KRSC TV – Big plans for first week

December 19, 1946 / Permission to operate Seattle’s first television station has been granted Radio Station KRSC, it was learned today.
Robert Priebe, general manager of the Radio Sales Corporation, owner of the station, said he received a telegram today from the company’s attorneys in Washington DC, that the Federal Communications Commission had approved KRSCs application. The permit will allow the station to broadcast with a visual power of 1895 kW and an aural power of 9.79 kW.
Priebe said that due to difficulties in obtaining equipment costing about $250,000 television broadcast probably will not begin until next fall at the earliest.
KRSC will begin operating Seattle’s first frequency-modulated broadcasting station about January 15, using the call letters KRSC FM. It will transmit on 93.5 mega cycles.
The station will continue to broadcast on its present frequency of 1150 kc, since there are only about 3000 FM receivers in Seattle, Priebe said.
The FM station is being installed at Queen Anne Hill, on 3rd Ave. North and Galer Street, one of the highest points in Seattle. The company hopes to construct a new building when Civilian Production Administration regulations are relaxed, Priebe said.
Station KEVR also has been granted permission to broadcast with FM, but delays in obtaining equipment are postponing actual operation until July, said Bartley Sims, manager.
Stations KOMO and KIRO have received conditional permits to operate FM stations. Certain construction technicalities have to be surmounted and approved by the FCC, however, before they may begin broadcasting.

KRSC-TV Seattle, due to start operation on Thanksgiving Day [1948] as the city’s first video station, has evolved a formula for programming which it hopes will keep its operation costs “within reason,” P. K. Leberman, owner of KRSC and its new TV associate, told BROADCASTING last week. At the outset, Mr. Leberman said, KRSC-TV will limit its live programming to remote pickups of sports and other events of local interest.The balance of its broadcasts will be film, kinescopic recordings of the most popular CBS, NBC and DuMont programs with Eastern audiences and a group of films from Frederic W. Ziv Co., including 41 feature pictures and 35 Westerns. KRSC-TV will operate a five day, Wednesday-through-Sunday, schedule. It will sign on at 5:15 p.m. with 45 minutes of CBS Lucky Pup half-hour puppet show, a Western serial and a cartoon. From 6 to 7, the dinner hour, KRSC-TV will be off the air, returning at 7 with the evening schedule for adult members of the family. Evening schedule will start with a quarter-hour of news, ten minutes of the INS Telepix service which will be sponsored across the board by Frederick & Nelson, Seattle department store, and five minutes of local news and photos supplied by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Kinescopic recordings of eastern network programs will occupy the next hour or so, with sports or feature movies concluding the evening. KRSC-TV has an arrangement with the U. of Washington to broadcast its basketball games this winter and will also cover the local hockey matches. Where local sports are not available it will use video recordings of the DuMont boxing and wrestling shows in the East. During the first week on the air — instead of a solid hour of entertainment, 15- or 20-minute programs would be seperated by ten minutes of test patterns to give the dealers a chance to sell sets to live prospects and to clear their showrooms of non-buying lookers. Frederick & Nelson has also cooperated in the advance promotion by letting KRSC-TV telecast fashion shows from the store’s tea room on Nov. 9 and 10, picking up the shows on 14 receivers throughout the store and in its main window. On Nov. 19 the station staged a variety show in the Chamber of Commerce auditorium for leading business men who could watch both the show on the stage and its reception on sets throughout the hall. A feature of the station’s firstweek programs will be a 20-minute film of highlights of the Notre Dame-Washington U. game to be played at South Bend, Ind., Nov. 27. Paramount Pictures will film the game and fly the condensation to Seattle for broadcast early the following week, with Admiral Radio Corp. as sponsor. Admiral will also hold a meeting of its Seattle dealers that night to watch the program.
Excerpt from Broadcasting Magazine 1948

Lou Robbins

Lou Robbins — Admin/Editor | Airchecks

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