No Extra Equipment Needed To Pick Up Area’s Second VHF Station
“Good evening. KWK-TV is on the air” came the voice as the station’s identification card was picked up by the camera and sent out over the air to thousands of St. Louis area receivers who, for the first time.July 8 used Channel 4 on their television sets. Thus, after six and one-half years of planning and months of intensive preparation, St. Louis’ second VHF television station became a reality.
A special half-hour inaugural program marked the occasion, with St. Louis’ Mayor Raymond R. Tucker; Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman of Temple Israel; Rev. Dr. O. Walter Wagner, executive secretary of the Metropolitan Church Federation; and Father Elmer H. Behrmann, assistant superintendent of education for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, participating.
The area’s latest coaxial offspring – a CBS network affiliate – will operate from 5 p.m. to midnight, with feature movies, news public service films, etc., until those network programs which will be shown through St. Louis are available.
Included in the line-up of CBS shows to be telecast on Channel 4 are “Toast of the Town”; “Studio One”; Viceroy Star Theater”; “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends”; “The Jackie Gleason Show”; “Danger”; “Topper”; “That’s My Boy”; “Four Star Theater”; “Mama”; “Racket Squad”; and many others.
No additional equipment will be needed for St. Louis viewers to receive KWK-TV which began operations with maximum power – a 100,000 video signal.
(Originally published in the Ad Club Weekly 7/26/1954).