New Motorola television sets in the 1950’s with KING’s Queen Bea Donovan on a couple of them. What is the program on the tv on the far left?
(Photo: Dick Warner/Facebook)
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Bea Donovan started with KING TV in 1948 and retired in 1974 She had more advertisers on her show than any other programs Thus when she went on vacation she had to tape all her shows in advance ! Other celebs had replacements
Comments from her daughter
KING had many fine local programs, cartooning weather forecaster and Stan Boreson show, etc.
I think that’s the sharpest image I’ve ever seen for the old KTVW 13! 🙂
You got that right! There are many memories of KTVW 13, but poor reception and a fuzzy picture stand out.
As for the set on the left, I think it may be Charles Collingwood.
The photo is from the Tacoma Public Library collection and it dates to October of ’56. Looking at the daytime TV listings for this period, Collingwood had a mid-morning newscast that would have been on Channel 11 at the same time Telescope was on 5. The set seems a bit too “artistic” for something from CBS News, but it looks enough like Collingwood that I’m going with him.
Also around this time KING’s Queen was dropped from the schedule and replaced with “The Queen’s Movie.” Sounds like Bea must have been taking things out of the oven during cut-ins.
It’s interesting to note how much more local programming 5 was doing compared with 4 and 11. As the ABC affiliate, there was a lot less coming from the network before prime time.
Good eye. You may be correct. I just looked at some pics of a younger Collingwood and you are right on! (CBS 11) Also, I can see that the Bullitts would have preferred quality local programming over a game show or off-network rerun. (KING 5)
Planes overhead, CB radios, cars revving their engines…
Our first television was a black and white set from a manufacturer called Arvin. It was beautiful, wonderous. We got KOMO 4, KING 5, KIRO 7, KCTS 9, KTNT 11 and KTVW 13. Years later we could receive KTPS 62 and KPEC 56. There were times when a couple Vancouver BC stations were available. Not a perfect picture, but we could watch a few programs without getting a migraine. (We lived in Tacoma).
My childhood home overlooked Boeing Field in the Highland Park area (now known as Riverview). We could see the towers from 4,5, and 7 and reception was good. 9, 11, and 13 were the sketchy ones. Our picture was often interrupted by planes overhead.
In the 50’s we were rockin a Philco with that sketchy 50’s reception. 😉
We had a 16″ Motorola on a square rotatable wooden table on a pedestal that had four casters. Unfortunately, we couldn’t rotate it anymore after our cat tried to dive through the screen at some big cats on Zoo Parade, because any movement made it lose the video. The same cat tried to dive through our living room window during mating season.