Rick Sebak produces, writes and narrates documentaries for WQED tv13, as well as national specials for PBS. His programs are available online or call 800/274-1307.

Anything Good On TV Tonight?

Pittsburghers have been asking for 60 years!

It was a snowy Tuesday night, Jan., 11, 1949, when WDTV, Pittsburgh's first television station, went on the air. It was Channel 3 on the primitive TV sets that you could buy back then.

How many Pittsburghers were crazy enough to buy a TV before there was anything to watch? Oh, it was estimated there were about 4,000 sets in the area when things got started at 8:30 that evening. And there were about that many brave and curious people in the audience watching the show live onstage.

WDTV didn't have a studio yet, so early mobile TV equipment was brought in from New York, and cameras were set up in the old Syria Mosque in Oakland, where a musical review program was assembled featuring several local acts. It was to be an extravaganza of sorts.

At 8:30, the title cards went out over the airwaves: "DuMont Presents YOUR MAGIC WINDOW." The first person you saw was the popular Pittsburgh radio announcer Ed Schaughency dressed as Pa Pitt sitting in front of a TV set, dialing in a program. He served as host for the evening and introduced several dignitaries as well as performers, including the Homestead Steel Choir, the Pittsburgh Savoyards, a folk-dance group called the Polish Falcons and a popular local country-music group known as Slim Bryant and His Wildcats, who performed early every morning on KDKA Radio's "Farm Hour."

Right: Slim Bryant (far right) and His Wildcats were on Pittsburgh's first TV show in 1949. By the early 1950s, when this picture was taken, they had a monthly program on WDTV.

"It was vaudeville," remembers Bryant, who just celebrated his 100th birthday this past December and doesn't mind showing off his remarkable memory. "That evening it was just one act after another." Bryant recalls they got to sing two numbers. "The unusual thing was everybody had to wear makeup. They had a professional lady there who made us all up. Even all the players in the pit orchestra had to get made up and they were never seen on camera!"

The evening's festivities were a milestone for the DuMont Television Network, which put the "D" in WDTV. The world's first commercial television network, DuMont began operating back in 1946. It was owned by DuMont Laboratories, an early manufacturer of television equipment and high-quality TVs for the home, having made the first all-electronic TV in 1938. The company's founder, Dr. Allen DuMont, was there on the Syria Mosque stage that night and said a few words.

With WDTV, the DuMont Network completed a chain of television stations from New York (WABD) and Washington, D.C., (W3XWT, which became WTTG) through Pittsburgh to Chicago (WGN), connecting them all with co-axial cable. It's not a stretch to say that, on that January night in 1949, modern American network television was born. As Ed Schaughency said as the program ended at 9:30: "This is Pa Pitt joining DuMont's WDTV with the nation to form the world's largest television network!"

And although we were the sixth-largest TV market in the country then (we're 23nd now), viewers in Pittsburgh didn't need to change channels for a long time. WDTV was the only station in town until April Fool's Day 1954, when WQED began broadcasting. And there weren't any other commercial stations around until September 1957, when WIIC, Channel 11, went on the air.

In 1952, WDTV changed its location on the dial and became Channel 2. In the early 1950s, the DuMont Network had trouble competing with the newer, richer networks. In late 1954, Westinghouse Corp. bought the struggling WDTV and the next year changed the station's call letters to KDKA-TV to pair it with the historic radio station. (WDTV's call letters were later assigned to a station in Weston, W. Va., about 130 miles south of here.)

As TV gets ready to go all-digital next month on Feb. 17, it's good to remember what Pittsburghers were trying to tune in to on their newfangled TV sets just a quick 60 years ago.

Rick Sebak has been producing TV shows for WQED and PBS since 1986. He thanks Paul Korol, Jean Connelly, Slim Bryant and Lynn Boyd Hinds (author of Broadcasting the Local News) for their help on this page.