History of television in Atlanta

= Pre-History of Atlanta TV =

Atlanta television had its roots in "Atlanta Journal" (now "Atlanta Journal-Constitution")-owned radio station WSB-AM. The "Journal" had launched the south's first radio station, WSB-AM ("Welcome South Brother"), on March 15, 1922. In the late 1920s, the "Journal" experimented with a mechanical version of television, but eventually abandoned it. The earliest experiments with television involved a spinning disc with multiple holes in it, which provided ‘movement’ on a projected surface.

Early Stations

WSB, channel 8

Television finally came to Atlanta and northern and central Georgia viewers on September 29, 1948 (called "T-Day" by the "Journal") with the debut of WSB-TV, broadcasting on channel 8. The newspaper led up to the TV station's launch with front page countdowns designed to boost excitement and sell TV sets. The inaugural WSB-TV program, which began with a recording of the "Star Spangled Banner" and a close-up shot of a tiny American flag waving in the wind powered by an electric fan, featured announcer John Cone ("WSB-TV is on the air!"), newscaster Jimmy Bridges, and a host of local dignitaries.

WSB-TV originally broadcast from a building at 1601 West Peachtree Street, about two miles north on Peachtree Street from its sister radio station, which then broadcast from the Biltmore Hotel. By 1956, all of these facilities would be housed together in a new and comprehensive building at the new location at 1601 West Peachtree, a high profile location just north of downtown Atlanta. The building, designed to look like a southern mansion, was christened "White Columns," and was located in front of the former TV facility.

WSB-TV, in its abbreviated 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. broadcast day, aired a mix of kinescopes (film copies) which might arrive three days late from the NBC Television Network (WSB-AM had been a longtime NBC radio network affiliate, and most of the new television equipment was from NBC's corporate cousin, RCA), Atlanta Crackers baseball remote broadcasts from the club's stadium on Ponce de Leon Avenue, local news, and kids shows ("Woody Willow," a marionette show featuring several stringed characters created and performed by Don and Ruth Gilpin, and a show featuring a man who built toys). A great many old movies were shown, and the station employed a unique ‘censoring’ system in which monitors actually cut bits from film that were deemed ‘not family material’ before broadcast. This was a slow and tedious process, handled by two women with scissors, and they usually removed any hint of unsavory language and even scenes in which a man and a woman (even married couples) might be seen in or on a bed.

An early unique use of television occurred when a system-wide transit strike crippled the city and downtown commerce suffered, in an era before shopping malls had been developed in the suburban areas. WSB-TV broadcast, for a time, a daily four-hour "infomercial" (to use the modern term) for Rich's Department Store, which was affected economically when shoppers could not travel via bus to its downtown location.

In its earliest days, the station aired a test pattern for many hours each day, ostensibly to let people ‘align’ their new-fangled television sets. It served, however, as extremely cheap ‘programming’ which allowed an audience to gather as someone showed off his or her new set to his or her envious friends. The test pattern, in black and white, featured multiple shades of grey and a large picture of an American Indian. Early employee Mike McDougald recounted, "I would drive from WSB-AM to WSB-TV and see people congregated outside the store windows watching the test pattern. They were fascinated by it." Virtually all employees of the new WSB-TV were ‘imports’ from the radio station, leaving the radio side somewhat hampered by the loss of talent. WSB-AM continued to thrive, however, and actually supported the new television venture for several years until television moved into the ‘black’.

WAGA-TV, channel 5

Crosstown radio station WAGA-AM (now WYZE, 1480 AM), owned by The Fort Industries (later renamed "Storer Broadcasting"), launched a station on channel 5 in the fall of 1949, taking CBS, DuMont and occasionally, ABC shows. The new television operation was squeezed into a converted residential house on Peachtree Street, with a tall tower built in the backyard of the property. WAGA-TV's mascot, owned by the station's janitor, was a (real) Yorkshire terrier named "Waga".

In addition to CBS shows, WAGA aired a daily hillbilly music show with local personality Jon Farmer, Atlanta Crackers baseball (taken from WSB and later lost to newcomer WLW-A), interview shows featuring politicians like Senator Herman Talmadge and local newscasts featuring a newsreader sitting at a modest desk with a world map on the wall behind.

The Proposed WCON-TV

WSB-TV and WAGA-TV served Atlanta for two years before a third station arrived. In March 1950, the Cox-owned "Atlanta Journal" and its crosstown rival, the "Atlanta Constitution," merged. The "Constitution" owned a construction permit for a proposed WCON-TV on the more desirable channel 2, which was to have been the city's full-time ABC network station. With the merger, WSB-TV instead moved to channel 2 amid great publicity. WCON-TV thus never opened for business, and its sister radio station, WCON-AM 550, was reassigned to nearby Gainesville, Georgia, where it is now WDUN-AM.

WLTV, channel 8

WSB-TV's move to channel 2 opened an opportunity for a new station to operate on channel 8. In 1951, a group of Atlanta businessmen, including an executive from the local Davison's department store chain, pooled their capital and launched WLTV as Atlanta's first full-time ABC affiliate. WLTV's studios were installed in a small building directly behind WSB-TV's property, because that allowed the station to utilize WSB's old channel 8 transmitting tower. WLTV operated on a very tight budget and offered a smattering of local programming like cooking and fashion shows, "rip-and-read" local news coverage, and a show featuring the city's famous mayor, William B. Hartsfield, who answered viewer mail on his program. The station also offered the first "all Negro" program in Atlanta, a Saturday evening variety show.

WQXI TV, channel 36

In late 1953, eager entrepreneurs around the country were constructing UHF TV stations to meet the demand of television-hungry viewers. Southeast radio group owner Robert Rounsaville took the plunge, opening a UHF station off Atlanta's Peachtree Street in the same restored house where his "good music" station, WQXI-AM 790, operated. An employee remembered that the station owned a huge, lumbering TV camera that had to be transported from room to room within the building to broadcast local talk shows. The AM station promoted the TV station incessantly, but the September 1953 beginning was met with indifference from Atlantans. Without much in the way of programming apart from old movies, an occasional show from the crumbling DuMont network, and a local Saturday night "Barn Dance," there was little incentive for viewers to spend approximately $40 for a UHF converter. As such, WQXI-TV survived about nine months.

WETV, channel 47, Macon

While not an Atlanta station, Macon's first TV outlet received little attention from viewers or the press. In 1954, competing Macon AM radio stations WBML and WNEX pooled money, along with Macon businessman William Fickling, (later a healthcare tycoon) and launched WETV on channel 47. The NBC affiliate pre-dated the market's dominant CBS affiliate WMAZ, channel 13, by several months. As in Atlanta and other cities, few viewers were willing to pay extra for the special receiver needed to watch the UHF station, and after several shakeups (where channel 47 became WNEX and then WOKA), it ceased operations. WMAZ would then become the central Georgia region's sole commercial television outlet for over a dozen years, until NBC returned in 1968 on another UHF station, WCWB (now WMGT)-TV. By that time, television manufacturers had been required by the Federal Communications Commission to enable sets to receive UHF channels, without special external equipment.

WLW-A, channels 8/11

In 1953, Cincinnati-based Crosley Broadcasting Corporation purchased WLTV (channel 8), providing a much-needed infusion of capital and a new name, "WLW-A," in keeping with the company's WLW group branding for its stations in Indiana and Ohio. Among the personalities from WLW-A's early days: Dick Van Dyke, who hosted a twice-daily lip synch show where he and Phil Erickson (together known as The Merry Mutes), along with a female partner, mouthed the lyrics to hit records. WLW-A continued to operate in the shadow of WSB-TV, both physically and in the minds of 1950s viewers. It wasn't until ABC began to get ratings traction with its late-1950s Warner Bros. Western shows that the station came of age.

WROM TV, channel 9, Rome

Two months after Crosley set up shop in Atlanta, up the road, 50 miles to the northwest, the owners of a local AM radio station in Rome decided to get into television.

WROM-AM operated WROM-TV, channel 9, from 1953 until 1958, branding it "Dixie's Largest Independent." The station ran a late-afternoon and prime-time schedule of old movies, "hillbilly" music performances (which were common on Southern TV stations in the 1950s and 1960s) and occasionally, ABC-TV network fare such as "Omnibus."

WROM's beginning, and its subsequent move to Chattanooga years later, changed Atlanta TV history and caused a fruit-basket turnover of Southeastern U.S. TV frequencies. As soon as channel 9 in Rome and channel 8 in Atlanta began operating simultaneously, viewers in northwestern Atlanta and in northwestern Georgia to the south of Rome began experiencing trouble tuning in either station. Crosley also wanted to increase transmitting power at its new station, which necessitated a change to present-day channel 11 (now WXIA-TV).

By 1958, WROM's owners were making moves to cash in on their investment. The station began carrying a full prime-time slate of ABC network programs, overlapping programming with WLW-A.

In 1959, WROM's owners accepted an offer to sell their TV outlet to Martin Theaters, (reportedly for one million dollars) the company that also purchased Columbus, Georgia's WDAK-TV. Chattanooga had only two VHF stations at the time, WRGP (now WRCB)-TV, channel 3, (NBC) and pioneer broadcasting outlet WDEF-TV, channel 12 (CBS). Chattanooga offered channel 9's investors a better economic model than Rome, so the station moved and became Chattanooga ABC affiliate WTVC. That move 60 miles to the north opened opportunities for other television broadcasters within the state of Georgia.

Frequency Changes

Atlanta regained channel 8 as a frequency, though it was reclassified as a non-commercial facility, clearing the way for the University of Georgia's Athens-based educational station, WGTV (which, years later, relocated to Atlanta). Columbus, Georgia's NBC affiliate, WDAK-TV, channel 28, was able to move to VHF channel 9 (now WTVM, an ABC affiliate), while Dothan, Alabama's CBS affiliate, WTVY, moved from channel 9 to the more powerful (and thus desirable) channel 4, and Columbus' CBS affiliate, WRBL, moved from channel 4 to channel 3.

Ironically, Rome lost a second television frequency 40 years later, when UHF station channel 14 moved to Atlanta after several years of operation. Though a strong radio market covering most of northwestern Georgia, the Rome metro area simply could not support television capable of competing with Atlanta and Chattanooga---both just 60 miles distant north and south.

References

"Atlanta TV Digest" magazine, April 6, 1953
"Welcome South Brother," (Cox Broadcasting, 1973)
"Atlanta Journal," September 29, 1948
interviews by Richard Warner with Marc Bartlett, Elmo Ellis, Mike McDougald