ABC News Promo (1961)

An early commercial for ABC News, featuring National Correspondent Roger Sharp and commentator John Cameron Swayze. (Date estimated to be 1961, with some reports indicating 1960 or 1962.)

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Roger
• Sharp
• ABC
• News
• broadcasting
• history
• journalism
• TV
• television

[rogersharparchive]

Thanks for helping nail down the right date!

[donwert]

@cr3861 Quite true. Unfortunately, the WZZM transmission antenna was located north

of Grand Rapids and most viewers in the Battle Creek/Kalamazoo area couldn't receive

a watchable signal. WKZO and WOOD had their antennas located halfway between

GR and Kazoo and their signals came in perfectly. It wasn't until WUHQ, Channel 41,

in Battle Creek came on the air in 1970 as a full-time ABC station that viewers in the Battle Creek/Kalamazoo area got access to ABC News.

[cr3861]

@donwert WZZM(Grand Rapids) signed on later in 1962

[BadSneakers]

Nice shots of a couple of B52Gs, fully loaded with hound dog missles.

[observer9670]

@MrMKH2010 CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite went to a half hour in September 1962. The Huntley-Brinkley Report did the same a week later. ABC Evening News didn't expand to a 30 minutes until 1967.

[altfactor]

@joebradio But ABC's news staff was also smaller than CBS's or NBC's.

However, when Jim Hagerty (previously President Eisenhower's press secretary) became ABC News division president in early 1961, he was able to get a budget increase which allowed him to hire more correspondents and film crews.

ABC still had a smaller news staff through the 1960's than the other TV networks, but not much smaller than its rivals after 1961.

[rgarcia77]

WOW! Alex Dreier, I remember when he had his own show here in LA.

What!? No weather girls?

[donwert]

Very interesting. In 1962 I lived in south-central Michigan. We got 2 NBC stations (from Grand Rapids and Jackson) and 2 CBS stations from (Kalamazoo and Lansing), but no ABC station. All those stations carried an occasional ABC program, but never ABC News.

[wmbrown6]

@altfactor - And what replaced "ABC News Final" was the weekend editions (Saturday and Sunday nights) that aired after 11 P.M.

[MrMKH2010]

It is really amazing that network news was not deemed important in the late '50's and early '60's. I still remember when the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite aired in St. Louis from 5:30 - 5:45 p.m. I believe, but am not certain, that it went to a full half hour when Vietnam got to be important.

[chalklounge]

Amazing quality upload!