At least we can be grateful to the late Dumont network for giving viewers their first chance to be entertained by the Great One, Jackie Gleason. (BANG ZOOM!)

Sounds like Chicago's Bill Kurtis narrating. My dad had a DuMont TV with about a 10" screen in the garage when I was a kid so he could watch football games. It was not operational when he got it - he twiddled around some tubes and had a TV. This was the early 1960s.

DuMont was incredibly progressive for their time. Blacks ("The Hazel Scott Show"), Jews ("The Goldberg's") and Asians ("The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong", with Anna May Wong).

@thetvbaby83

2 жыл бұрын

Very progressive 👏

@thetvbaby83

2 жыл бұрын

And a catholic church program, very progressive tho. Amazing 👏

Bishop Sheen looks like a Superhero in Drag

@greggi47

2 жыл бұрын

Putting him on opposite Milton Berle must have been influenced by the way both of them delighted in drag. Berle's makeup was a bit more subdued, though.

Excellent report from Decades TV on a nearly forgotten network. Not many kinescopes exist today from DuMont. WDTV, whose call letters stood for DuMont Television, was assigned to Channel 3, and was the first VHF TV station in Pittsburgh. When DuMont was selling off its properties, WDTV was sold to Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W) in 1955. The call letters were changed to match the Group W radio station, KDKA. Because another Channel 3 station was broadcasting from Cleveland, OH, the FCC allocated Channel 2 to KDKA. The WDTV call letters are now being used by Channel 5 in Weston WV, with no connection to the old DuMont network.

@JimPigMuseumOfSound

4 жыл бұрын

@Mark Schnabel Is there any way all surviving episodes of 'The View' can be dumped into New York Bay ?

@xtraceex

4 жыл бұрын

++that...

@franknew9001

2 жыл бұрын

@ Jim Pig Productions-- Is there any way that all of the current hosts of "The View" can be dumped into New York Bay? If they did this, the bay would become much more polluted. 😊😊

@thetvbaby83

2 жыл бұрын

@@franknew9001 omg hahaha 😆

@Neville60001

Жыл бұрын

@Jim Big Productions, do you have to be such a sexist, misogynist moron?🙄

I have a difficult time realizing that this was the first time I have ever heard of this network.

@johnbertalan4862

6 жыл бұрын

The DuMont Network existed from August 1946 until August 1956. Tragically, much of the programming captured on Kinescope, film, etc., was dumped into upper-New York Bay in the mid-1970's. Whoever authorized that action should be Tarred and Feathered at the least. What a terrible loss of Television History!

@carolbmoss

2 жыл бұрын

I was born in 1949, in Pittsburgh, and I only know KDKA. I'm glad to know this history.

@Neville60001

Жыл бұрын

@Track Handicapper, the reason you've never heard of this network is because they don't teach the history of radio and television in school.

@wmbrown6

8 ай бұрын

@@johnbertalan4862 - The East River, no? Right near their "Tele-Center" at 205 East 67th Street (to this day the home of what is today FOX 5 WNYW). When Metromedia ran the show (with Channel 5 as WNEW-TV), they were no different; one could have asked Paul Winchell about that when he was alive (his 1960's series "Winchell-Mahoney Time" which likewise ended up down in the river, for which he would later take Metromedia to court).

I find it amazing that after A B C bought out Dumont they threw all their films in the New York river because they didn't want to store them. Any other idea would have been better, It kind of showcases the kind of minds that were running ABC. From what I have heard about studios like MGM & Universal they thought a lot along the same lines.

I remember documentaries about TV always seemed to refer to 'the old Dumont Network...' Sounded kind of mystical.

Sometimes the guy that starts first (or very early), finishes last or not at all. At least Len Goldenson was able to stick it out (over coming many obstacles) with ABC.

Dumont did have a role in soaps, CBS just had better luck. Dumont premiered Faraway Hill, the first prime time soap before any appeared on television. In 1949 Dumont tried it's first daytime soap with the premiere of A Woman to remember. It only last a few months and so they probably just abandoned the idea until CBS became too dominant in daytime soaps for Dumont to care.

@erickirk6966

2 жыл бұрын

I came across a TV special that aired in 1994 called "50 Years of Soaps: An All-Star Celebration" on KZread. At the beginning of the 50 Years of Soaps special, there was a reference made about then WABD-TV (if the New York City TV station known to today as WNYW-TV Fox 5 New York was still in an experimental stage) did a test run locally of 2 popular radio soaps Big Sister and Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories. Both soaps were given a brief test run that lasted 4-6 weeks signalling the birth of the TV soap operas. Daytime soaps would make the switch to TV over the next decade, and radio soaps that started as early as 1930 being phased out by the mid-to-late 1950s. DuMont having the first ever prime-time soap (or serialized drama) would pave the way for prime-time soaps to takeoff in the decades that followed. DuMont was a pioneer in the media industry. Even though DuMont may have not had roots in radio like NBC and CBS did. DuMont was responsible for the development of household TV sets and TV being a combination of radio and motion picture.

WDTV Channel 3, Pittsburgh's window on the world! Captain Video was my favorite.

@KeithE4

2 жыл бұрын

The sale of WDTV to Westinghouse, when it became KDKA-TV, was the beginning of the end for Dumont. Pittsburgh was more important to Dumont than either New York or Washington. It was a monopoly, and also aired programs from CBS, NBC, and ABC.

@syxepop

2 жыл бұрын

@@KeithE4 - the reason was that because of PA's "undulated terrain" and the close positioning of Pittsburgh vs. Cleveland and Buffalo meant only 1 VHF station could be put originally (a few years later a second and a third station could be put) without interference and that wound up to be WDTV. The Pittsburgh station was used to negotiate the clearing of DuMont programming for their affiliates in other markets. DuMont's programming was what WDTV put on prime time while they would choose "the best from" NBC, CBS (and ABC after '48) to broadcast on other times of the day.

DuMont was an engineer and his company (DuMont Laboratories) arguably made the best gear. I've seen KZread videos of old TV restorations and DuMont sets were for their time the best. Later DuMont sold out to Emerson which became Fairchild Semiconductor and led to the creation of Intel (Robert Noyce, one of Intel's founders was a former DuMont engineer). DuMont started out making cathode ray tubes (CRTs) for oscilloscopes. At the time, CRTs were imported from Germany and only lasted a few dozen hours. Not practical for consumer TV sets. DuMont made some technical advances (never explained fully today) that made the CRT last for thousands of hours. He also invented the "magic eye" tuning tube and the clapper...

From a segment on Through the Decades from 2017.

Dumont television network the forgotten network.

The off camera voice of the announcer on "Captain Video" was Fred Scott..who was also "Video Ranger""Rogers"..who introduced the reruns of old movie westerns on the show..and "Uncle Fred"Scott..would later become a popular cartoon show host on WABD/WNEW TV Ch.5 in NYC.

@richardbartolo2890

2 жыл бұрын

Fred Scott was pretty ingrained in the channel 5 station in New York. I remember into the middle and late 80s he would announce the station call letters and announce the movie you were watching or which movie was coming up next.

@wmbrown6

8 ай бұрын

@@richardbartolo2890 - Funny, I heard Mr. Scott left Channel 5 around 1978-79. But it was within the end of DuMont's existence as a television network that three people who would form the nucleus of the voices you all know from the heyday of WNEW-TV / Metromedia - Tom Gregory, Ed Ladd and Lou Steele - first joined the station's announcing staff. I seem to remember seeing a circa 1956-57 kinescope where the station ID (then very much WABD) was read by Mr. Steele. (According to vintage issues of Broadcasting magazine, Mr. Gregory joined the staff as recounted in their Dec. 5, 1955 issue, and Mr. Steele joined a week late as noted in the Dec. 12 issue; both had worked at WPAT in Paterson, NJ before then.) The voice you may have heard into the late 1980's was Chuck Caron - ironically a part-timer at the station whose run dated to at least the mid-1960's, but would outlast all three, continuing into about 1990.

I seem to remember that one of DuMont’s problem was getting exposure, and except for their O&O stations often had to share time with the other networks. I am not sure if they ever offered a full prime time schedule.

DuMont exists today. It evolved into Metro Media and then FOX bought it.

@patrickmccarthy7877

2 жыл бұрын

Woolworths still exists in Australia.

@thetvbaby83

2 жыл бұрын

@@patrickmccarthy7877 and toys r us in Canada lol 😆 I miss that store 😕

@arthurgearheard4701

2 жыл бұрын

But I'm sure that " The Honeymooners " is better than anything aired on Fox!

@thetvbaby83

2 жыл бұрын

@@arthurgearheard4701 I believe other companies bought the fox entertainment etc, fox "news" is its own thing lol 😆 now. Could be wrong tho

@Neville60001

Жыл бұрын

@The TV baby, no, you're not wrong, Fox is its own thing now (Disney bought 20th Century Fox, but divested the 'Fox' part, keeping the movie and TV business as 20th Century Studios.)

Dumont network is best network of all time

Did you know that DuMont still exists...as FOX? Most of the stations were bought by Metromedia, which was eventually acquired by NewsCorp and became the FOX network.

@syxepop

2 жыл бұрын

Not only that, the building where Fox Broadcasting has their eastern offices and WNYW (Fox5 in NYC, the same flagship station DuMont had as WABD) is THE SAME ONE DuMont had their main offices and studios. So Fox is DuMont's replacement in many more ways than one.

@randysmith7045

Жыл бұрын

how sad

@wmbrown6

8 ай бұрын

After the DuMont Network was dissolved, the company that owned their remaining stations (after dispensing with the Pittsburgh outlet) changed its name to the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation, and the stations were rebooted as independents. In 1957 they acquired WNEW 1130, the top music station back then. In 1958 they did two things to distance themselves from what management considered the "failure" of DuMont: a) The company changed its name to the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation on June 9, and b) on September 7, New York's Channel 5 became WNEW-TV. As the firm (which would be acquired by John W. Kluge in 1959) began acquiring properties (such as Playbill magazine and the billboard sign firm Foster and Kleiser), the parent company adopted the name Metromedia, Inc., in late March 1961; up to 1967, station sign-ons and sign-offs listed WNEW-TV's owner/operator as "Metropolitan Broadcasting, Division of Metromedia, Inc." (As a 1964 sign-off by Tom Gregory, as recorded by a DX'er, illuminated this, would he, had such appellations as we know today been used back then, have been called "Metropolitan Man"?) Then in 1967, the broadcasting properties rebranded as Metromedia Television and Metromedia Radio; on the former, a new proprietary sans-serif font, Metromedia Television Alphabet, was used on the stations they owned for the next several years. After 1985 is what we all know about; following the acquisition "Metromedia" disappeared from station branding (in its last months as WNEW-TV, Channel 5's ID simply said 'WNEW-TV NEW YORK', rather than 'WNEW-TV Metromedia New York'). Then finally, FOX (and Channel 5's call sign change to WNYW).

@wmbrown6

8 ай бұрын

@@syxepop - For years after the company rebooted as Metropolitan Broadcasting Corp. and the station's calls became WNEW-TV, Channel 5 still used the old DuMont TA-124 cameras in place from DuMont Network days (right up to 1964-65; a behind-the-scenes pic of Soupy Sales on the set of his show on that station proves it). By 1965, they were finally replaced with General Electric cameras (as on an opening of Chuck McCann's WNEW-TV show from 1965 - likely PE-28 or PE-29), but only late in the next year (1966) they added live studio color with the acquisition of Norelco PC-70's they would use well into 1977 (when they gave way to RCA TK-46's). Another famous shot of the DuMont camera with WNEW-TV and its then-logo on the top side involved Alan Freed who was pensive as one of the songs was playing and the teens were dancing on "The Big Beat" show. (He was in front on the side at right, the camera somewhat behind him at left.)

Only the Du Mont Network would dare schedule Bishop Fulton J. Sheen against NBC'S superstar, Milton Berle. 📺

Crushed by the bigger networks - Govt should have stepped in to assist to help foster networks to grow for increased competition.

@garymattscheck9066

3 жыл бұрын

For one thing, Dumont didn't have a radio network like CBS and NBC did to provide talent.

@KeithE4

2 жыл бұрын

@@garymattscheck9066 -- ABC did, but it didn't help much until they merged with United Paramount Theaters in 1953.

@wmbrown6

8 ай бұрын

From my understanding, the government in those days had a pro-CBS/NBC bias, only ABC's 1953 merger with UPT saved that network.

My father, Paul Ashley, a well known puppeteer in the 1950's-70's did an all puppet production of the HMS Pinafore on the DuMont Network. I believe it aired on April 18, 1956. Does anyone know of any video postings of this?

@xtraceex

4 жыл бұрын

I enjoyed his work on the old Chuck McCann show(s). He was the perfect Stan Laurel to Chucks' Oliver Hardy in those routines they did. Glad some of it survives on Y/T...

@coolaunt516

4 жыл бұрын

The only place i can think of that may have a copy is the Paley Center for Media in NYC. They have a lot old tv/radio shows there. Not sure if they are open now but you can call them (I didn't see an email online but I can't imagine them not having one). Good luck!

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998

3 жыл бұрын

Nearly the entire program library of the DuMont Network was dumped in a river in the 1970s.

@kevinbutler1955NYC

2 жыл бұрын

Paul Ashley also hosted his own kids tv puppet show on WABD TV Ch.5 in NYC(the former NYC flagship station of the Dumount TV Network)"Uncle Paul's Lunchtime"weekday afternoons during the month of June,1956..Chuck McCann was Paul's assistant puppeteer(at the time).

@kevinbutler1955NYC

2 жыл бұрын

Paul And Chuck first performed their tv puppet version of"H.M.S.Pinafore"on the very first broadcast of"Wonderama!"on WABD TV Ch.5 in NYC on Sunday afternoon:September 25,1955..Sandy Becker was the series' first host/performer.

Can we get Decades network back to south Florida?

I wonder why they didn't try soap operas. In the early 50's CBS had success with soaps: The Guiding Light and Search For Tomorrow. And the soaps were cheap to produce.

@thetvbaby83

2 жыл бұрын

They did, it was primtime tho.

I Hate That The " Decades Network "Has Now Charged Into "Catchy Comedy" It Is The End Of An Era !!!!!! from South Louisiana.

Of course, most of the visuals are of NBC equipment.

The old Dumont tv station WABD (now WYNW) NY and WTTW Washington formed the nucleus of the Fox Network

@kazprado5356

6 жыл бұрын

paul nadratowski it's WTTG in Washington DC

@KeithE4

2 жыл бұрын

WTTG. WTTW was and is an educational/PBS affiliate in Chicago that went on the air in 1955.

@wmbrown6

8 ай бұрын

@@KeithE4 - And neither is to be confused with WTTV in Bloomington/Indianapolis, IN, which started out on Channel 10 in 1949 and moved in 1954 to Channel 4.

Is that Bill Curtis narrating?

@trackhandicapper739

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, it is.

@johnbertalan4862

6 жыл бұрын

@Track Handicapper: Thanks much. I grew up in Arlington Heights in the 60's to the late 70's, and thought I recognized that voice. He used to co-anchor the news with Walter Jacobson, if memory serves.

@robertlee6781

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnbertalan4862 yep, he was on WBBM along with Johnny Morris on sports. They pretty much owned Chicago back then.

@KeithE4

2 жыл бұрын

@@robertlee6781 -- IIRC, it would go back and forth between 2 and 7 in the late '70s and early '80s as the top newscast in Chicago. Channel 5 was the also-ran, with Ron Burgundy... er, I mean Hunter... anchoring. NBC made a bad decision hiring him when Floyd Kalber went to the Today Show in New York. It took a few years for them to hire Carol Marin and Ron Magers.

@karenryder6317

2 жыл бұрын

Didn't he replace Carl Castle on NPR's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me"?

I compare Dumont to the failures of WB & UPN( even My Network tv) of the 90’s & mid 2000’s.

I just watched a longer documentary on this subject the other day, they were very progressive 😐

JG was way too loud.