Chattanooga TV hits the big 6-0

Let’s go back to April 1954.  Chattanooga has two daily newspapers and about a half-dozen radio stations.  Our friends in other parts of the nation, mostly in bigger cities are talking about the next big thing:  Television.  In Chattanooga, stores are advertising new TV sets in the local paper.  A few forward-thinking folks shell out around $200 for the bulky box, designed for glorious black-and-white viewing.  Even as the downtown movie theaters show MGM musicals in Technicolor, that new TV is a great addition to the living room.  There’s only one problem:  the city doesn’t have any TV stations on the air.

TV came to Atlanta in 1948, and to Nashville in 1950.  Much as we are envious of those cities’ concerts and sporting events today, in 1954, the locals were coveting their TV signals.  The newspapers would carry stories about TV sensations like Milton Berle and Sid Caesar, and even Bob Hope who was gradually abandoning radio for TV.  Putting it in today’s terms, how would you feel if Atlanta and Nashville had a personal device that the nation was buzzing about, and you were told that the Chattanooga area might get it by 2020?  That’s six years away!

It wasn’t for lack of trying.  Chattanooga’s top three radio stations, WDEF, WDOD and WAPO were among the hopeful investors locked in a years-long battle to secure the city’s first television station license. All applicants had to present a detailed proposal, promising the federal government that they would be the most responsible broadcaster.  Each pledged several hours each week would be devoted to education and culture.  Their stated goals were lofty.  They would bring us opera, regular visits with elected officials, and school-related programs, so the kiddies could learn year-round.  Needless to say, there were no proposals to show infomercials, Jerry Springer or “2 Broke Girls.”  Unfortunately, those would come later, long after the licenses were granted.

After a few years of wrangling, a group that applied under the WDEF banner emerged victorious.  Finally on Easter Sunday, April 25, 1954 at 2:00 p.m., a fine announcer named Peyton Brien signed Channel 12 on the air.  He was followed by a prayer of dedication, then a brief program introducing the staff to viewers.  Most of the announcers, including deep-voiced newsman Mort Lloyd, merely crossed the hall from WDEF radio, which was already in place in the Volunteer Building.

Luther Masingill on WDEF-TV in 1954

Luther Masingill, at age 32 already the dominant morning radio man, was mildly annoyed at having to host a late-afternoon TV show too, but station managers knew he would be a big draw.  Since nobody in Chattanooga had ever put a TV station on the air, they brought in five guys from Nebraska who had successfully cranked up a station in Lincoln two years earlier.

Channel 12 could pick and choose programs from all four major networks (CBS, NBC, ABC and Dumont), until Channel 3 came along in 1956, and Channel 9 in 1958, establishing network affiliations that continue today.  The networks offered little programming in the daytime hours, so 1950s local TV was dominated by local shows.  “Lunch ‘N Fun” entertained the ladies on Channel 12, the Willis Brothers, Jim Nabors and Barbara Molloy sang and danced on Channel 3, and Bob Brandy brought Popeye and prizes to the kids who watched Channel 9.  Those days were best described by Harve Bradley, a funny radio guy-turned funny TV weatherman, who told me, “We didn’t know what we were doing, because none of us had ever done it before.  We were just doing it by the seat of our pants.”

Harve Bradley, Bill Gribben and Steve Conrad on WDEF, 1962

The early newscasts were brief and bland, rip and read, long before the days of teleprompters, instant video and live shots.  With a staff of 2 or 3, occasionally a piece of film might make it on the air.  Otherwise, it was basically a radio news man, reading radio-style news under hot lights with a camera aimed at his face.  And yes, I do mean “his” face.  By the late 1960s, some of the channels would train a pretty lady to stand in front of the weather board and read the forecast.  Her title would be, “Weather Girl.”  I am not kidding.  (If you think that’s bad, as late as 1964, ABC News hired its first female news reader, who would do a daily five-minute news break between soap operas.  Variety, the show business newspaper, described her as a “News Hen” in its headline.  You can look it up.)

60 years later, so many shows and people have come and gone.  Harry Thornton’s Live Wrestling.  Bob, Don and Darrell.  Roy Morris.  Debbie Baer and PM Magazine.  The commercial pitchmen: John Swafford, J.M. Sanders and John Totten.  Mull’s Singing Convention.  Miss Marcia.  MaryEllen Locher.  Dr. Shock and Dingbat.  Dialing For Dollars.

So many firsts:  Channel 3 was first to do live remote broadcasts, via phone lines and later satellite.  Channel 9 was the first to show local programs in color.  Channel 12 was first to go high-definition.

Starting in the 1970s, Channels 45, 61 and 53 joined in.  Local viewers who were once thrilled to have three TV channels now have dozens, even hundreds to choose from.  Those of us who are on the Chattanooga airwaves must now compete with channels our founders would have never dreamed of: channels devoted to golf, animals, food, decorating and jewelry.  Appropriately enough, some of the most popular channels offer nothing but reruns of the shows and movies we first brought you all those decades ago.

Thankfully, we’ve come a long way when it comes to women and diversity.  We still have many of the familiar faces to which you’ve become accustomed.  Calvin Sneed first showed up on Channel 9 in the 1970s, and many of the rest of us have been around since the 1980s.

Dreanne Newton, Luther Masingill, Joe Legge and Chip Chapman (WDEF)

And it sure was good to see my friend Luther, still on Channel 12, holding that cake on April 25, 2014.  He was the only original employee still on local TV who was in the studio on that very first day.  We lost him six months later, but his voice lives on in our hearts.