• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Paley Center to salute NBC's 90 years this Sunday

S

seatownmedia

Star Participant
Apologize if this has already been brought up here. But I love these historical looks at TV history. (In this case, probably TV AND radio!). Some of these type of shows can be somewhat slow and dull, but I will be watching and DVR'ing. Also nice to see The Paley Center celebrating NBC, as most know Paley was the head of CBS for several decades. However, the Paley Center seems to beyond all that and are just concerned with preserving and enhancing media.
 
Hopefully they will follow the same footsteps the networks did for their retro-specials back in the 70s like when CBS had most of their stars showed up and when ABC had Barry Manilow singing "Its A Miracle" to the history of ABC. What NBC had in 1976 ( ? ) wasn't bad either. Too bad they didn't follow the same footsteps as the local stations when their celebrated their milestones such as WBAL in Baltimore when they showed promos from the 60s and 70s, Denver's KWGN showing the first television image from Colorado ( Fred & Faye ) and Buffalo's WKBW actually explaining what the call letters WKBW meant..Well Known Bible Witness.
 
I wonder if there will be any mention of David Letterman or Conan O'Brien since they ended up on other networks.
 
anotherguy said:
I wonder if there will be any mention of David Letterman or Conan O'Brien since they ended up on other networks.
Click to expand...

NBC owns the intellectual property of the shows that aired there, so why not?

My question is how much time will they give to radio, given it won't be exciting TV.
 
TheBigA said:
NBC owns the intellectual property of the shows that aired there, so why not?

My question is how much time will they give to radio, given it won't be exciting TV.
Click to expand...

surprised they are even giving time to anything that won't attract enough people under 50
 
nomadcowatbk said:
surprised they are even giving time to anything that won't attract enough people under 50
Click to expand...

I would expect a short segment on the radio years, but you are correct, I think shows like "Cheers", "Frasier", "Friends", "Seinfeld" will be given much more attention than their tv history in the 50's and 60's. SNL will likely be given a lot of time, as it is the longest running comedy show in television history. Will be interesting how they handle "The Cosby Show".
 
TheBigA said:
The way to handle it is in it's time. No need for an update. What they did in their time was all that matters in this context.
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no. In the context of history, I agree there is no need for an update. However, most have dropped syndication of this show, so it has a bit of a stigma attached.
 
seatownmedia said:
I would expect a short segment on the radio years, but you are correct, I think shows like "Cheers", "Frasier", "Friends", "Seinfeld" will be given much more attention than their tv history in the 50's and 60's. SNL will likely be given a lot of time, as it is the longest running comedy show in television history. Will be interesting how they handle "The Cosby Show".
Click to expand...

Overall, a B+. And it went pretty close to what I predicted. Lots of attention to their hit sitcoms, and lots of late night, SNL, and even news and sports. The Cosby Show was recognized, but not till the third hour in the "family" category for about 1:25 total time. A bit lengthy at 3 hours, that is why I DVR'd it to alteast get it down to about 2 hours and 15 minutes. But good job overall IMO.
 
Last edited:
Yep, I watched the entire thing. Good tribute to SNL and the sitcoms, but when time was spent on game/reality shows, too much time on reality shows. And a few big game shows NOT mentioned - uhhh...where's Card Sharks? Let's Make a Deal? The Match Game? Hollywood Squares? At least HS could have been mentioned...it was the longest running of the four (on just NBC alone). Wheel of Fortune was mentioned but Pat Sajak did not talk about Chuck Woolery or Susan Stafford by name. That should have been on the special.
I'm sure they're just trying to get that 25-54 audience anyways, not that they would know about Peter Marshall.

I hardly saw anything about their radio days. That should have been mandatory. So many great shows on NBC Radio in the 1930s-50s - Jack Benny, Abbott & Costello, Lux Radio Theatre, The Guiding Light pre-CBS TV, etc.
Oh, and did you notice nothing on their Saturday morning lineup (except Saved by the Bell)? Not saying they should have given tribute to Kukla, Fran and Ollie, but Underdog, The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, etc. should have gotten at least a short 30-second tribute.
 
Last edited:
I'm guessing one reason a lot of the older game shows didn't get covered was that the tapes/kinnies are gone. (For instance, I don't think a lot of "Hollywood Squares" broadcasts were saved, and the ones I've seen are pretty poor quality.) Someone mentioned cartoons...The only long running ones I can think of that were exclusively on NBC were the Pink Panther cartoons and the Smurfs. Overall, concerning much of NBC's TV history, with the exception of really old stuff like Milton Berle and Sid Caesar, I'm not really sure they offered much "must-see" TV before the 80s, other than maybe "Bonanza", "Dragnet", "Sanford & Son", the various Disney shows, and Carson.
 
One problem is that NBC was notorious for destroying tapes of older shows into the 70's. Just about anything on that was live or taped could have been destroyed, including daytime programming, Carson's Tonight shows before he took ownership, and even news and sports. So unless the shows producers kept copies themselves a lot of older shows are gone forever, and a big part of it was NBC's own fault.
 
Last edited:
Not to mention that the Golden Age of Radio technically only lasted 25 years at best. Where as the visual medium was the way it was going to go. Not really surprised they wouldn't go into much detail as they did. But again 90 years in 3 hours may have been asking too much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom