I'll give you the synopsis: Westinghouse merged with CBS shortly after Group "W" signed a deal to have all of its' stations (except KDKA and KPIX) switch to CBS around 1994-95. By 1998, Westinghouse sold all of it's non-broadcasting units (electric items, nuclear facilites whatever) and rechristened itself as CBS Corporation. That CBS Corporation was bought out by Viacom, only to be split up in late 2006. That's it in a nutshell.
GenerationYM Westinghouse owned a newsradio station here, KFWB 980AM. CBS bought it and ran it as a duopoly with KNX 1070AM. CBS finally sold KFWB, I understand that it is now a Spanish starion.
I remember that exit title for "The Movies" on KPIX as a kid in the late '70s. Of course KPIX was a key Group W station in San Francisco affiliated with CBS.
That's a good point, and I'd forgotten that.. WBZ went off the air, probably for maintenance, for several hours on, I think, Sunday nights only (which technically would have been the wee-hours of Monday morning).
MSTS1 - way back during the late seventies often times WBZ (AM) radio itself would leave the air at the same time, early Monday morning. Was very exciting for the DX'er needless to say.
I also noticed, WBZ's color scheme was similar to, yet different from, what sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia had for its test pattern. But the same text layout was in force there, too.
WBZ-TV was running 'The Movies' at least as far back as spring 1975, and possibly before then. I think I have an audio clip of it from that time- 4/75.
Yes, that's about right but I don't remember it much before then. I do remember WBZ going off the air Sunday nights with the British series "UFO" but probably later than 1975.
There is always the possibility that WBZ-TV had several slides of the same TP, with some variant text styles produced at different times, and used them at will. (I look for the dirt marks on the 35mm slides to compare the differences). This might explain the subtle differences you noticed. I suspect the only ones who can confirm it are WBZ Engineers and Film-guys from that era. I'd go to the source...
The design, I agree, is the same - but I noticed a slight difference in which font was used for the "BOSTON, MASS." line - Eurostile Bold in the 0:25-mark sample, Helvetica Medium in the 2:05-mark sample. Incidentally, this was a color adaptation of a B&W pattern used by WBZ to the mid-1960's, which was a proto-"PC" monoscope T.P. (non-"Indian head").
I wonder - was the second test-pattern (at around the 2:05 mark) an old-style Xerox color copy of the pattern as shown around the 0:25 mark? Does look a bit like such in comparison to me. Also, it seems 'BZ was the second Boston station (after the first WNAC) to use the Army SSB.
WmBrown6 This could be possible, although I have many versions of some of these various TPs, and particularly with WSBK, the transmission quality, color-tint and image-distortion varies widely...
