1947 in American television
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of American television-related events in 1947.
Events
| Date | Event | Notes/Ref. |
|---|---|---|
| January 1 | KTLA broadcasts the Tournament of Roses Parade for the first time ever. | |
| January 3 | For the first time ever, the proceedings of the United States Congress were televised. | |
| January 29 | The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) demonstrates an all-electronic color television system using live images, to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). | |
| January 30 | CBS's color television system is rejected by the FCC. | |
| February 27 | The world's first-ever on-the-spot news coverage is broadcast by KTLA from a Pico Boulevard electroplating plant explosion. | |
| March 11 | The first successful American children's television series, Movies for Small Fry debuts on the DuMont Television Network. | |
| July 16 | RCA demonstrates the world's first all-electronic color camera to the Federal Communications Commission. (Only television receivers were present at the demonstration on January 29; the camera was at a remote studio.) | |
| September 30 | The opening game of the World Series is the first World Series game to be telecast. The 1947 World Series was watched by an estimated 3.9 million people (many watching in bars and other public places). This marked television's first mass audience. | |
| October 5 | The first telecast of a presidential address from the White House. President Harry S. Truman speaks about the world food crisis. It is preceded by a Jell-O commercial, and features the president discussing his program for food rationing. The address was televised by WTVW-TV (present-day WJLA-TV Channel 7 in Washington DC) as part of its inaugural broadcast. It was also simulcast by radio. It was long believed that no copy of this broadcast existed, but segments are preserved on kinescope in the Library of Congress. (For the record, President Franklin Roosevelt's address broadcast over NBC experimental television W2XBS—now WNBC—at the 1939 New York World's Fair—preceded the 1947 Truman broadcast. However, Truman's broadcast is indeed the first from inside the White House.) | |
| October 13 | The puppet show series Junior Jamboree, later known as Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres on WBKB (now WBBM-TV) in Chicago, Illinois. | |
| November 6 | Meet the Press first appears as a local program in Washington, D.C. | |
Television programs
Debuts
| Date | Debut | Network |
|---|---|---|
| March 11[1] | Small Fry Club | DuMont Television Network |
| April 3[2] | Juvenile Jury | NBC |
| May 7[3] | Kraft Television Theatre | NBC |
| October 13[4] | Kukla, Fran and Ollie | WBKB |
| November 6[5][6] | Meet the Press | NBC |
| November 13 | Pantomime Quiz | KTLA |
| November 18[7] | Mary Kay and Johnny | DuMont Television Network |
| December 8[8] | Americana | NBC |
| December 27[9] | Howdy Doody | NBC |
Television stations
Station launches
| Date | Market | Station | Channel | Affiliation | Notes/Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 3 | Washington, D.C. | WTTG | 5 | DuMont | Now a Fox network O&O since 1986. |
| January 22 | Los Angeles, California | KTLA | 4 (now 5) |
First commercial television station west of the Mississippi River; now a CW O&O station. | |
| February 8 | St. Louis, Missouri | KSD-TV | 5 | NBC (primary) DuMont (secondary) |
Now KSDK. Longest-tenured affiliate of NBC, or any network, among non-O&O |
| March 4 | Detroit, Michigan | WWJ-TV | 4 | NBC (primary) DuMont (secondary) |
Now WDIV-TV, the WWJ-TV calls now reside at CBS' O&O in Detroit |
| June 27 | Washington, D.C. | WNBW | 4 | NBC (O&O) | Now WRC-TV |
| September 13 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | WFIL-TV | 6 | DuMont | Now ABC O&O station WPVI-TV |
| October 3 | Washington, D.C. | WTVW (later WMAL-TV) |
7 | CBS | Now ABC affiliate WJLA-TV |
| October 27 | Baltimore, Maryland | WMAR-TV | 2 | Independent | Now an ABC affiliate since October 1995 |
| December 3 | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | WTMJ-TV | 3 (now on 4) |
NBC (primary) CBS and ABC (secondary) |
|
| December 17 | Cleveland, Ohio | WEWS-TV | 5 | CBS | Now an ABC affiliate |