Various (Nashville Stations) - "A Flippin' Country Christmas"(1975)

Not from Chicago, but still of historical interest: channel flipping through the dial on Nashville, Tennessee TV (via cable TV) on Christmas Day 1975. Features programming seen on ABC affiliate WNGE (now WKRN) Channel 2, NBC affiliate WSM (now WSMV) Channel 4, CBS affiliate WTVF Channel 5, and PBS affiliate WDCN (now WNPT) Channel 8, at least one or two as yet unidentified stations, plus cable Channel 6 (public access / public notices).

Includes:

Channel 2: WNGE Christmas ID slide, followed by opening moments of The Mike Douglas Show with Gladys Knight (who, with The Pips, were his co-hosts for this week) on voiceover, introducing guests Blood, Sweat & Tears featuring David Clayton-Thomas, Robert Klein, and Caterina Valente, after which Mike enters and begins to introduce his co-hosts

Channel 4: WSM airing of Christmas mass (which, like other network programs of the period, aired with compressed "telco" sound with frequency response of 100 Hz - 5 kHz)

Channel 5: Opening of The Price Is Right as aired on WTVF

Channel 6: Primitive "Channel 6 Weather" shot, with excerpt of NBC radio hourly newscast anchored by Don Alexander (more of this channel was recorded a little later on the tape)

Channel 8: Excerpt of an episode of Sesame Street (with Big Bird on a pickup truck talking about how they are a "long, long, long, long way from Sesame Street") as aired on WDCN, with a special arrangement of the show theme, followed by start of a scene with Buffy Sainte-Marie(?)

Channel ?: Excerpt of the 1970 animated special, "The City That Forgot About Christmas" (airing on an unknown station)

Channel ?: What looks like an early episode of The PTL Club (on another unknown station) with Jim Bakker and an unknown guest

Channel 5 and Channel 4: Flipping back and forth between The Price Is Right and the Christmas mass

Channel ?: More of "The City That Forgot About Christmas"

Channel 8: Brief shot of more of the Sesame Street episode

Channel 6: Back to Channel 6, with local radio newscast from WSM-FM 95.5 (read by Elaine Ganick) (full portion of this segment, until end of tape, can be found here)

Historical Importance Note: The clips from WNGE, WSM and WTVF are the earliest known recorded off the air in color, as up to that point (and into the 1980s) any excerpts of the respective stations were represented in black-and-white recordings as part of tapings of the ABC, NBC and CBS network evening newscasts that comprise the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive.

Format Note: This was recorded on Umatic 3/4" videotape.

This aired on local Nashville TV on Thursday, December 25th 1975 during the 9:00am to 9:05am timeframe.

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