I worked there at the time. What you're looking at is a "slide" created by the news graphics department. There were many such wonderful ones. The graphic artists were an exceptionally gifted bunch. We also used these slides for credits on newscasts., but without the logo on the photographs, all of which were taken around the NY metro area.
What type of slide projector was used by WCBS (and CBS network operations at the Broadcast Center) at the time? I know it wouldn't have been an RCA TP-7 slide projector. (Plus, GE PE-240 film chains all over the place.) Also, what was the type switcher used that had the effect of fading out and in during transitions from one slide to another, rather than cutting as at other stations? I seem to remember that type of transitioning used by CBS as early as the '50's.
@@wmbrown6 I wasn't an engineer. I can say it was always mandatory to fade out and in between everything that wasn't broadcast content. The switchers had the basic rockers. Two types of slides were used. Some were 35mm, which is what this was. Then there were RPs, rear projection slides, which were like glass sandwiches, thin glass with manually created art in between. They were maybe 4" by 5". Lower thirds were not keyed. They were printed on black and faded in. We used the terms slide chain and film chain. The lower third things were called telops. They were also fist size and loaded into long strip holders.
@@ericsamuelson5656 I began working with and writing for Jim my very first day. He had an aura of charisma I have only seen in one other person: Nixon. Jim was tall and really handsome. That gruff voice was his TV voice. He would call somebody in to his office to shoot the sh-t and be relaxed and low key, typically rueful with dark humor. He had a wonderful deep laugh in the back of his throat. I don't recall smoking because everybody smoked. He did smoke cigars now and then after the show. He loved to play baseball in the show league, he was a great pitcher and practiced in the hall. However, I knew Jim Bouton very well, and never heard a peep from Bouton about Jensen's pitching. Jensen had a wild temper. It was not unusual for him to arrive at the office mid afternoon, pick up a really heavy steel chair and hurl it at a wall. He also loved killing off potential co-anchors. Any time the bosses tried to put somebody next to him, he would pepper that person with questions on air, and humiliate them. Then come downstairs with a devilish expression and a chuckle. I liked him very much. He was one of the very greatest. On camera he was magic.He enjoyed very very many ladies.
@@dancooper Dan these are fascinating stories and quite a look into the late night/early morning mystique that channel 2 had. I don't quite know what I was doing up at those hours or even how or why I had a TV on but for some reason, those movies, commercials, bumpers, voices, sign ons, sign offs and every other moving image that aired on channel 2 in those wee hours are burned into my childhood memory! Thanks for helping to make it happen.
WCBS-TV had a minute of silence between the fade-out of the test pattern (and the nearly 400 Hz audio tone) and the showing up of one of the ID slides to cue the announcer to commence the sign-on. This procedure (TP to black to sign-on) was also in place at WNBC-TV. WABC-TV, WOR-TV and WPIX all had their respective TP's up for one minute after the tone ended, then cut to the ID slide where the announcer read the sign-on.
That font is the ITC Serif Gothic which was the Ch. 2 logo from 1973-85. It was also used on KNXT Los Angeles from 1973-84 before renaming KCBS and WBBM Chicago used it from 1975-78.
1977???-Wow. That year is one year that me and everyone else who lived here or was here will never forget. With the Son of Sam serial killer, the blackout in July of that summer, the death of Elvis Presley in that summer, and the capture of the Son of Sam killer on August 10the of that year. It was also the year when I graduated with my classmates from elementary school-I could really cry since I remember 1977 so vividly.
I remember before the WNBC-TV sign-on, they would play some instrumental easy listening music with a test card for about 15 minutes... anyone else remember that? It was always the same tunes. I have never been able to find that music since. This was in the late 70s-early 80s.
In Chicago, WBBM's sign-on and -off sermonettes were called "Meditation." It was under that umbrella that these would have been seen. (And all CBS stations aired sermonettes from bishops, priests, rabbis, etc., from their five 'hubs' - Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles; those from New York would have had 'Produced by WCBS-TV' below the "Give Us This Day" title as aired here.)
It was remarkable. In the late 60s and very early 70s, news director Lee Hanna hired many star reporters from the defunct New York Herald Tribune. At the same time he hired talented young people right out of college like me as writers. The staff was brilliant, accuracy and objectivity demanded. We socialized every night. When Ed Joyce was news director he hired a stunning group of future network stars. He was not pleasant to work for at all. He cheapened the quality of the product. But it remained a social pleasure, a joy to work with each other, and we did great innovative work.