One Month In…

Thought I’d commemorate my first month at CBS (KCBS/KCAL-TV) with a little post about what my life is involved in these days… So I’d like to share (in case anyone actually reads this and cares) a little history of the place where I currently hang my hat…

For those who don’t know what the heck I’m yammering about… I am the Manager of Information Technology for KCBS/KCAL-TV in Los Angeles. This Duopoly of TV Stations are part of the CBS Televison network (well actually, KCBS is the LA Affiliate and KCAL is an independant but Network owned station).

KCBS was originally licensed as an experimental station on May 10, 1931 and carried the call letters W6XAO. On December 23, 1931, the experimental station went on the air one hour per day, six days per week. (There were all of five TV sets in all of Los Angeles at the time.)

On March 10, 1933 the station broadcast the first full-length motion picture ever presented on television, “The Crooked Circle.”

On April 15, 1938, television’s first serial started on the experimental station. The title of the series was “Vine Street.”

On January 1, 1940, the first remote television broadcast west of New York City took place on W6XAO. It was the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.

On May 6, 1948, the station was granted full commercial status and adopted the call letters KTSL-TV. It was acquired by the Columbia Broadcasting System January 1, 1951, and ten months later, the call letters were changed to KNXT to coincide with CBS Radio Station KNX.

Opened in 1938, CBS Columbia Square (my current home) at 6121 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California has been home to the radio stations KNX, KCBS-FM (formerly KNX-FM) and television stations KCBS-TV (Channel 2, formerly KNXT and KTSL) and KCAL-TV (Channel 9, formerly KHJ-TV).

Columbia Square was built for KNX and as the Columbia Broadcasting System’s West Coast operations headquarters on the site of the Nestor Film Company, Hollywood’s first movie studio. KNX began as a 5-watt radio station and was purchased by CBS founder William S. Paley in 1936 at a cost of $1.25 million to expand his fledgling network’s California presence and to tap into Hollywood’s talent pool.

Columbia Square opened on April 30, 1938 with a full day of special broadcasts culminating in the star-studded evening special, “A Salute to Columbia Square” featuring Bob Hope, Al Jolson and Cecil B. DeMille. The program was carried coast-to-coast on the Columbia Broadcasting System, beamed to Europe via short wave, and carried across Canada on the CBC. On that premiere broadcast, Hope joked that Columbia Square looked like “the Taj Mahal with a permanent wave.” Jolson quipped, “It looks like Flash Gordon’s bathroom.”

Columbia Square became home to some of the best-known comedies of radio’s golden age. Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton, Eve Arden “(Our Miss Brooks),” “Blondie,” Jack Oakie and Steve Allen sparked to the airways from the Square.

Dramas included “Suspense,” “Gunsmoke,” “Dr. Christian,” “The Whistler,” “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” “The CBS Radio Workshop” (author Aldous Huxley introduced a production of “Brave New World”) and “Columbia Presents Corwin” (dramas produced by Norman Corwin.)

Musical acts performing at Columbia Square included Eddie Cantor, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and Gene Autry. Composer Bernard Hermann frequently scored and conducted Columbia Square broadcasts. Through the facilities of KNX, the Columbia network broadcast big band music from nearby ballrooms including the Hollywood Palladium and the Earl Caroll Theater.

Bob Crane was a top-rated KNX deejay at Columbia Square in the 1960s. James Dean was an usher. The pilot for I Love Lucy was filmed on the Square’s stages in TV’s early years. Some of the Square’s once-luxurious radio theaters were converted to recording studios for Columbia Records where Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand, among many top stars, recorded albums.

KNX moved into new studios in the Miracle Mile neighborhood on L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard which it shares with CBS Radio stations KFWB, KTWV, KCBS-FM and KLSX. KNX, the last radio station to operate in Hollywood, moved after 67 years of operation at the Square just after 11pm on August 12, 2005 following a farewell broadcast from its Columbia Square studios.

KCBS-TV and KCAL move into a new facilities at CBS Studio Center in Studio City in April of 2007 (Something that is keeping me very busy these days!).

The old building really is showing it’s age… But without a doubt, when you are in Columbia Square, you are literally and figuratively Right Smack in the middle of Hollywood!

Happy New Year everybody!

Cheers,

Jeff