NBC TV/Radio Test of "Stereo" in the mid 50's

Title of post should be "NBC TV/Radio Test of "Stereo" in the mid 50's

Does anybody recall this? It would have been sometime around 1956. The gimmick was you were to tune your TV and radio to the local NBC affiliates, separate them on opposite sides of the room, and they would broadcast the entire prime time in "stereo," TV being one channel and radio the other. I faintly recall one of the programs that night being some situation comedy with a scene involving a good bit of walking back and forth, from one side of the stage to the other. Was it a promotion of "stereo" recordings coming out of RCA? It would have been one of the evenings when the programming was all "live," I suppose.

Can someone help me date this?

Well, found it myself on Wikipedia --
NBC Television and the NBC Radio Network offered stereo sound for two three-minute segments of The George Gobel Show on October 21, 1958.

It wasn't just networks experimenting in this sort of thing. I have in my collection a TV Guide for the week of April 19, 1959; on Wednesday of that week (April 22,) KGLO-TV in Mason City, Iowa (CBS affil) broadcast a late-night special at 10:30 pm, A NEW WORLD OF SOUND. "Doug Sherwin hosts this hour-long stereophonic concert. Viewers may obtain stereophonic effects by tuning to KGLO radio, operating on 1300 kilocycles."

Exactly what kind of concert wasn't specified; a local school band or something similar perhaps. Seems to me this was all part of the techno-exuberance of the 50's that led to 3-D movies that threw baseballs at the audience and "ping-pong" stereo records that sent locomotives across living rooms.

JeffM said:

and "ping-pong" stereo records that sent locomotives across living rooms.

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And Ronnie Alrdich piano music with one end of the keyboard on the left channel and the other end on the right. OMG, just awful!

But thanks, Jeff. I imagine WSB-TV/Radio did the same sort of thing here in Atlanta, I just don't recall it.

Mike_Rafone said:

And Ronnie Alrdich piano music with one end of the keyboard on the left channel and the other end on the right. OMG, just awful!

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The old record collectors up here (about whom I've written before...) feel that unless a record sounds like you just described, "it ain't REAL stereo." According to those guys, there hasn't been a true stereo record made since the sixties.

Years later, ABC was simulcasting their Friday night "In Concert" rock shows in stereo over FM stations wherever they could line that up, but that's a little different story. Of course by the late 80's the networks and many stations were offering stereo sound, which made it all a moot point.

JeffM said:

The old record collectors up here (about whom I've written before...) feel that unless a record sounds like you just described, "it ain't REAL stereo." According to those guys, there hasn't been a true stereo record made since the sixties.

Years later, ABC was simulcasting their Friday night "In Concert" rock shows in stereo over FM stations wherever they could line that up, but that's a little different story. Of course by the late 80's the networks and many stations were offering stereo sound, which made it all a moot point.

Click to expand...

Did The Midnight Special on NBC or Soundstage on PBS do that as well?

I don't think MTS stereo broadcasting started until 1984. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson recorded a few episodes in stereo that year, with some stations not being able to play them back that way until said episode was repeated in, say, early 1985. WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 of Hartford attempted it as early as a Grammys telecast that year.