Posted on 11/18/2013 9:13:31 AM PST by Nextrush
Television was the established cutting edge media in 1963 drawing in the young and continuing a rise to its zenith in the decades to come.
Radio and the newspapers had their place in the pecking order but they were on lower rungs.
Television was dominated by three major networks with two of them (CBS and NBC) being the leaders in ratings and advertising dwarfing the third network (ABC) in those statistics.
Cable distribution of television programs was in its infancy and limited mainly to retransmitting over the air stations from the cities to rural areas.
Around 580 analog television stations were broadcasting over the air signals with some using translators and cable systems to reach wider audiences outside their local areas.
Most of the stations affiliated with the three networks with others going it alone in the larger cities as independent stations broadcasting sports, old movies and rerunning old television shows.
A small group of educational television stations operated and they would soon develop and expand in their reach with taxpayers footing the bill. For the moment much of their support came from commercial broadcasters who donated used equipment and made some financial contributions.
Perhaps they were prodded along by government???
That's because the Kennedy Administration's Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow had decried television as a "vast wasteland" in a 1961 speech.
Edward R. Murrow, who had joined the Kennedy Administration as Director of the United States Information Agency, had made a similar speech to television news directors in 1958 causing a stir and friction with his then employer, CBS.
ABC was able to gain some prime time ratings traction in the late 1950's by programming "action" shows with western and crime themes. These new shows revved up the violence and sexual content. The other networks didn't sit still, they countered with their own action shows.
Technology was on the move in 1963 as NBC was inching its way towards a full color television service. The FCC had approved the RCA-NBC color system in the 1950's.
By 1963 NBC gave its viewers an educational hour in color at 6am, an hour or more of daytime shows and an hour or more of prime time shows in color, with the "Tonight Show" also being broadcast in color late at night.
There was no color on CBS and ABC only broadcast a few cartoon shows ("The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons") in color during the 1962-63 season.
NBC would make the full color conversion in the 1965-66 season and the other networks would quickly follow.
The ability of television to cover breaking news live was restricted in 1963 to microwave video links from bulky "mobile units". These tractor trailer or bus sized vehicles would bring studio cameras to field, establish links with a local station and begin sending video as soon as the cameras warmed up. It took studio cameras used in the field (the minicam was not full developed yet for local use) some 20 minutes to warm up so they could be used.
Networks would switch to local station studios for reports on breaking news that would include newsfilm shot in the field by the local stations. Connections from the networks to local stations were telephone company microwave links on the ground stretching thousands of miles across the country.
There were no internet video links in 1963 or satellite links to send video domestically either. The Telstar satellite across the Atlantic provided an intermittent link depending on its orbit. A Pacific satellite video link was about to open up at the time of the Kennedy Assassination.
If we’re smart we’ll use this week to educate people on the nature of communists like Oswald and Leftism in general.
You mean about the 80% communist in the Government????
Ah you forgot, Have Gun will Travel, Wanted Dead or Alive with Steve Queen and the Jackie Gleason show from Miami.
There is a whole website about TV signoffs. I don’t know if some stations still do it. There are stations in small towns still but now cable and satellite are everywhere.
I know one of our stations use to play “America The Beautiful” by Ray Charles.
I remember well the times. He was not popular at all when he was killed. I’m not so sure he would have been re-elected in a race against Goldwater.
The 1964 LBJ race was run using JFK’s hearse as a prop. I don’t think anyone could have beaten LBJ. If you remember, LBJ kept almost all the Kennedy cabinet in their jobs. Those weasels had no problem switching loyalties.
Even RFK stayed on as Attorney General, and quit after the election, so he could run for the Senate from New York.
I was in kindergarten when the nuns rushed in at nap time and rolled in a tv so we could all watch the news of the assassination. I remember Walter Cronkite getting emotional and later Ruby shooting Oswald.
one doesn't need to go into whether or not he acted alone to know that something smelled about that guy. But with all that you mentioned about Oswald, that he got back into the country just by asking, with his wife, with money given to him by the US government to fly here, and we're supposed to believe that J Edgar Hoover's FBI wasn't watching every move he made?
Camelot would have been a bigger failure had it lasted longer.
The overemphasis on Kennedy’s assassination may be due to TV’s entry into history at the time, thus making a bigger impact on the US population, or the generation into which you were born, or both. Kennedy is the only President assassinated in my day, so it is no surprise this event has been more prevalent.
The thing that has me stumped is how so many conspiracy notions attend to this. Weren’t they supposed to release some significant documents on the 50th Anniversary? Some things the Kennedy’s did not want public till then?
Saw that image on many a Saturday morning while waiting for Popeye and Felix the Cat to entertain.
There was no point in running as a Republican in Texas, or in the rest of the South for that matter. A Republican couldn’t get elected to the Library Board. The Democrats were certainly the Segregationists, but they were also the Communists. Strange bunch, even back then.
Still doesn’t answer the question as to why the Texans did not like Kennedy.
Almost no southern states were for Kennedy. Recall that Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arizona, and Louisiana ALL went for Goldwater in ‘64.
As to why, my estimation is that about 60% was the civil rights issue, 20% was because Kennedy was Catholic, and the rest was the “soft on Communism” knock. But that’s only my opinion from what I saw as an adolescent at the time. But I loved politics back then and followed it closely, as do I still.
No matter where one stands on JFK, that State Funeral appropriately on black and white TV back then was as somber and dramatic (? if that is the right word) as can be. Really something, I don’t know when we’ve had something like that other than with JFK and I believe they say they have a “lone horse” during the funeral march. Quite ceremonial.
Wouldn’t be as memorable on color TV though color was starting to come of age around then.
Was 9 years old when this happened. Can still hear the sound of the drums and the horses’ hooves during the funeral procession in my mind.
per my post, “lone horse”, meaning “riderless horse” symbolizing the deceased president, very potent imagery.
Ruby’s the real idiot in all this, because of him, that’s why there are conspiracies and all this. What a dumb a and owner of a strip bar to boot. Jackass.
Never underestimate the power of stupidity. It explains a lot more than conspiracy. Our law enforcement agencies were warned by Russian intelligence that the Boston bombers were heavily involved in Muslim terrorist groups in Chechnya. After they committed the terrorist act, police agencies locked down Boston and a few suburbs for a day to try to catch the surviving brother. After ending the lockdown, a local resident found him without police assistance. Despite all the blather about “Boston Strong”, the whole incident highlights law enforcement incompetence. The FBI and State Department were clearly as incompetent a half century ago.
Did you know that Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz named the castaways boat the "S.S. Minnow" as a poke in the eye to Mr. Minnow.
It’s not really fair to compare the JFK assassination to McKinley’s or Garfield’s. JFK was a mass media figure familiar to all. Presidents were distant and known only in black and white newspaper engravings in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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