Yup, AT&T owned the lines and the networks leased them. The first transcontinental link was completed in 1951 and was a big deal. But stations in cities that weren’t connected to the coaxial cable had to be linked by microwave.
They used AM for audio instead of FM. That didn’t help.
I seem to remember concert events for which the audio was simulcast on an FM radio station, so you could get better sound than from your crappy TV’s speakers.
It’s not what the OP was looking for, but if you’re wondering what the TV schedule was in any particular year, the info is available on Wikipedia. Look, for instance, at the Saturday night schedule on CBS in 1973-74; All in the Family, MAS*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and lastly The Carol Burnett Show. This was before DVRs or VCRs were available, so if you wanted to watch those shows, you had to stay home on Saturday night.
ABC had In Concert 1972-75, which was simulcast on FM stations. The shows weren’t live, but were assembled from recent live concerts.
The first episode featured Alice Cooper, and the ABC station in Cincinnati pulled it off the air in mid-broadcast. Looks pretty tame in retrospect.
It really doesn’t matter anymore, with all the ensuing mergers and splits and acquisitions.
Star Trek was an NBC show made by Desilu
Then it was a syndicated show made by Paramount
Then it was a UPN show made by Paramount
Now it’s a CBS show and a Paramount movie franchise.
The particular channel or network hardly matters any more.
What’s interesting is that all these huge acclaimed hit shows were on Saturday night. In the '90s they would be on Monday to Thursday. Nowadays they would be on Sunday night.
That we must pay gold plated latinum to watch. :dubious:
For really small stations (especially those that aired programs out of network pattern), they had to resort to taped or filmed copies provided by the networks. In Alaska and Hawaii, time sensitive material like sports and news were shipped copies by air; everything else went by surface transport which could take weeks to get there.
So what about syndicated programs like Mike Douglas? Until the 80s, a practice called “bicycling” was used. Big city stations got film copies off the bat, and once they aired the program they shipped them to smaller stations. By the time the smallest markets got these programs, the film was pretty battered.
That summed up my Saturday nights in 73-74. I was 14.
I remember what the picture looked like by the time it got to us.
We watched almost exclusively NBC during the 80s because the picture came in well. ABC’s picture was pushed to one side, IIRC with vertical bars and stripes of different colors. Wavy, like each row might happen to be pushed a little more or less to the side than its neighbor above. And CBS was very fuzzy, and wavered between barely being in color and reverting to b+w.
mash was on sundays … how I know that is that’s how my family became murder she wrote addicts … because grandma forgot mash ended and seen the first episode of what my dad used joke as as “the lady of death” show … grandpa just grumped they ripped off Agatha Christie …
although I used to rate what networks had what cartoons on it …nbc had the best in my opinion then abc then cbs although I would switch back and forth between all 3 eventually I just ended up watching nbc … then I got a weekend job and just watched anaiminacs and the best batman animated series
Now none of them really have cartoons on anymore
My G-d, what do children **DO **on Saturday mornings? :eek:
MASH only aired on Sundays in 1972-1973. Then it moved to Saturdays, and then to various weeknights before it went off the air in 1983. Murder She Wrote didn’t even premiere until a full year after MASH ended. Was Grandma having other memory problems?