#broadcasting history

[urbs-in-horto]

WLS Silver Dollar Survey January 8, 1965 from Balkan Music on Cermak. These are the hits you want to hear!

[scotianostra]

On 6th March 1923, Scotland’s first radio broadcast took place.

This was the fifth radio station to go live and was imaginatively named 5SC. It broadcast from a small attic apartment at Rex House, 202 Bath Street, in what was then the city’s thriving theatre and music hall district.

The building is still there today, with an office occupying what was once a small ‘concert room’.

The only indication to passers-by of its pioneering history is a commemorative plaque on the outside of the building. The first radio broadcasts were primitive, yet highly ambitious for the time.

Technological constraints meant all programmes had to be performed live by local musicians and speakers.  The first broadcast, at 7pm on Tuesday 6th March 1923, began with a pipe band playing the popular folk tune 'Hey, Johnnie Cope’.

John Reith, the BBC’s general manager, then bent to the microphone and announced that 5SC, the Glasgow station of the British Broadcasting Company, was calling.

Within weeks, 5SC was experimenting with 'simultaneous broadcasting’ — the linking of radio stations throughout the country using the Post Office telephone network.

The ability to share programmes lessened the strain on local resources and, by the time additional stations were launched in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee, listeners were enjoying a significant amount of programming relayed from London. It wasn’t all one-way traffic: Scotland’s first 'network production’ — a dramatized production of Walter Scott’s novel 'Rob Roy’ — was the most ambitious radio drama so far attempted anywhere in Britain when it aired nationally on 6th October 1923.

Unable to reach many rural areas, the local stations were largely replaced in 1929 with a more efficient Scottish 'regional’ service, which would be broadcast from higher-powered transmitters.

The pics show the exterior and interior of Rex House, with its equipment used for broadcasting. The Station Director Herbert Carruthers at the microphone in one pic and Engineer-in-Chief, James Cameron, in the control room

There's a wee bit more on the Scotland on Air web page below.

[hagleyvault]

This #TechTuesday, we’re taking a look at your friend and mine, television. These ca. 1930s photographs show publicity stills from RCA of television and television broadcasting components.

The photographs above and below, two of which are dated January 16, 1937, shows RCA high frequency tubes and other equipment used in the transformer room of NBC and RCA’s television transmitting station at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.

These photographs are part of Hagley Library’s David Sarnoff Library digital archive (Accession AVD.2464.001), a selection of materials from the David Sarnoff Library including photographs, RCA Annual Reports, Broadcast News, and technical journals and newsletters produced by RCA. Additionally, the collection includes advertisements from RCA and the Victor Talking Machine Company. This digital collection is a very small sample of the entire David Sarnoff Library at Hagley. For more information, visit the David Sarnoff Library Project site.

[newhistorybooks]

"Mexican Waves is the fascinating history of how borderlands radio stations shaped the identity of an entire region, reaching across the border to stoke the patriotic sentiments of Mexican nationals in the United States, creating a new market of borderlands consumers.”

[warholslandfill]

Happy Trees ...

On January 11, 1983, the first episode of "The Joy of Painting" premiered on PBS. Here's a drawing I made of a Bob Ross Chia Pet to celebrate!

[detrixsta]

A few more moments from the video stream of consciousness that was Ernie Kovacs. TCM aired three of his ABC TV shows on 01/23/2019 as part of his centenary. Here's a bit more-- a psychedelic effect that may have cost all of .39 cents! Effective.

[hclib]

Radio Days & Television Highlights With Steve Raymer, Director Emeritus Pavek Museum of Broadcasting

Thursday, March 29, 2018, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

Minneapolis Central Library, Doty Board Room, 2nd floor

Learn about the technology that brought news and entertainment right into the living rooms of yester-year, with classic shows like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, or Cab Calloway’s orchestra on NBC direct from the Cotton Club, played to the audience through the airwaves. The stars of the radio shows transitioned to TV broadcasts, beaming Jack Benny, Dinah Shore, and others into the glowing screens of giant television consoles. The Pavek Museum houses the equipment that brought the world into the homes of our parents and grandparents. Steve Raymer will take us on a tour of these mechanical marvels and the wonder of broadcasting way-back when. See old equipment and broadcasting devices, recall classic shows and learn about popular local broadcasters of the past.

Photos of Minneapolis radio programs and television from the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

[scotianostra]

 The Pirate station,  Radio Scotland began broadcasting in the dying embers of  Hogmanay, 1965.

The first attempt at pirate radio in Scotland was 1928. The Daily Mail wanted a radio station to advertise their newspapers but didn’t have a license so decided to broadcast from a ship at sea.

They charted a steam yacht and set off from Dundee but their equipment didn’t work. So they sailed into Dundee harbour and played music on powerful loudspeakers that could be heard a mile away. It was a great success but wasn’t really pirate radio.

Pirate Radio started in Britain in 1964 with Radio Caroline. In Scotland, Tommy Shields, a PR man for Scottish Television, launched Radio Scotland from the converted lightship the LV Comet, which was anchored off the coast of Dunbar.

It went on air on New Year’s Day 1966, just after midnight. The first voice was actor Paul Young a former presenter of Scottish Television’s Roundup programme who welcomed the listeners, Young became an actor later in his life. He introduced the managing director  Tommy Shields, who went on to detail their plans. Radio Scotland was on the air and open for business. The station also broadcast from  water near Troon and Northern Ireland over its one-and-a-half years.

People could join the membership of the station and become Radio Scotland “Clan Members”. As a reward, the Clan had their own show every Saturday where they could send in requests, which, alongside Jack McLaughlin’s ceilidh slot, was one of the most popular programmes broadcast.

The pirate station’s theme song was a jaunty wee number sung by folk band The Carrick Folk Four. Finishing off the upbeat ditty were the lines: “Oh Radio Scotland’s playing just for you/So beat the ban, and join the Clan, on station 242.”

It was a success but only on air for 23 months.

The government made pirate radio illegal so they had to shut down in August 1967.

Sadly, Tommy Shields lost money, lost his business and died soon after the station came off the air.

Here's the Carrick Four with the stations theme tune