Kaiser Broadcasting - "Doing Things in a Big Way" (Promotional Sales Film) (Part 1, 1968)

This clip made possible by the donations from our generous group of "Fuzzketeers" during the Spring 2012 Tape Transfer Fundraiser.

Here's Part 1 of a neat promotional sales film from Kaiser Broadcasting Company which owned WFLD Channel 32 from 1973 to 1977. This 1968 film, dealt with the company's pre-WFLD early years in operation; at the time of this promo film, Kaiser owned stations in Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, each of which (along with the programming they offered) is spotlighted here. Look at various points in this film for the RCA TK-42 color cameras which were used by the Kaiser stations in their early years of operation.

Includes:

SMPTE Universal Leader countdown

A look at the TV climate as it stood in 1962 (with black-and-white film clips to match), leading up to President Kennedy's signing of H.R. 8031, the All-Channel Act, which mandated all TV sets to carry UHF channels - and one company's taking advantage of this new law to take its place among the many station group owners (guess which one? ;-) ).

Title sequence for Kaiser Broadcasting: Doing Things in a Big Way (typeset in Helvetica Medium, as is much of the text on here)

Shots of Kaiser Broadcasting's corporate headquarters at various times of the day, with a promise to look at the six stations on the air at the time, with a little background on the All-Channel Act and shots of TV sets being manufactured, and a projection of Kaiser stations' reach of the available TV audience between 1964 and 1970.

The first station spotlighted is WKBS Channel 48 in Philadelphia (ADI & DMA #4 as of 1968) which first signed on in September 1965 (and, sadly, left the air in August 1983 as a consequence of the dissolution of successor owner Field Communications). A brief clip of Della (a talk show hosted by Della Reese that ran from 1969 to 1970) is shown, followed by a description of WKBS's audience at the time of original sign-on vs. 1968 and 1970 shown over a backdrop of the Philadelphia skyline, along with share of audience figures (comparable to Los Angeles independents KTLA Channel 5, KTTV Channel 11 and KHJ [now KCAL] Channel 9), prime time audience figures between March 1966 and March 1968, and reach of households in prime time (comparable to WTCN [now KARE] Channel 11 in Minneapolis - Saint Paul and KPLR Channel 11 in Saint Louis). Next is a shot of the control room of Channel 48 leading into The Ten O'Clock News, with filmed reports from Jim Vance (later to be a long-running anchor at WRC Channel 4 in Washington, DC), Bob Wallace (a few years before he came to Chicago to make his name at WBBM Channel 2) and Jay Lloyd (who later became a reporter at KYW Newsradio 1060), followed by anchor Doug Johnson (before he came to New York as a reporter and occasional anchor for WABC Channel 7's Eyewitness News from 1969 into the early 1990s) in the studio, leading into the newscast's opening titles. Behind-the-scenes shots of the news staff at work is shown as the narrator explains what goes on to put the news show together. Next are more shows such as the local version of Romper Room, Dickory Doc's Toy Shop and Captain Philadelphia, followed by slides for Superman, The Little Rascals and The Flintstones, and clips from the Dialing for Dollars movie show, legendary Philly disc jockey Hy Lit's music show (with a brief clip of a promotional video for Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart's 1968 hit "Alice Long (You're Still My Favorite Girlfriend)"), and wrestling. A shot of the exterior of the WKBS studios (with letters that seemed to resemble the Eremitage font that would later be used for the station after 1978 under Field ownership) is seen, along with a billboard for the station (with a promo for The Ten O'Clock News) to end that segment.

The next station spotlighted is WKBD Channel 50 in Detroit (signed on January 10th 1965), starting with a clip of the Detroit Red Wings hockey opening titles and a clip from a Red Wings game. Programs shown include The Lou Gordon Program which started the year the station signed on and ran up to his death in 1977; a clip of Gordon's famous interview with then-Governor George Romney (father of 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney) in which Romney said he was "brainwashed" about Vietnam is shown; also spotlighted are Les Crane's later talk show (between the end of his 1964-65 ABC talk show and his 1971 hit "Desiderata"), The David Susskind Show (originated from WNEW Channel 5 in New York, a future sister station to WFLD), I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, and movies featuring stars such as Claudia Cardinale and Rod Steiger (clip shown is from the 1964 film in which they starred, "The Age of Indifference"). Children's programming and a 10pm newscast were also part of the WKBD schedule at the time.

Next to Boston (fifth-largest market at the time) and WKBG Channel 56 (signed-on in 1966, co-owned with The Boston Globe [as Kaiser-Globe Broadcasting] through 1974, after which the Globe sold its share back to Kaiser which then changed the station's calls to the current WLVI; this Kaiser/Globe partnership also owned WJIB-FM and WCAS). At the time, WKBG's 40,000-square foot studios were near The Globe's headquarters and plant, their transmitter was at Needham, and a remote unit had five color cameras (presumably TK-42's). A clip of a Boston Celtics basketball game is shown (with a shot of their then-general manager "Red" Auerbach) before this part ends.

Voiceover by Joe Hughes.

Of course this was never aired, and was just shown privately, but this would date to 1968.

Add To

You must login to add videos to your playlists.