telecasts. A major television distributor told this reporter that its sales had jumped immediately with the report of the WTVI-Cardinal tie-in. “And what’s more,” he added, “when the games go on the air, we expect to see another round of sales increases – at a time when TV sales normally go into their summer slump.”
(Originally published in the Ad Club Weekly 3/1/1954).