As a person sadly born in the 1990s, I’ve often heard that in the 60s and 70s, TV only had 3 channels. No remotes. Im a fan of old TV - Dean Martin Roasts, Johnny Carson, Twilight Zone, etc How would one watch those back then? What channels were such on? How did one know when a show would air? Basically, imagine right now it’s anytime between 1960 and 1975. I’m in New York City. How would I watch TV? Besides turning the set on.
How would you watch them: You'd find out which night the show aired and hoped you'd be there to see it. If not, wait for the Summer repeat, which may or may not happen with every episode, since series had a bigger number of episodes back then. Which channels they were on depended on which network they were on: Example, 'Green Acres' aired on CBS, and it'd air on whichever local channel was your CBS affiliate. How you'd know when a show would air: Check the listings in the TV Guide, or most local newspapers had TV listings included with their Sunday papers. Also, some networks would have a Fall TV Special in which they'd preview new shows for the season, and returning favorite, and these usually told which day & time they'd air.
Would get New York Channels in Pennsylvania. Flintstones after school. Gilligan's Island They would show movies every afternoon around 4 o'clock on Channel 7 out of New York. Good movies. Classics. Lucky, as you watched whatever was on. That was how it worked. The Dreaded News with the beacon of happiness - Bill Grimsby.
All TV was "appointment TV" back then, since you had to know when it was on if you wanted to see it. But apart from the printed listings and onscreen trailers, scheduling had a pattern which told you more or less what kind of programming to expect throughout the evening: early evening news at 6pm, light entertainment (comedy, soap opera, movie etc) from 6:30 to 9:00, serious drama, documentaries, main news etc from 9:00 to around 10:30. And after 10:30...? It seems extraordinary now, but British TV seemed to assume that most viewers went to bed then. From then till midnight-12:30 was for most nights a graveyard slot for odd minority interest shows, repeats, imported shows and old movies that had presumably been bought in package deals, etc. So that was where you were most likely to find something unexpectedly good or curious.
I remember in the 1980s when I was growing up we would get the 'big' edition of the newspaper on Sunday. It was "The Palm Beach Post" and tucked in this big paper was the weekly TV Guide of all the shows and programming for the next week. → And if the Post accidentally left the TV Guide out of the Sunday paper that was grounds for a phone call to the paper! That was a big deal back then because there was no other way of knowing what was on.
We had some wacky local TV- studio wrestling was fun; Chiller Theatre with Bill Cardille that ran horror movies late at nite- so popular that for the first few years, the affiliate did not broadcast Saturday Night Live b/c Chiller Theatre fans would have gone crazy. Then there was UHF TV- totally weird- some truly bad programming, including horror movies but grade Z stuff. A cow with antenna from outer space.
Oops, that is Roger Grimsby. Bill Beutel was his co-anchor. Living in the NYC area all my life, I remember those guys. Remember the after school movies they used to show on ABC back then? ABC Afterschool Special - Wikipedia
Just before my folks got divorced in 1980 when I was 7 we had a giant antenna that would pick up all kinds of groovy channels depending on which way you pointed it! That was fun for me to check the channels and see what was coming in. We lived in WPB, FL. I remember some of the channels back then I'd check on because they didn't come in clear. There was WCIX-Channel 6 from Miami. Sometimes we'd pick up Channel 11 - WINK from Fort Myers. There was Ch. 20, WBBH and Ch. 26 from Bonita Springs. Can't remember the call letters anymore for Ch. 26 out of Bonita Springs . . . used to have a memory like a steel trap for stuff like that!
That antenna was a barrel of fun picking up all kinds of stuff -- esp. with clear skies. And the folks got divorced after we'd lived at that residence for a year from '79/'80 and no more big house with an antenna forever after. Fun while it lasted!
I loved those funky old rotator boxes for roof top antennas. I think my father installed the antenna himself (of course he did, his generation did all the stuff themselves- electrical, plumbing, etc.).
In the 1960s, my parents and older brother used to pore over TV Guide and mark in it the shows they wanted to watch in the coming week. As we only had one set, there were occasional negotiations! My dad would have his sons serve as his remote control - so he could stay in his lounger!
I had my own tv set when I was really little... 1975. It picked up the 3 networks and pbs in the Cleveland area. It would also occasionally pick up UHF channels from other places including Canada! For the most part as a kid UHF was the place to be since it had lots of cool kids shows and re-runs. For me the mornings were all about Underdog and some Warner Bros stuff. Then after school it was Ultraman, Spider-Man, Little Rascals... and then a whole bunch of sitcoms that got more and more adult as it got closer to 7pm. But it could be the Monkees, Gilligans Island, Brady Bunch, Partridge Family Lidsville (trippiest show ever), The Bugaloos, Patty Duke, Hazel, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Star Trek, etc., etc. It was awesome. So many great shows especially for a kid who was real new to tv. Also VHF would have daytime talk shows like Dinah Shore, Merv Griffith, Mike Douglas, etc. as well as sometimes zany new syndicated shows like the Gong Show. At night it was mostly adult style stuff for a long time except some nights of the week had decent network shows (especially Tuesday night with Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley). And then at around 11pm or so PBS would often have stuff like Benny Hill, Monty Python and for some reason Dick Cavett. Also late night tv on the weekends had Saturday Night Live which was really cool to be a super early viewer for (especially considering my age). Also Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and Midnight Special. And then later I was all about SCTV and Fridays Plus... there would often be a 'movie of the week' or some such that would have the network television debuts of things like James Bond movies! Or even tv movies like the Jan and Dean one. Also post 11pm they would re-run stuff like Maude or Ironside. So much great television and I watched it all! haha. Too much probably. But the thing was that you almost never really knew what was going to happen except by routine. At any time you could be watching a tv station and expecting to hear your favorite tv theme only for some other show to start! Most papers only showed the prime time line-ups for a given day. You did need a tv guide or what came with the newspaper if you wanted something else. One of the best and worst things about tv back then was there was a lot of sports. So depending on the season, your favorite show might get pre-empted by a live baseball game. Now you need cable for pretty much all sports except football (and that sucks).
Most metropolitan areas had more than just three channels. In fact, I think there were at least six or seven channels available in most areas. The thing that I miss is local channels. There were more “public affairs” type shows from the smaller -non networked- channels. There is more community with these channels. But I digress.
Chilly Billy! Yeah, Pittsburgh had the three majors, PBS on WQED (Channel 13), and Channel 53. Somewhere along the line, we could pull WOR from NYC in. I don’t remember much about what was on the UHF side anymore. Early cable started to sneak in in ‘78/‘79. I think we had a remote by the mid-‘70s.
You had two dials. One for VHF and one for UHF (UHF was not a click dial, you had to hand tune it). Plus you had an antenna to adjust to make the picture clear. As to knowing what was on, you saw promos on the networks, plus the guide was printed in the local paper. Many people bought TV guide magazine. Later on, tvs could tune UHF band without a dial, and had remotes (this was in the 80s), so you could tune in by pressing the channel number/s, but you still might have to adjust the antenna by hand. I did not have cable until 1993 - I lived in the sticks.
we got a free TV Guide in the Sunday Paper.. I still have some...Feb 1964 The Beatles appearance on the ED Sullivan Show in the listings!
I remember all too well days that had baseball games so no after school cartoons that day. Also, I am from a small town, and a train ran through the town. If we were delayed at all the train would beat us, and we had to wait for it. It took forever, and I would lose half of Scooby Doo. One thing I think that was cool that has been lost are "events". When the Charlie Brown Halloween special ran, you waited for the night excitedly. And there were a LOT of those kinds of things. Movies too. It is nice having access to them now when we want, but some of the "event" has been lost.
