Tube City Almanac

January 12, 2009

The Original 'D-TV'

Category: History || By



Sixty years ago yesterday, the nation's fourth TV network debuted its newest station with a national broadcast live from the stage of the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh.

The network was DuMont, which was slugging it out with CBS, NBC and ABC while Rupert Murdoch was still wrangling kangaroos in Australia. The station was WDTV, Channel 3.

. . .

For the next eight years, that station (which became KDKA-TV in 1955) would be the only commercial* VHF television station licensed to Pittsburgh. And since most TV sets only had VHF tuners (UHF tuners weren't mandated until 1962), WDTV was for all practical purposes the only TV station most people around these parts could watch.

Well, you could try to pull in a fuzzy picture from WJAC-TV in Johnstown, which signed on in September of 1949, "serving millions from atop the Alleghenies." And a few people around here did.

But at least one ratings survey indicated that more than 90 percent of Pittsburgh area TV sets in the early 1950s were tuned to WDTV. Even after WQED-TV debuted in 1954 and Channel 11 (then WIIC) debuted in 1957, many viewers still weren't watching them.

They couldn't watch them. Their TV tuners had literally rusted to WDTV.

(Quick! Without looking it up, what Pittsburgh TV station was originally licensed to Irwin? Post your answer in the comments. Alert Reader "Does It Matter?" is not eligible to participate.)

. . .

Many of you think I spent all of my time over the holidays scratching my pasty white rear. But I only spent some of my time doing that.

In between scratching, I also did a quick 'n' dirty rebuild of Clarke Ingram's DuMont Television Network historical website.

The site, which Clarke has maintained since 1999, was unceremoniously nuked by AOL a few months ago. (Having lost most of its customers to broadband providers, AOL is apparently determined to chase away the rest by eliminating services like webhosting and blogs.)

Through the courtesy of my friend Tom and his Skymagik Internet Services (which also hosts tubecityonline.com), the DuMont site is alive again, just in time for the WDTV/KDKA-TV 60th anniversary.



* Clarification --- This story was modified to add the word "commercial." As pointed out in the comments, WDTV was the only commercial TV station; as noted later in this article, non-commercial WQED-TV debuted in 1954.






Your Comments are Welcome!

For the next eight years, that station (which became KDKA-TV in 1955) would be the only VHF television station licensed to Pittsburgh.


Well, no. WQED began in, I believe, 1954, so it was 5 years. Admittedly, WDTV/KDKA was the only commercial TV station in town until Channel 4 and channel 11 started.

And you could also, with luck (i.e. a good antenna and location) pull in channels 7 (Wheeling) and 9 (Steubenville).

Oddly, being born in 1950, while I remember TV from when I was very little and I remember when QED started (“The Children’s Corner” with Josie Carey and Fred Rogers was the first show they broadcast every day, at 3 or 4 p.m. I used to watch the test pattern waiting for it to come on!) and I remember when 4 and 11 started, I don’t remember when channel 3, WDTV, became channel 2, KDKA. Although I do remember the family discussing why there was no channel 1.

Where we lived in North Huntingdon, with the roof antenna, Channel 6 from Johnstown came in snowy but was often a better picture than Channel 11 from the North Side, which had a lot of “echo” and interference from airplanes and such. 13 was also sometimes hard to get a good picture on. Conversely, we could get Channel 4 without an antenna!

Where I live now (in Weirton, WV) I get channel 9, WTOV, Steubenville, without an antenna. At least I could on my predigital TV set.
Lois Fundis (URL) - January 13, 2009



Thanks for the clarification re: WDTV/KDKA, Lois; that’s what I meant to say … it was the only commercial VHF station in town.

WSTV/WTOV 9 and WTRF-TV 7 didn’t sign on until (I think) 1953, so that still left almost five years when WDTV was the only game in town.

It’s worth noting that Pittsburgh had two commercial UHFs in the 1950s —- WENS-TV 16 and WKJF-TV 53 —- which barely had any viewers. Both channels, obviously, got re-used years later.
Webmaster - January 13, 2009



In my kid years —living up on top of the hill above Jeannette — we got all Pittsburgh stations and channels 9 & 6 no problem. Ch. 7 usually. It was a big thrill when the cosmos aligned a few times and we got Ch. 10 from Altoona or Ch. 5 from Parkersburg, W.Va.
Do you have any old commercials from Ch. 9. They obviously encouraged their customers to star in the commercials and some were a real hoot. “Mr. Cost Plus” was pudgy car dealer dressed like a masked superman and there was some really cool old guy with a Yiddish accent who owned Forgash Furniture.
Yer Ol' Boss - January 13, 2009



OK, let me know when someone does give you the answer about Irwin.
Does it matter? - January 14, 2009



I’m going to take a wild guess here that the Irwin station was Channel 22. My recollection is that their studios were in a warehouse park in Monroeville right from the get-go, but perhaps their transmitter was licensed in Irwin.

If not WPTT, then maybe the religious station on Channel 40.

Oh, and in our corner of Monroeville, Channel 6 was our NBC station. It came in much clearer for us than did WIIC, which had horrific ghosting problems.
Bob (URL) - January 14, 2009



I cannot thank you enough for rebuilding the Dumont TV site! I went looking last week to verify a date for a coaxial hookup between NY-DC and to my dismay the website was gone.

In fact, thank you for all the local history!
Aynthem - January 14, 2009



WTAE was originally in Irwin . Go Steelers
rusting in seattle - January 14, 2009



Seattle, you’re a winner!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM4xSIdVDNA
Webmaster - January 15, 2009



Thanks for the prize, and keep up the great work on this site.
rusting in seattle - January 15, 2009



To comment on any story at Tube City Almanac, email tubecitytiger@gmail.com, send a tweet to www.twitter.com/tubecityonline, visit our Facebook page, or write to Tube City Almanac, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, PA 15134.