On September 16, 1945 The Associated Broadcasting Corporation made it's coast to coast debut at 11:00AM Pacific Time, as the fifth network. The inaugural program was 2 hours, opening with an address from FCC Chairmen, Paul A. Porter in Washington at ABC affiliate WWDC. The Associated Network boasted 22 affiliates including KWJJ Portland. ABC's President was Leonard A. Versluis & Roy C. Kelly was Executive Vice-President. ABC was headquartered in Grand Ripids MI where Mr. Versluis owned WLAV.

Three Months earlier on June 15, 1945 another ABC debuted, the American Broadcasting Company. This ABC was the former NBC Blue Network. The Associated Chain filed a suite to stop the American Chain from identifying it's network as ABC. In December 1945 an agreement was reached under which the Associated Chain would change it's identity to ABS, The Associated Broadcasting System. This occurred between December 22 & 25, 1945. On April 28, 1946 the ABS Network folded with 23 affiliates, including WMCA New York.

Back when the network feeds were carried by the phone company's toll transmission division the colors were still in effect.

I worked in Telco's toll transmission section from 1965-1967 and we still referred to NBC as the red network and ABC as the Blue network. I forget now, but I believe CBS was purple and Mutual was Gold. I had to call all the network affiliates we served every morning to verify their line was in good condition. Same for video networks.

I seem to remember reading somewhere CBS was green.

Perhaps the color coding went away after ABC's split into 4 networks in '68.

If Fox News Radio had been around, they could have been yellow. http://www.foxnews.com/access/radio.html

Before there were satellite communications, That we use today. All audio network feeds. On a national level, were sent over phone lines. I for one did not know that? So my next question is? How were the video feeds handle. Was it phone lines or something else. I'm assuming this type of communications were talking about was done in the 1960's.

"I seem to remember reading somewhere CBS was green"

After I posted about the colors, I was driving around town and it hit me about 9:30 that green was the other color, not purple. I haven't been back to the computer till now but see you beat me.

"How were the video feeds handle. Was it phone lines or something else."

Video feeds were handled by the phone company until the late 60's....after I left the phone company. Originally, the video feeds were fed via coax cable across the country. The audio portion of the networks was fed over phone lines separately from the video. When I arrived at the Oak Street building TOC in 1965, they had recently migrated over to microwave channels. It took one microwave channel per network/video feed. We had four channels for video in Portland...the three networks and one for "satellite" tranmissions relayed from Brewster Flats, Washington. We also used that channel as a backup for the networks when we worked on a channel or as a backup for telephone lines as we could put many individual phone circuits on one microwave channel. It was also used for the occasional PBS feed to KOAP. The audio was not multiplexed. It was on separate lines and was handled in the audio rack two rows over. Most of the radio station STL's were over phone lines through that office, also. Those were equalized 5K lines.

A private company (the name escapes me at the moment) set up a national microwave network for video and eventually all network and video traffic went through them. Their facility in PDX was on 12th and Alder or somewhere around there. Eventually, the video distribution went to satellites directly rather than over land microwave routes.

Jimbo: I remember when it happened in the mid 1970's, the microwave network switch. KGW was first, I remember seeing "The Tonight Show" one night and it was as if it was taped at KGW studios. Today it's no big deal but back then I was transfixed! Why is this so clear?

The network before PBS, NET - National Educational Television in the 1960's was not really a network. It had no land lines. All progamming was on film and sent to NET member stations such as KOAC-TV & KOAP-TV.

In radio, the QXR Classical Network did the same thing, sending audio tape to it's affiliates like KPFM. I believe Mutual was the first network to go satellite. They installed and paid for the dishes. With long form MBS programming like The Larry King Show, Mutual Radio Theatre & Dick Clark's National Music Survey, this expense made good sense.

Craig,
At Telco, the microwave (not to mention land cable) had many repeaters where the signal was decoded and encoded many times. They were all tube electronics back then and we had to "equalize" different sections often. The channels were really designed for phone carrier circuits, not video.

KGW moved from their old location to the current location one morning and we had to switch all their feed lines to the new site. The old site was going to be torn down to make room for the I-405 freeway. It took pretty much most of the graveyard shift to patch those cables and equalize them out. The network feeds were via coax cable from Telco to the stations.

I remember NET. I worked at KOAP after I left Telco. The main NET tapes were Mister Rogers and something called What's Happening. B/W at that. The first "network" program that we carried was Sesame Street. We did not call it a network feed but an interconnect feed. It was fed by the spare telco line at first. There were a few extra feeds, occasionally, also. That was prior to 1970. From 1967-1970, KOAC did not originate anything and was a satellite of KOAP. They did an occasional local show but it was fed to KOAP.

The only NET show I can recall is "What's New?"; "...here, there, everywhere, in, out, roundabout, what's new?"

My sister was a devoted fan of NET's Folk Guitar lessons produced by KQED in San Francisco. KOAP/KOAC did a lot of locally produced childrens classroom programming that I had to watch in the late 60s.

Here's a question . . . I once "caught" Kasey Casem's AT40 "skipping" on the air in the early 70's. Was this show distributed on 33RPM records or was it audiotape that might have been "fixed"?

It was on records. See the proof here, lower lefthand corner. http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/at40_070773.html#at40_070773

I heard one skip (repeat) on KJR for several minutes while Casey was speaking. KFLY AM 1240 in Corvallis had their turntables set fast in the late 70s, which made Casey sound like a chipmunk. http://www.radiohof.org/discjockey/caseykasem.html

Thanks Randy . . . another mystery solved and put to rest . . . now does anybody know the name of the "laid back" disc jockey who worked late nights on KPAM-FM around 1973?

I remember a few times it skipping on KGW over the years it played.

I'm glad someone brought this up... I've always wondered.

"The only NET show I can recall is "What's New?"
Semoochie, you are correct. That was the correct name, not What's Happening.

Jimbo: Can you E-Mail me? I haven't had anybody respond to my KOAP-FM, KOPB-FM history announcement. This is the first time this has happened. Maybe you can shed some light, even though you worked on the TV end.

cadams@kisnfm.com

Jimbo wrote: A private company (the name escapes me at the moment) set up a national microwave network for video and eventually all network and video traffic went through them.

That company was Microwave Communications International also known as MCI. They were the major company to push interconnecting the US via microwave links which replaced the old coaxial system to distribute video, etc.

In my checkered past I spent hundreds of hours in Master Control at both Channel 12 and Channel 8 and I recall that the name of the company that handled microwave network television video was "TCI". Perhaps a division of "MCI", but it was "TCI" with whom we interfaced. I recall we had an automatic ring-down line for them on the Master Control phone.

In fact the graveyard shift, where I spent most of those hours would kick off with NBC's Tonight Show most nights getting spots inserted from KGW's Master Control covering NBC spots and therefore running on the NBC stations downstream from us, Seattle and Spokane.

At least as far as the network video feed went, during those years the road to Seattle ran through Portland!

Now that I hear it, Murdock is correct. TCI was the name of the company.

And he is also correct that the road to Seattle, Spokane, Yakima all went through Portland. That was also true when Telco controlled the feed. We would switch the feed North from local stations when necessary. We also had a channel going south. I remember a few nights (I worked graveyard) where we would feed a "goody" tape from KING to KGW in the wee hours of the morning. Oh yeah.....the Soupy Sales beach ball thing. I also remember the night they moved the feeds for KGW when they moved from the old building to the new one to make way for I405.

I noted with interest the comment above about NET never really being a network as it had no land lines.

But I do recall an exception to that, where NET stations did at least one time carry a VERY LIVE program. In 1967, on a Sunday afternoon our time, there was the first-ever global (or intended to be global) telecast. It was titled Our World.

It was a two-hour telecast screened simultaneously in 30 nations, although it was supposed to be far more initially (the Soviet Union and other communist nations backed out at the last minute).

The broadcast included segments produced at 18 nations. I remember as an 11-year-old kid watching it, and it included some live music performed by the Beatles in London, and live shots of a beach at Vancouver, B.C.

As I recall, the commercial TV networks in the U.S. were offered the opportunity to carry the show, but they declined. However, NET then stepped in and made the show available to U.S. viewers.

More details on Our World are at http://www.airandspacemagazine.com/ASM/Mag/Index/1996/AM/twww.html

Thanks for that link, John. I watched "Our World" too (we are the same age) and was always curious about the Pacific connection, which was described in the broadcast as very complicated.

Craig Adam's "KOAP-FM & The Building of OPB" is not in this section but in the Sept/October 2004 archives: ../56/31660.html"#f7f7f7" align=left> Author: Ke7jff
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 10:55 am

Don't forget the video capability that AT&T had with its Long Lines system. Its what made Monday Night Football in the beginning possible.

For a pleasant diversion from my present reality, I Googled up the Brewster Flats earth station. Built by COMSAT for INTELSAT, used by NASA for Apollo. Surprisingly little on-line for what was (still is?) a big pin on the map. Began as a phone link, then mostly video, though it carries an increasing chunk of data.

http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/WA3295/

http://web.archive.org/web/20050904203531/http://www.okanogantimes.com/bringing. htm

Jimbo's posts are a blast.