Re: [ARSCLIST] NBC chimes and routing

[David Breneman <david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Sammy Jones <sjones69@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I didn't know that before the NBC production
> facility was built in Hollywood in the late '30s, NBC shows
> originating from
> the West Coast were fed directly to Chicago before being sent out
> on the
> network.  I suppose that meant KFI, Los Angeles (which was not an
> O&O)
> received the feed of Hollywood shows only after they had made the
> trek to Chicago and back!

Could be, but NBC also had some regional "networks" as well.
They may have fed some stations via the local network and
others in and out-and-back method like you postulate.  Remember,
each show was performed twice, once for the Eastern and
Central time zones, and once for the Pacific and Mountain
time zones.  There would have been no need to feed anything
east of Chicago for the western performance.

>  Were the chimes for West Coast shows rung in
> Hollywood or Chicago?  

My understanding is they were inserted at the station
originating the broadcast.  I thought that was covered
on the web site you mention.  Maybe not.

> Apparently the West Coast feed was only one way, with Los Angeles
> having no
> way to monitor the rest of the net while it was feeding a program
> down the line.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here.  If you mean they had
no way to "confidence check" a signal to New York and back
that's almost certainly true.  It was AT&T's job to make sure
that the program got to where it was supposed to go, so it
would be an awful extravagence to run a second conditioned
line all the way from the east coast back to the west coast
just for confidence checking.  Anyway, if that line went dead,
what could the originating station do about it?
 
> What was the relationship exactly between NBC and AT&T?  I always
> assumed
> that AT&T merely supplied the requisite phone lines, but apparently
> they had
> quite a bit to do with routing and switching feeds to the different
> networks and legs.

It falls into two categories here.  There's the "permanent"
network that feeds each client station, and special connections
that let a show originate from, say, St. Louis or Washington DC.
Those would be set up on an as-needed basis.  During the 1940s,
especially during the war, the Jack Benny show originated from
a lot of military installations around the country.  One, I 
know, was done not far from me at the Bremerton Naval Ship
Yard.  There were no NBC affiliates in Bremerton (it was
KOMO in Seattle) so it would have been a special setup from
Bremerton, probably to KOMO and out to the network from there.
KOMO was the flagship station of a regional network I've
heard referred to as the Orange Network.  I don't know if that
was an official NBC designation or a nickname.

> And finally, what was the exact timing of an NBC (or other network
> show) supposed to be?  

Every show I've ever worked on was 28:30 or 58:30.  That was
syndicated TV, not network radio.  YMMV.


David Breneman         david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx