Paramount representative Paul Raibourn, who also was a member of DuMont's board of directors, denied that any such restriction had ever been discussed, but Dr. DuMont was vindicated by a 1953 examination of the original draft document.[42]. [13][22] Later, a lease on the Adelphi Theatre on 54th Street and the Ambassador Theatre on West 49th Street gave the network a site for variety shows. [49] Tied to this was a decision to restrict VHF allocations in medium- and smaller-sized markets. [44] Paramount's exertion of influence over the network's management and the power of its voting stock led the FCC to its conclusion. The chart in this section comes from Videodex's August 1950 ratings breakdown, as reported in Billboard magazine. It is said that one of those broadcasts on the hookup announced that the U.S. had dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The company's television sets soon became the gold standard of the industry. Do not edit the contents of this page. Now maybe all those DuMont jokes I make on the 50's-centric Archive episodes will finally make sense. Paramount refused to sell. Podcast of TV CONFIDENTIAL Show No. As a history lover, and someone always digging to learn more about the history of technology, I discovered the DuMont Television Network while doing some research on the Internet Archive. With no other way to readily obtain cash, DuMont sold WDTV to Westinghouse for $9.75 million in late 1954, after Westinghouse decided to give public backing to the public interest groups for the channel 13 allocation in Pittsburgh and helping to form WQED. This eventually became the standard model for US television. [54] While this gave DuMont a short-term cash infusion, it eliminated the leverage the network had to get program clearances in other markets. Sheen beat out CBS's Arthur Godfrey, Edward R. Murrow, and Lucille Ball, who were nominated for the same award. [2][3] Since then, there has been extensive research on which DuMont programs have episodes extant. Lanham, Md. In return, DuMont would get $5 million in cash, guaranteed advertising time for DuMont sets and a secure future for its staff. The service provider did not have enough circuits to provide signal relay service from the four networks to all of their affiliates at the same time, so AT&T allocated times when each network could offer live programs to its affiliates. Most of the existing episodes are believed to have come from the personal archives of DuMont's hosts, such as Gleason and Dennis James. [31] Nevertheless, a number of DuMont programs survive at The Paley Center for Media in New York City, the UCLA Film and Television Archive in Los Angeles, in the Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, and the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. [13] Regular network service began on August 15, 1946, on WABD and W3XWT. He and his staff were responsible for many early technical innovations, including the first consumer all-electronic television receiver in 1938. By the early 1970s, their vast library of 35mm and 16mm kinescopes eventually wound up in the hands of "a successor network," who reportedly disposed of all of them in New York City's Eventually, the network provided original programs that are remembered more than 60 years later. Goldenson, Leonard H. and Wolf, Marvin J. 520.3 with guest James DuMont is available for listening on demand Posted on December 14, 2020 by admin James DuMont of Safety Original Airdates: Dec. 11-13, 2020 TVC 520.3: Actor James DuMont (The Righteous Gemstones, Spenser: Confidential) talks to Ed about Safety, a new drama that is now available for streaming on demand on Disney+, and The … As CBS and NBC (and to a lesser extent, ABC) gained their footing, they began to offer programming that drew on their radio backgrounds, bringing over the most popular radio stars. The title is Collections - Early television. CBS also waited until 1948 to begin network operations, because it was waiting for the Federal Communications Commission to approve its color television system (which it eventually did not). Sandy 04:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC) Clarke Ingram is an acknowledged expert on the DuMont Network . Weinstein (2004) uses "DuMont" for the name of the network. Other companies, including Mutual, the Yankee Network, and Paramount, were interested in starting television networks, but were prevented from successfully doing so by restrictive FCC regulations, although the Paramount Television Network did have some limited success in network operations in the late 1940s and early 1950s. [66] (The date has also been reported as September 1955,[67][68] November 1957[69] or August 4, 1958. United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. [8] The company's television receivers soon became the gold standard of the industry. [48] Most early television licenses were granted to established radio broadcasters, and many longtime relationships with radio networks carried over to the new medium. Of the three, only Washington's WTTG still has its original call letters. Several companies that distribute DVDs over the Internet have released a small number of episodes of Cavalcade of Stars and The Morey Amsterdam Show. Held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, Held by the Museum of Broadcast Communications, List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network, Passaic: Birthplace of Television and the DuMont Story, "REMINISCING: 'Day in Court', 'Winchell-Mahoney Time,' Du Mont Shows: Not to Be Seen Again", "Television/Video Preservation Study: Los Angeles Public Hearing", "Peabody Awards Collection Archives Record", "1953 NFL Championship - Lions vs. Browns - Vol. [citation needed], DuMont also holds another important place in American TV history. While there is missing/lost episodes for every TV broadcaster of the 1950s (regardless of country), the survival rate of DuMont Television Network series is much worse than that of NBC, CBS and ABC. The Internet Archive collection is limited to those shows which have lapsed into the public domain. DuMont aspired to grow beyond its three stations, applying for new television station licenses in Cincinnati and Cleveland in 1947. [29][57] DuMont programs aired live on 16 stations, but it could count on only seven primary stations – its three owned-and-operated stations ("O&Os"), plus WGN-TV in Chicago, KTTV (channel 11) in Los Angeles, KFEL-TV (channel 2, now KWGN-TV) in Denver, and WTVN-TV (channel 6, now WSYX) in Columbus, Ohio. An illustration of a horizontal line over an up pointing arrow. [41], DuMont's biggest corporate hurdle may have been with the company's own partner, Paramount. [51], The FCC's Hyman Goldin said in 1960, "If there had been four VHF outlets in the top markets, there's no question DuMont would have lived and would have eventually turned the corner in terms of profitability. Dr. DuMont claimed that the original 1937 acquisition proposal required Paramount to expand its television interests "through DuMont". A large number of episodes of Life Is Worth Living have been saved, and they are now aired weekly on Catholic-oriented cable network, the Eternal Word Television Network, which also makes a collection of them available on DVD (in the biographical information about Fulton J. Sheen added to the end of many episodes, a still image of Bishop Sheen looking into a DuMont Television camera can be seen). DuMont's latter-day obscurity, caused mainly by the destruction of its extensive program archive by the 1970s, has prompted TV historian David Weinstein to refer to it as the "forgotten network". If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. [7][page needed]. [21], The first broadcasts came from DuMont's 515 Madison Avenue headquarters. [citation needed], DuMont officials soon realized that ABC now had more resources than DuMont could even hope to match. [citation needed], WTTG and New York's WABD (later WNEW-TV, and now WNYW) survived as Metromedia-owned independents until 1986, when they were purchased by the News Corporation to form the nucleus of the new Fox television network. In contrast, by 1953 ABC had a full complement of five O&Os, augmented by nine primary affiliates. Even then, the picture quality was marginal at best (see also: UHF television broadcasting § UHF reception issues). Clarke Ingram, who maintained a DuMont memorial site, has suggested that Fox can be considered a revival, or at least a linear descendant, of DuMont.[76]. [32], Although nearly the entire DuMont film archive was destroyed, several surviving DuMont shows have been released on DVD. The last non-sports program on DuMont, the game show What's the Story, aired on September 23, 1955. [74][75] However, according to the registration filing, the trademark for "The Dumont Network" as owned by Lightning One was allowed to lapse on July 2, 2020, rendering the trademark dead. During the 1940s and 1950s, television signals were sent between stations via coaxial cable and microwave links that were owned by AT&T. The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or incorrectly Dumont) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of DuMont Media Group, a subsidiary of DuMont Laboratories.It began operation in the United States in 1946. An illustration of a magnifying glass. [1] Most of whatever survived was later loaded onto three trucks and dumped into Upper New York Bay in the mid-1970s. The plan was for NBC and CBS to exclusively offer ABC their most popular series after they had aired on the bigger networks. [30] By May, just eight programs were left on the network, with only inexpensive shows and sporting events keeping what was left of the network going through the summer. In 1954, the lavish DuMont Tele-Centre opened in the former Jacob Ruppert's Central Opera House at 205 East 67th Street, today the site of the Fox Television Center and home of WABD successor station WNYW.[23][24]. DuMont did not fare well with the change: none of its shows appeared on Nielsen's annual top 20 lists of the most popular series. Because DuMont was sold off in pieces (the stations/network to John Kluge, the laboratories to Fairchild, and the radio/television manufacturing operations to Emerson, and all this over a period of years), the copyright issues are complex, although some of the trademarks and service marks reside with the Fox network. [18] Without the radio revenues that supported mighty NBC and CBS, DuMont programmers relied on their wits and on connections with Broadway. : A significant episode in the history of broadcasting. The ceremony, hosted by DuMont and WDTV, was carried on all four networks. Westinghouse's acquisition of CBS in 1995 made KDKA-TV a CBS owned-and-operated station. This brought in $5 million for the company.[10]. NBC and CBS competed fiercely for viewers and advertising dollars, a contest neither underfunded DuMont nor ABC could hope to win. [9] In 1942, DuMont worked with the US Army in developing radar technology during World War II. Other kinescopes were put through a silver reclaiming process, because of the microscopic amounts of silver that made up the emulsion of black-and-white film during this time.[77]. [9] A few months earlier, the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont, and there were still some questions about whether UPT had really separated from Paramount. Much of what survived was either never properly copyrighted (live telecasts, because they were not set on a fixed medium, were not eligible for copyright at the time, although films of those telecasts could if they contained a proper copyright notice) or lapsed into the public domain in the late 1970s when DuMont's successor-company Metromedia declined to renew the copyrights. Check it out, It's a fun example of a kids show from the 50's. As a result, no other commercial VHF station signed on in Pittsburgh until WIIC-TV in 1957, giving WDTV a de facto monopoly on television in the area. Few stations carried the full DuMont program lineup. destruction of its extensive program archive, FCC's 1948 "freeze" on television license applications, UHF television broadcasting § UHF reception issues. I would like to get this article up to Featured Article status by the end of the year. ABC president Leonard Goldenson rejected NBC executive David Sarnoff's proposal, but did not report it to the Justice Department. On February 22, 2018, Lightning One, Inc., owned by Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan, filed a U.S. trademark application for "The Dumont Network. 169 local television stations aired Life, and for three years the program competed successfully against NBC's popular The Milton Berle Show. DuMont programs were by necessity low-budget affairs, and the network received relatively few awards from the TV industry. Bergmann, Ted, Skutch, Ira. [citation needed], By this time, DuMont had begun to differentiate itself from NBC and CBS. [17] ABC had just come into existence as a radio network in 1943 and did not enter network television until 1948 when its flagship station in New York City, WJZ-TV (now WABC-TV), began broadcasting. [38] Similarly, DuMont's summer 1954 replacement series, The Goldbergs, achieved audiences estimated at 10 million. [53], DuMont survived the early 1950s only because of WDTV in Pittsburgh, the lone commercial VHF station in what was then the sixth-largest market in the US. The name was later changed to "Metropolitan Broadcasting Company" to distance the company from what was seen as a complete failure. Much of its archive can be found at TVS's Dailymotion page. Early sales of television receivers ("sets") were hampered by the lack of regularly scheduled programming being broadcast. What was to be a six-month freeze lasted until 1952, when the FCC opened the UHF spectrum. Bishop Sheen aired his last program on DuMont on April 26 and later moved to ABC. [34], The Johns Hopkins Science Review, a DuMont public affairs program, was awarded a Peabody Award in 1952 in the Education category. By 1958, however, much of the library had been destroyed to recover the silver content of the film prints. [45] Thus, DuMont was unable to open additional stations as long as Paramount owned stations or owned a portion of DuMont. It was owned by Allen B. DuMont Laboratories,[1] a television equipment and set manufacturer, and began operation on June 28, 1942.[3][4][5]. DuMont was the first network to broadcast a film production for TV: Talk Fast, Mister, produced by RKO in 1944. Finally, some DuMont shows are in the hands of collectors, and are available to purchase, or to watch and/or download on popular sites like YouTube and the Internet Archive. In 1952, Sheen won an Emmy Award for "Most Outstanding Personality". [19] Before then, the networks relied on separate regional networks in the two time zones for live programming, and the West Coast received network programming from kinescopes (films shot directly from live television screens) originating from the East Coast. [59] That year, the company announced a merger with United Paramount Theaters (UPT) (the former theater division of Paramount Pictures, which was spun off as a result of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. antitrust decision), but it was not until 1953 that the FCC approved the merger. [64] The company only retained network links for live sports programming and utilizing the company's Electronicam process to produce studio-based programming. Reply: The UCLA Film and Television Archive is the title of the web page of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Because the shows were created prior to the launch of Ampex's electronic videotape recorder in late 1956, all of them were initially broadcast live in black and white, then recorded on film kinescope for reruns and for West Coast rebroadcasts. The merger provided ABC with a badly needed cash infusion, giving it the resources to mount "top shelf" programming and to provide a national television service on a scale approaching that of CBS and NBC. An illustration of a magnifying glass. Skip to main content. Some commercial time was sold regionally on a co-op basis, while other spots were sold network-wide. A few months after selling hi… More DuMont-era wrestling footage has turned up with a collector in Japan. All three DuMont-owned stations are still operating and coincidentally, all three are owned-and-operated stations of their respective networks, just as when they were part of DuMont. [20] WGN-TV (channel 9) in Chicago and WABD in New York were able to share programs through a live coaxial cable feed when WDTV signed on in Pittsburgh, because the station completed the East Coast-to-Midwest chain, allowing stations in both regions to air the same program simultaneously, which is still the standard for US TV. A Historical Study of the DuMont Television Network. [54] There were also external factors; the FCC's "freeze" on licenses and intense competition for the remaining VHF licenses in Pittsburgh including WENS-TV appealing the FCC's granting of the channel 11 license that was eventually affirmed for WIIC-TV (now WPXI), the battle between the Hearst Corporation (then-owners of WCAE) & KQV over the channel 4 license that would eventually become WTAE-TV, and (perhaps the most impactful one to DuMont's future) locally-based Westinghouse Electric Corporation (owners of radio pioneer KDKA) battling with local interest groups for the channel 13 license that was intended to be a non-commercial license. [60], ABC's fortunes were dramatically altered in February 1953, when the FCC cleared the way for UPT to buy the network. This is a 15-minute teleplay depicting the history of DuMont, with actors portraying Dr. DuMont … For a list of program series aired on DuMont, see List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network. On May 19, 1945, DuMont opened experimental W3XWT in Washington, D.C. Paramount Pictures became a minority shareholder in DuMont Laboratories when it advanced $400,000 in 1939 for a 40% share in the company. Ironically, Electronicam is best remembered for being used by Jackie Gleason's producers for the 39-half-hour episodes of The Honeymooners that aired on CBS during the 1955–56 television season. [31], Although recovery of films that have been submerged for decades has been done (see The Carpet from Bagdad as an example), to date, there have been no salvage-diving efforts to locate or recover the DuMont archive that reportedly sits in the East River, and if it survived in that environment, most of the films were likely damaged. Welcome to a series of Web pages devoted to the In 1944, W2XWV became WABD (a callsign derived from DuMont's initials). The previous reviewer is correct. [citation needed], However, Paramount vetoed the plan almost out of hand due to antitrust concerns. Hess, Gary Newton (1979). In addition to the below, the collection also holds eighteen 30- and 60-second commercials produced in 1951 for DuMont TV receivers. Bergmann, Ted; Skutch, Ira (2002). The network also largely abandoned the use of the intercity network coaxial cable, on which it had spent $3 million in 1954 to transmit shows that mostly lacked station clearance. Allen DuMont, who created the network, preserved most of what it produced in kinescope format. [70] It appears that the boxing show was syndicated to a few other east coast stations until 1958, but likely not as a production of DuMont or its successor company. Unless otherwise noted, all links are to the Internet Archive. This page was last edited on 13 February 2021, at 09:14. The FCC also denied CBS's request to be granted the channel 9 allocation in nearby Steubenville, Ohio and move it to Pittsburgh so that Steubenville had a chance to have its own television station. In 1940, the station moved to Manhattan as W2XWV on channel 4 and commenced broadcasting on June 28, 1942. However, DuMont was hampered by Paramount's two stations, KTLA (channel 5) in Los Angeles and WBKB (channel 4, now WBBM-TV on channel 2) in Chicago – the descendants of the two experimental stations that rankled DuMont in 1940. [41] Although Paramount executives indicated they would produce programs for DuMont, the studio never supplied the network with programs or technical assistance. DuMont's last broadcast, a boxing match, aired on August 6, 1956. It also would have had to sell two other stations – most likely ABC's two smallest O&Os, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and KGO-TV in San Francisco (both broadcasting on channel 7) – to get under the FCC's limit of five stations per owner. [36] Two seasons later, Variety ranked DuMont's popular variety series Cavalcade of Stars as the tenth most popular series. Relations between the two companies were strained as early as 1939 when Paramount opened experimental television stations in Los Angeles and Chicago without DuMont's involvement. "[52][page needed], During the early years of television, there was some measure of cooperation among the four major U.S. television networks. Nielsen was not the only company to report TV ratings. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. In 1949, Paramount Pictures launched the Paramount Television Network, a service that provided local television stations with filmed television programs. The FCC, however, did not require television manufacturers to include UHF capability. It allowed its advertisers to choose the locations where their advertising ran, potentially saving them millions of dollars. [citation needed], In its later years, DuMont was carried mostly on poorly watched UHF channels or had only secondary affiliations on VHF stations. Meanwhile, television sets would not be required to have all-channel tuning until 1964, with the passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act. How the FCC strangled a TV pioneer", "DuMont Television Network Historical Web Site", "Allen B. DuMont | American engineer and inventor", https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allen-B-DuMont, "A U. S. Television Chronology, 1875-1970", "That's the Way It Is: A History of Television News in America", "The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television" (PDF), "Jan. 29, 1901: DuMont Will Make TV Work", DuMont: The Original Fourth Television Network, Remembering the DuMont Network: A Case Study Approach, "The Golden Age of Pittsburgh Television", History of the AT&T Network — Milestones in AT&T Network History, "Film reveals real-life struggles of an onscreen 'Dragon Lady'. [55] Since WDTV carried secondary affiliations with the other three networks, DuMont used this as a bargaining chip to get its programs cleared in other large markets.[54][56]. 21) in the growing Louisville, Kentucky/Indiana market had to split its time between DuMont and ABC-TV. "[73] The application by Lightning One was very likely associated with its ownership of the "National Wrestling Alliance" trademark, the moniker of one of the oldest wrestling promotions in the United States. The ABC and CBS programs that aired in the same timeslot were canceled.[33]. Despite several innovations in broadcasting and the creation of one of television's biggest stars of the 1950s, Jackie Gleason, the network never found itself on solid financial ground. Forced to expand on UHF channels during an era when UHF tuning was not yet a standard feature of television sets, DuMont fought an uphill battle for program clearances outside its three owned-and-operated stations in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh. Addeddate. Goldenson quickly brokered a deal with Ted Bergmann, DuMont's managing director, under which the merged network would have been called "ABC-DuMont" until at least 1958 and would have honored all of DuMont's network commitments. A few months after selling his first set in 1938, DuMont opened his own New York-area experimental television station (W2XVT) in Passaic, New Jersey. DuMont produced more than 20,000 television episodes during the decade from 1946 to 1956. DuMont Laboratories was founded in 1931 by Dr. Allen B. DuMont. Serial Number: 87806925 :: Trademarkia Trademarks", "Billy Corgan reboots an old favorite, the National Wrestling Alliance", DuMont Television Network Historical Web Site, Clarke Ingram's DuMont Television Network Historical Website, The "Golden Telecruiser" Historic Pictures, List of DuMont programs at the Internet Movie Database, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DuMont_Television_Network&oldid=1010571514, Television channels and stations established in 1946, 1956 disestablishments in the United States, Defunct television networks in the United States, Television channels and stations disestablished in 1956, Articles with dead external links from August 2017, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from April 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2019, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2018, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from August 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2020, Articles with dead external links from July 2020, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Kinescopes of DuMont Network programs, from the, This page was last edited on 6 March 2021, at 04:25.
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