An Early “Discovery” – Nature in a Live TV Studio

We spent a wonderful half hour learning how the bats could navigate their maze. Unfortunately that meant that the studio was full of flying bats, so viewers of the news were then treated to occasional pictures of bats swooping over Louis Lyons as he read the day’s news!

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News at Ten

The News at Ten was WGBH’s first nightly news program and Boston’s first 10:00 pm news program. It aired for a year beginning in the spring of 1966.

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Meeting the original Rocky, 1964

Rocky was a bit shorter, was dressed conservatively in slacks and a sports jacket that showed that he was in very good shape. I figured he must have been Fernandes’ bodyguard. I had no idea what Frankie did for Fernandes.

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Paul Noble Remembers: Eleanor Roosevelt

In the fall of 1959, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt began her series of monthly discussion programs for National Educational Television. It was called “Prospects of Mankind,” and was a production of WGBH-TV

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It was short, but what a ride!

From Dave Svens: This short film clip was taken during WGBH’s election coverage in November, 1966. Host Bob Baram is interviewing the newly elected US Senator from Massachusetts, Edward Brooke, who was the first African-American senator elected by popular vote.

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A stranger in a strange land

From Fred Barzyk: Bill insisted I try to get into the scholarship program. You studied for your graduate degree at Boston University and worked three days a week at the Educational Television station. Free tuition and you got $600 to live a year in Boston!

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Press and People

From Don Hallock: WGBH produced Press and People in 1959 or ’60. Host Louis M. Lyons talked with important print and photo-journalists of the time, including Edward R. Murrow, about their work and philosophies.

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Remembering the original WGBH

From Art Singer: Fifty one years ago this past September, on several late afternoons a week, I would take the twenty minute walk from BU across the Charles to the station’s studios on the MIT campus for a night’s work.

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Recollections of a WGBH-FM Volunteer (1951-52)

From Russ Butler A small announcement in The Boston Globe caught my attention. It was 1951, and I was a 17-year old junior in a Boston high school and fascinated with radio broadcasting. The one column-inch notice read that a new FM radio station would begin broadcasting from studios in Symphony Hall. Next day, I…

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In a World All Its Own (1955)

From John Nadeau — 3/2007 When we did simulcasts on radio and TV, my station break announcement sounded like this: “This is the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council…WGBH-FM at 89.7 megacycles and WGBH-TV, channel 2, in Boston.” I joined the staff of WGBH-FM-TV in 1955. The two stations identified themselves as “noncommercial and educational” because…

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