CBS News Live Coverage of The Assassination of President John Kennedy Part 2

[debtansey89]

I was 7 years old and home sick from school that day.

[fromthesidelines]

...and a kinescope of one of those "delayed broadcast" editions of this episode is on deposit at the Museum of Television and Radio.

[fromthesidelines]

That's right, 'Sheri'. The program's "master feed" was also recorded- for "delayed broadcast"- for affililates who couldn't carry "AS THE WORLD TURNS" "live" at 1:30pm(et), including CBS West Coast stations. The show could be seen as late as the next day or six weeks after the initial broadcast, depending on the affiliate. The "master feed" copy did not include the bulletins shown live on the network [that's why the cast wasn't told what happened until after the episode ended]....

[williamwdavis]

I'd kinda' like to hear more about that mountainous adventure with a pretty girl on Route 66

[sbchelldiver]

...Contd) until the World knew it happened...I should think that WTC '93 was one of the first instances you had an event of this nature happening right before our eyes...911 was the first full lenght right-in-your-face event to be shown...& also it must be remembered, that Internet in '63 was still but a dream....

[ksol1460tv]

@sbchelldiver Actually, the shooting of Oswald and the Challenger disaster -- live on CNN with zillions of school kids watching -- were the first such events. JFK's death didn't really happen before our eyes, the Zapruder film didn't come out until 12 years later. The only live coverage was on radio. It's more like the coverage of the Apollo I fire in January 1967. There was some video footage of the actual spacecraft fire, but it wasn't shown until much later.

[ronnykmarshall]

In 1993 KQED in San Francisco ran the coverage in real time for several days. It was so sureal watching it. Some of the stores in the Castro had TV's on watching it.

[eekoutasignal]

@ronnykmarshall One of my local PBS stations did something similar; running the NBC footage until 8pm that night.

[Sheri451]

I read some where that somewhere out there, they have the entire episode of this without the bulletins I believe it's at The Museum of TV and radio I'm really not sure of this, but that's just what I read.

[Marty933]

I was in 4th grade when this happened. The kids were all sent home from school early because the teachers were all in the office sobbing. When I got home, my mom was out somewhere, the doors were locked, and I had to wait outside for hours until she got home. She hadn't heard what had happened and chewed me out for lying about such an awful thing.

[lwmson]

@Marty933 LOL! I could imagine that, "It's bad enough that you're playing hookey from school Marty, and now you're going to lie to me with some crap about Kennedy being shot? Just wait until your father gets home!!"

[Marty933]

@lwmson LOL!  That's almost verbatim what she said! And the "Just wait until your father gets home" IS exactly right!

[lwmson]

@Marty933 You know, I've heard a lot of those "where were you and what you were doing when Kennedy was shot" stories. But I have to honestly say that yours ranks as one of the most interesting and amusing, Marty!

[TheSeattlehawk94]

Sad to think that all those Friskies dogs died of old age.....Poor Friskies dogs...

[sbchelldiver]

@TheSeattlehawk94 You should be aware, these were other times, satellite television was still in its infancy, news tv still had to rely on telephones & teletype to get their news, much as newspapers & radio did, so there wasn't anything like todays news-as-it-unfolds; so what could they do? the media was almost as helpless as the public, so they had to keep showing their programmed schedules...even when Challenger's crash happened, there was a blackout of sorts from when it happened....

[ksol1460tv]

@sbchelldiver 4 minutes from the shooting to the initial UPI bulletin and Jay Watkins' 10-minute sprint to the WFAA studios are pretty damned good. The difference isn't "instantaneous" technology but a matter of priorities. Radio was live on the scene, several stations broadcast the entire thing. TV only carried the highlights and the limo trip through downtown Dallas wasn't considered important by them (and wouldn't have been today, either). They were getting ready for the Trade Mart speech.

[sanyo51]

this sad but i love youtube to able to view this part of history. i wasnt even born yet but my mom and grandmother told me of that day of how everyone like 9/11 sat glued to their tvs and radios crying and wishing for hope.

[bubblinbrownsugar616]

@sanyo51 Me too Sanyo51. I love it with no editing or interruption. I just want to watch it from beginning to end and the news coverage like this is probably one of the last good things about youtube.

[spactick]

@wiiplayer9isback Your all heart dude. I was home from school that dreadful friday, and believe me you didn't want to know anything else but what was unfolding in Dallas. It was THE event that made television the pre-eminent medium for getting your information.

[fromthesidelines]

...however, when the program returned after the "station break", announcer Dan McCullough was supposed to give the sponsor I.D. for the second half of the show {Carnation's Friskies pet food division}, but he was cut off as Cronkite's second bulletin began. Again, it was decided to return to the program after he finished [no one in the cast was aware of what was going on outside the studio until after the episode was "over"]....

[fromthesidelines]

No one at CBS was certain WHAT was happening in Dallas, and decided to resume "AS THE WORLD TURNS" after the first bulletin...just in time for the "alternate sponsor's" message [Nestle's Instant Nescafe, with announcer Norman Rose]. The affiliates took a 20 second "station I.D." break in the middle[the network flashed a dark screen while local stations aired brief ads and identified themselves- "WCBS-TV, Channel 2, New York"], as was the custom at the time.... 

[hebneh]

It really is sort of amazing that after this earth-shaking announcement, regular programming resumed with this Nescafe Instant Coffee commercial - and the NuSoft softener announcement, as well as the promo for "Route 66", not to mention the cheerful dog food ads soon after. Regular shows would be pre-empted just minutes later, not to resume for several days. This was Friday afternoon, and normal scheduling didn't return till Tuesday.

And we watched throughout, in shock and disbelief.

[snoops71]

@hebneh My uncle was in college then, and he said there were morons complaining about missing their TV shows. They came back in a few days. Talk about thoughtless.

[lwmson]

@snoops71I don't mean to be cynical of your uncle, but I find that hard to believe.

[snoops71]

@lwmson So do I, but there have always been thoughtless, insensitive people out there. You know how people can be about their favorite shows.

[ksol1460tv]

@snoops71 Plus the fact that the complainers may have been Republicans who didn't like Jack anyhow and were thinking "who cares if that commie's dead", blah blah. Heard some reactions like that the day after RFK bought it.