TeleVue-Cleveland's first "TV Guide"

Before Tivo's, DVR's and On Screen program guides, most of us got our TV program information from the newspaper or some stations even mailed program schedules to viewers in the earliest days of television. As programming got more developed, there was a need for a digest form of publication. Newspapers started to fill the void but other companies undertook independently owned TV Listing Magazines..TV Guide began as a strictly New York Publication before going national in 1953.

Many other cities had their own similar magazines, and Cleveland had theirs, known as TeleVue, Which began publishing in February 1949. The 16 page magazine covered not only TV, but FM radio and had nightclub, theater and sports listings There were only channel 5 WEWS and WNBK 4 listed at the time. FM stations WERE 98.5 and WEWS 102.1 were featured as well as Cleveland Barons AHL Hockey schedules. The magazine was published at 2160 Payne Avenue, Cleveland. It cost 10 cents an issue or $3.00 for a full year
(6 cents an issue for the whole year). There are 5 issues on microfilm at Cleveland Public Library from February-April 1949. The listings below come from an educational teaching website.



http://www.nhlink.net/education/teaching/ms/ms45c.htm

Click on each page to see it in full. I find this to be a very interesting look at the entertainment culture/life of Cleveland in the late 1940's.

Still Feeling My way Here..

As Ive told some friends recently..This blog business is all new to me.I went with Blogger because of its ease of use and price (Free!) As such I am sort of feeling my way through this. The first template (look) was sort of default so I decided to try something new..Not sure I'll stay with this but I like it for now..BTW I plan on linking to some sites in the near future as soon as I figure out how to add links to the side of the page. Thanks to all for the encouragement and good wishes..I may try to work on something over the weekend..

Chh-Changes...

That admittedly tired title above aptly describes NE Ohio AM radio the last week or so..Canton's WHBC-AM going to more full-Blown talk during the day and Sports Talk (FOX) nights and weekends. The only thing I don't agree with is the all weekend Fox Sports..We will see how things shake out..Also not sure about Dennis Miller as a talk host..

WKNR-ESPN 850 has put Kenny Roda on 6-9 PM and Mark "Munch" Bishop from 3-6PM.I didnt mind Roda being a Pittsburgh fan but I thought his act has gotten tired over the last couple years..Michael Reghi and Greg Brinda will be hosting Cavs and Indians post-game shows, respectively..Good moves there..Good to see Mel Karmazin actually trying to compete in sports talk..

Finally, WARF-1350 as of about a half hour ago, is all Sports again..Which is not surprising to me. They are taking Sporting News Radio, which seems to have more lives than a cat..basically because that is all that is available in the market..The libtalk format seems to have run its course in several markets..So the dumping of it is not a surprise..WARF will have Akron U Sports, Akron Aeros Baseball and will have the NHL Columbus Blue Jackets next season..Good move there. While WTIG Massillon also carries the Jackets, they are pre-empted often for High School Sports. I still would have liked to see Classic Country back on 1350.I like Sports, but it seems to be a little overkill here..We shall see what happens..

Short note:I have no problem with comments, but This will not be a free-for-all..There are several sites to "discuss" radio..Keep that in mind ..Thanks..

WEWS Channel 5-First In Cleveland

WEWS Channel 5-First In Cleveland
This being the first post, I thought I would share some thoughts about WEWS-TV 5 in Cleveland..Most Clevelanders hardly remember when Channel 5 was NOT an ABC affiliate. The call letters stood for E. W. Scripps, founder of the Scripps-Howard Newspaper chain, who also owned the Cleveland Press (Now E. W. Scripps, Inc. ) To prepare for the new station, which would be the first TV station in Ohio, Scripps-Howard put WEWS-FM 102.1 on the air early in 1947 to give some of the on-air employees experience.

WEWS signed on the air officially December 17, 1947. The station was affiliated with all four TV networks at first. The First program was the Cleveland Press Christmas Party with special guest, Movie Actor Jimmy Stewart. There were something like 300 TV sets in the Cleveland area. As other stations signed on in 1948 and 1949 WEWS settled into being the full CBS affiliate. My guess would be that WEWS is probably the station that has been owned the longest by the same company outside of Network owned and operated stations.

Below is a Saturday, February 12, 1949 schedule taken from TeleVue, a very early Cleveland TV Magazine..

WEWS-5 CBS/DuMont/ABC


10AM-6:30 Test Pattern
6:30 Lucky Pup Review-CBS/New York
7PM News-ABC/New York
7:15 Wren's Nest-ABC/New York-Early 15 minute sitcom
7:30 Western Film
8:30 Pabst Presents-Cleveland Barons Hockey (American Hockey League) The Barons take on the Washington Lions live from the Cleveland Arena.
10:30 Next Week On Television..

On most of the Network Programs, the sponsor and the originating Network/City are listed as The coaxial cable from New York to Chicago had just been completed a month earlier

And from Friday, May 26, 1949

Source:Canton, Ohio Repository Newspaper

4PM Distaff-Women's Talk
5:30 Uncle Jake's House-Gene Carroll
6PM Small Fry Club-DuMont
6:30 Lucky Pup-CBS
6:45 Vincent Lopez-DuMont
7PM Sports Special
7:30 World News (Probably CBS News-Douglas Edwards)
7:45 Linn Sheldon Show
8PM Film
8:15 Dugout Interviews
8:25 Baseball:Chicago White Sox At Cleveland Indians (Indians won 4-0)

Bob Neal And Indians Legend Tris Speaker were the Broadcast team (Source:2005 Cleveland Indians Media Guide)
11PM Coming Attractions

Linn Sheldon was one of the first Cleveland TV "stars" On his "Linn Sheldon Show" he lip synced popular records..His was the first sponsored show in Cleveland, by Rogers Jewelers..He also did coming attractions shows (sort of a "video" TV Guide) Sheldon gained lasting fame as Kid host "Barnaby" from 1956 till well into the 1980's on KYW/WKYC 3 and WUAB 43..

Hello All:-A little about me.

My name is Tim Lones...I reside in Canton, Ohio with my wife of nearly 15 years, Linda. I have worked in a Canton, Ohio grocery store as a stocker for over 15 years..Many of you have had contact with me through various Radio-Television Message Boards such as Radio-Info, Radio Insight and Ohio Media Watch, While I have interest in Radio-TV Broadcasting as a whole my particular focus for this blog will be"Classic Media" In NE Ohio..Television and Radio in particular. I might also comment on recent happenings in Broadcasting but I am not a "News Source"..I'll leave that to OMW and others.

While this will be mainly a media blog, I will also comment on some of my other interests, including but not limited to..Game Shows, Animated cartoons, Classic Country Music, DBS Satellite/Cable networks/programming, Southern Gospel/Christian topics Sports , and anything else that strikes my fancy..I hope to get maybe 2-3 postings in a week depending on work, etc..Thanks for reading..