DuMont Television Network
The
DuMont Television Network was the world's first officially licensed commercial
television network, beginning operation in the
United States in
1946 and lasting until
1956. It was owned by
DuMont Laboratories, a television equipment and set manufacturer.
DuMont Laboratories was founded in
1932 by Dr.
Allen B. DuMont. He and his staff were responsible for many early technical innovations, including the first all-electronic consumer television set in
1938. Its television sets soon became the gold standard of the industry.
A few months after selling his first television set, DuMont opened an experimental television station in
New York City, W2XWV. Unlike
CBS and
NBC, he continued experimental broadcasts throughout
World War II. In
1944, W2XWV became
WABD (after DuMont's initials), the third commercial television station in New York. On
May 19,
1945, DuMont opened experimental W3XWT in
Washington, D.C. A minority shareholder in DuMont Laboratories was
Paramount Pictures, which had advanced $400,000 in
1939 for a 40% share in the company. Paramount had television interests of its own, having launched experimental stations in
Los Angeles in 1939 and
Chicago in
1940. This would come back to haunt DuMont later.
Soon after his experimental Washington station signed on, DuMont began experimental
coaxial cable hookups between his laboratories in
Passaic, New Jersey and his two stations. One of those hookups was the announcement of the U.S.'s dropping of an
atomic bomb on
Nagasaki, Japan on
August 9,
1945. This was later considered by both Thomas T. Goldsmith, the network's chief engineer (and DuMont's best friend), and Dr. DuMont himself as the official beginning of DuMont. Regular network service began on
August 15 1946 on WABD and W3XWT. In
1947, W3XWT became
WTTG, named after Goldsmith. The pair were joined in
1949 by WDTV in
Pittsburgh.
Although NBC was known to have had a station-to-station link as early as
1943, DuMont received a network license before CBS and NBC even resumed their experimental broadcasts.
ABC had just come into existence as a radio network in
1943 and at the time had no plans for television.
Despite no history of radio programming to draw on and perennial cash shortages, DuMont was an innovative and creative network. Without the radio revenues that supported mighty NBC and CBS, DuMont programmers had to rely on their wits and on connections in
Broadway to provide original programs still remembered fifty-plus years later.
The network also largely ignored the standard business model of 1950s television, in which one advertiser sponsored an entire show, enabling it to have complete control over its content. Instead, DuMont sold
commercials to many different advertisers, freeing producers of its shows from the veto power held by sole sponsors. This eventually became the standard model for U.S. television.
DuMont also holds another important place in American television history. WDTV's sign-on made it possible for stations in the Midwest to receive live network programming from stations on the East Coast, and vice versa. Before then, the networks relied on regional Eastern and Midwest networks for live programming, and the West Coast received network programming from
kinescopes (films shot directly from live television screens) shot on the East Coast. On
January 11, 1949, the coaxial cable linking the two regions (known in television circles as "the Golden Spike") was activated. The ceremony, hosted by DuMont and WDTV, was carried on all four networks. It would be another two years before the West Coast could get live programming, but this was the beginning of the modern era of network television.
The first broadcasts came from DuMont's
Madison Avenue headquarters, but it soon found additional space (including a fully-functioning theater) in the New York branch of
Wanamaker's department store. Still later, a lease on the
Adelphi Theater on 54th Street gave the network a site for variety shows, and in 1954, the lavish DuMont Tele-Center was opened in the former New York Opera House at 205 East 67th Street.
Among some of DuMont's better-remembered programs:
*
Mary Kay and Johnny, the first television
situation comedy*
Faraway Hill, the first network-televised
soap opera*
Cavalcade of Stars, a
variety show hosted by
Jackie Gleason that served as the birthplace of the
Honeymooners.
*
Life is Worth Living, Bishop
Fulton J. Sheen's devotional program. It went up against
Milton Berle in many cities, and was the first program to successfully compete in the ratings against "Mr. Television".
*
Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour, which had originated on radio in the 1930's under original host Major Bowes.
* The Morey Amsterdam Show, a comedy/variety show hosted by Morey Amsterdam, which had started on CBS before moving to DuMont in 1949.
* The Arthur Murray Party, a dance program
* With This Ring, a panel show on marriage
* Live coverage of boxing and professional wrestling, the latter of which showed matches from the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, the predecessor to World Wrestling Entertainment
In addition, DuMont also offered:
* Captain Video and His Video Rangers
, a hugely popular kids' science fiction series
* Rocky King, Inside Detective, a private eye series starring Roscoe Karns.
* The Plainclothesman
, a camera's-eye-view detective series
* Big Town''.
Although DuMont's programming pre-dated videotape, many DuMont offerings were caught on kinescopes. These kinescopes were said to be stored in an ABC network warehouse until the
1970s. Actress
Edie Adams, the wife of comedian
Ernie Kovacs (both regular performers on early television) testified in
1996 before a panel of the
Library of Congress on the preservation of television and video. Adams claimed that so little value was given to these films that in the early 1970s the kinescopes were removed from ABC's warehouse and dumped into
Upper New York Bay. Nevertheless, a number of DuMont programs survive at the
Museum of Television and Radio in New York City, the
UCLA television archives in Los Angeles, and the
Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
DuMont began with one basic disadvantage; unlike NBC and CBS, it did not have a radio network from which to draw revenue. Also, most early television licenses were granted to established radio broadcasters, and many long-time relationships with radio networks carried over to the new medium. As CBS and NBC gained their footing, they began to offer programming that drew on their radio backgrounds, bringing over the most popular radio stars. Early television stations, when asked to choose between an affiliation with CBS offering
Jack Benny,
Lucille Ball and
Ed Sullivan, or DuMont with an unknown
Jackie Gleason and
Bishop Sheen, chose the well-travelled route. In smaller markets, with a limited number of stations, DuMont and ABC were often relegated to secondary status, so their programs got clearance only if the primary network was off the air or on a delayed basis via a kinescope recording (or "teletranscriptions" as they were referred to by DuMont).
DuMont aspired to grow beyond its three stations, applying for licenses in
Boston (or
Philadelphia, depending on the source) and
Cincinnati; this would have given the network five stations, the maximum allowed by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the time. However, DuMont was hampered by minority owner Paramount's two stations,
KTLA-TV in Los Angeles and WBKB-TV (now
WBBM-TV) in Chicago. Although these stations never carried DuMont programming (with the exception of one year on KTLA from 1947-48), the FCC ruled that Paramount's two licenses were in theory DuMont
owned and operated stations, which effectively placed DuMont at the five-station cap.
Adding to DuMont's troubles was the FCC's
1948 "freeze" on television-license applications. This was done to sort out the thousands of applications that had come streaming in, but also to rethink the allocation and technical standards laid down prior to
World War II. It became clear soon after the war that 12 channels (44-50 MHz had been removed from broadcasting use) were not nearly enough for national television service. What was to be a six-month freeze lasted until
1952, when the FCC opened the
UHF spectrum. However, the FCC didn't require television manufacturers to include UHF capability. In order to see UHF stations, most people had to buy an expensive converter. Even then, the picture quality was marginal at best. Tied to this was a decision to restrict VHF allocations in medium- and smaller-sized markets. Television sets weren't required to have all-channel tuning until
1964.
Forced to rely on UHF to expand, DuMont saw one station after another go dark due to dismal ratings. DuMont bought a small, distressed UHF station in
Kansas City in
1954, but ran it for just two months before shutting it down at a considerable loss, after attempting to compete with three established VHF stations.
The FCC's Dr. Hyman Goldin said in
1960, "If there had been four VHF outlets in the top markets, there's no question DuMont would have lived and would have eventually turned the corner in terms of profitability. I have no doubt in my mind of that at all."
DuMont only survived the early
1950s because of WDTV in Pittsburgh, the only commercial VHF station in what was then the sixth-largest market. WDTV's only competition came from UHF stations and grade B signals from stations in
Johnstown and
Wheeling. No other commercial VHF station signed on in Pittsburgh until
1957, giving WDTV a de facto monopoly on television in Pittsburgh. Since WDTV carried secondary affiliations with the other three networks, DuMont used this as a bargaining chip to get its programs cleared in other large markets.
Despite its severe financial straits, by
1953 DuMont appeared to be on its way to establishing itself as the third national network. On paper, it should have been at a considerable disadvantage to the other startup network, ABC. DuMont programs aired live on 16 stations, but it could only count on five primary stations (its three
O&Os plus
WGN-TV in Chicago and
KTTV in Los Angeles). In contrast, ABC had a full complement of five O&Os augmented by nine primary affiliates. ABC also had a radio network (it was descended from NBC's Blue Network) on which to draw revenue. However, DuMont had by this time turned its biggest liabilityinto an asset. Claiming CBS and NBC were too expensive, DuMont sought to offer a medium for advertisers to pick and choose where their programs aired, thus saving them millions of dollars. ABC, on the other hand, operated in a similar manner as CBS and NBC, slapping advertisers with a "must buy" station lineup. However, with only 14 primary stations (compared to CBS and NBC, which had over 40 primary stations each), it soon found itself badly overextended and on the verge of bankruptcy. The picture was dramatically altered in 1953, when ABC was bought by United Paramount Theaters (recently spun off from Paramount Pictures). The merger provided ABC with a huge cash infusion. Also, through UPT president
Leonard Goldenson, it gained ties with the Hollywood studios that more than matched the ties DuMont's producers had with Broadway.
Realizing that the ABC-UPT deal put it on life support, DuMont was very receptive to a merger offer from ABC. Goldenson quickly brokered a deal with Ted Bergmann, DuMont's managing director, under which the merged network would have been called "ABC-DuMont" until at least
1958, and would honor all of DuMont's network commitments. In return, DuMont would get $5 million in cash, guaranteed advertising time for DuMont sets, and a secure future for its staff. However, Paramount
vetoed the plan almost out of hand due to
antitrust concerns. A few months earlier, the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont, and there were still some questions about whether UPT had really separated from Paramount. In any case, a merged ABC-DuMont would have had to sell a New York stationas well as two other stations.
With no other way to readily obtain cash, DuMont sold WDTV to
Westinghouse Electric Corporation for $9.75 million. While this gave DuMont a short-term cash infusion, it eliminated the leverage DuMont had to get clearances in other markets. By
February 1955, DuMont realized it could not continue as a television network. It decided to shut down network operations and operate WABD and WTTG as independents. On
April 1,
1955, most of DuMont's entertainment programs were dropped. Bishop Sheen aired his last program on DuMont on
April 26 and later moved to ABC. By May, only eight programs were left on the network, with only inexpensive shows and sporting events keeping what was left of the network going through the summer. The network also abandoned the use of the intercity network coaxial cable, on which it had spent $3 million in 1954 to transmit shows that mostly lacked station clearance.
In August, Paramount, with the help of other stockholders, seized full control of DuMont Laboratories. The last non-sports program on DuMont aired on
September 23,
1955. After that, DuMont used its network feed only for occasional sporting events. DuMont's last broadcast, a boxing match, occurred on
August 6,
1956.
DuMont spun off WABD and WTTG as the "DuMont Broadcasting Corporation." It later changed its name to "Metropolitan Broadcasting" to distance itself from what was seen as a complete all-around failure.
John Kluge bought Paramount's shares for $4 million in
1958, changing the company's name to
Metromedia in
1960. WABD became WNEW-TV and later
WNYW; WTTG still broadcasts under its original call letters.
All three DuMont-owned stations are still operating, though they are now affiliated with other networks. Coincidentally, all three are O&Os, just as when they were part of DuMont. Of the three, only Washington's WTTG still has its original call letters. New York's WABDand Washington's WTTG survived as independents in the Metromedia Group before being bought by
Rupert Murdoch's
News Corporation for its
Fox Broadcasting Company, in 1986.
Clarke Ingram, who maintains a DuMont memorial site, has suggested that Fox is a revival or at least a linear descendant of DuMont. [
1] Indeed, WNYW is still headquartered in the former DuMont Tele-Centre, now known as the Fox Broadcasting Center.
Westinghouse changed WDTV's calls to
KDKA-TV, and switched its primary affiliation to CBS immediately after the sale. Westinghouse's acquisition of CBS in
1995 made KDKA-TV a CBS owned-and-operated station.
Main article: List of former DuMont Television Network Affiliates
In its later years, DuMont was carried mostly on poorly-watched
UHF channels or had only secondary affiliations on
VHF stations. DuMont ended most operations on April 1, 1955, but honored network commitments until August 1956.
* Bergmann, Ted, and Ira Skutch.
The DuMont Television Network: What Happened? Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8108-4270-X.
* Hess, Gary Newton.
An Historical Study of the DuMont Television Network. New York: Ayer Publishers, 1979. ISBN 0-4051-1758-2.
*
The DuMont Television Network Historical Web Site*
Who Killed Captain Video? How the FCC strangled a TV pioneer. Glenn Garvin,
Reason, March 2005.
*[
2] David Weinstein.
The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television. Temple University Press, 2004.
*
Space Hero Files: Captain Video
