NBC News Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Caravan era=== The first regularly scheduled American television newscast in history was made by NBC News on February 21, 1940, anchored by [[Lowell Thomas]] (1892–1981), and airing weeknights at 6:45 p.m. It was simply Lowell Thomas in front of a television camera while doing his NBC network radio broadcast, the television simulcast seen only in New York.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Lowell|last=Thomas|title=So Long Until Tomorrow|location=New York|publisher=Wm. Morrow and Co|year=1977|isbn=0-688-03236-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/solonguntiltomor00thom/page/17 17]–19|author-link=Lowell Thomas|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/solonguntiltomor00thom}}</ref> In June 1940, NBC, through its flagship station in [[New York City]], W2XBS (renamed commercial WNBT in 1941, now [[WNBC]]) operating on channel one, televised 30¼ hours of coverage of the [[Republican National Convention]] live and direct from [[Philadelphia]]. The station used a series of relays from Philadelphia to New York and on to upper [[New York State]], for rebroadcast on W2XB in [[Schenectady, New York|Schenectady]] (now [[WRGB]]), making this among the first "network" programs of NBC Television. Due to wartime and technical restrictions, there were no live telecasts of the 1944 conventions, although films of the events were reportedly shown over WNBT the next day. About this time, there were irregularly scheduled, quasi-network newscasts originating from NBC's WNBT in New York City, ([[WNBC]]), and reportedly fed to WPTZ (now [[KYW-TV]]) in Philadelphia and [[WRGB]] in Schenectady, NY. Such as, Esso sponsored news features a well as The War As It Happens in the final days of World War II, another irregularly scheduled NBC television newsreel program which was also seen in New York, Philadelphia and Schenectady on the relatively few (roughly 5000) television sets which existed at the time. After the war, ''NBC Television Newsreel'' aired filmed news highlights with narration. Later in 1948, when sponsored by [[Camel (cigarette)|Camel Cigarettes]], ''NBC Television Newsreel'' was renamed ''[[Camel Newsreel Theatre]]'' and then, when [[John Cameron Swayze]] was added as an on-camera anchor in 1949, the program was renamed ''[[Camel News Caravan]]''. In 1948, NBC teamed up with ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine to provide election night coverage of President [[Harry S. Truman]]'s surprising victory over [[List of governors of New York|New York governor]] [[Thomas E. Dewey]]. The television audience was small, but NBC's share in New York was double that of any other outlet.<ref>[http://www.tvobscurities.com/2009/02/new-york-city-hooper-ratings-for-election-night-1948/ "New York City Hooper Ratings for Election Night 1948"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302083754/http://www.tvobscurities.com/2009/02/new-york-city-hooper-ratings-for-election-night-1948/ |date=March 2, 2009 }} TVObscurities.com.</ref> The following year, the ''[[Camel News Caravan]]'', anchored by [[John Cameron Swayze]], debuted on NBC. Lacking the graphics and technology of later years, it nonetheless contained many of the elements of modern newscasts.<ref name="Matusow">{{Cite book|last=Matusow|first=Barbara|title=The Evening Stars: The Making of the Network News Anchor|url=https://archive.org/details/eveningstarsm00matu|url-access=registration|location=Boston|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company|year=1983|isbn=9780395339688}}</ref> NBC hired its own film crews and in the program's early years, it dominated CBS's competing program, which did not hire its own film crews until 1953.<ref name="Matusow"/> (by contrast, CBS spent lavishly on [[Edward R. Murrow]]'s weekly series, ''[[See It Now]]''<ref name="Matusow"/>). In 1950, [[David Brinkley]] began serving as the program's [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] correspondent, but attracted little attention outside the network until paired with [[Chet Huntley]] in 1956.<ref name="Whitworth">{{Cite magazine|last=Whitworth|first=William|title=An Accident of Casting|magazine=The New Yorker|date=August 3, 1968}}</ref> In 1955, the ''Camel News Caravan'' fell behind [[CBS]]' ''[[CBS Evening News|Douglas Edwards with the News]]'', and Swayze lost the already tepid support of NBC executives.<ref name="Matusow"/> The following year, NBC replaced the program with the ''[[Huntley-Brinkley Report]]''. Beginning in 1951, NBC News was managed by Director of News [[William R. McAndrew|Bill McAndrew]], who reported to Vice President of News and Public Affairs J. Davidson Taylor.<ref name="Frank">{{Cite book|last=Frank|first=Reuven|title=Out of Thin Air: The Brief Wonderful Life of Network News|url=https://archive.org/details/outofthinairinsi00fran_43|url-access=registration|location=New York|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1991|isbn=9780671677589}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page