DuMont Television Network

''This article is about the fictional DuMont Television Network. For the real-life DuMont Television Network, see the DuMont Television Network article on Wikipedia.''

The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont) is American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of DuMont Media Group, a subsidiary of DuMont Laboratories. It began operation in the United States in 1946. In the 1940s, the network was hindered by the prohibitive cost of broadcasting, by regulations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which initially restricted the company's growth, and even by the company's partner, Paramount Pictures. Despite several innovations in broadcasting and the creation of one of television's biggest stars of the 1950s (Jackie Gleason), the network never found itself on solid financial ground. Forced to expand on UHF channels during an era when UHF was not yet a standard feature on television sets, DuMont fought an uphill battle for program clearances outside of their three owned-and-operated stations in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh, resulting in the network planning to launch a turnaround plan, which marked the launch of bigger hits that staved off the financial problems which nearly forced it off the air, and has made DuMont a big player in the TV industry, a position which remains as of 2014.

DuMont is headquartered in New York City, NY, with additional offices in Los Angeles, CA and, as of July 2015, has a growing number of owned-and-operated stations and a growning number of affiliates throughout the United States and its territories, some of which are also available in Canada via pay television providers or in border areas over-the-air; DuMont also maintains brand licensing agreements for international channels in South Korea and Germany.

Origins
DuMont Laboratories was founded in 1931 by Dr. Allen B. DuMont with only $1,000, and a laboratory in his basement. He and his staff were responsible for many early technical innovations, including the first consumer all-electronic television set in 1938. The company's television sets soon became the gold standard of the industry.[4] In 1942, DuMont worked with the Army in developing radar technology during World War II. This ended up bringing in $5 million in capital for the company.[5]

Early sales of television sets were hampered by the lack of regularly scheduled programming being broadcast. A few months after selling his first set in 1938, DuMont opened his own New York area experimental television station (W2XVT) in Passaic, New Jersey. In 1940, the station moved to Manhattan as W2XWV on channel 4. Unlike CBS and NBC, which reduced their hours of television broadcasting during World War II, DuMont continued full-scale experimental and commercial broadcasts throughout the war. In 1944, W2XWV became WABD moving to channel 5 in 1945, (the calls were taken from Mr. DuMont's initials), the third commercial television station in New York. On May 19, 1945, DuMont opened experimental W3XWT in Washington, DC. A minority shareholder in DuMont Laboratories was Paramount Pictures, which had advanced $400,000 in 1939 for a 40% share in the company.[6][7] Paramount had television interests of its own, having launched experimental stations in Los Angeles in 1939 and Chicago in 1940, and DuMont's association with Paramount ultimately proved to be a mistake.[8][9]

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. It is said that one of those broadcasts on the hookup announced that the U.S. had dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. This was later considered to be the official beginning of the DuMont Network by both Thomas T. Goldsmith, the network's chief engineer and DuMont's best friend,[3][page needed] and DuMont himself.[8] 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 (channel 2, now KDKA-TV) in Pittsburgh.[citation needed]

Although NBC in New York was known to have station-to-station television links as early as 1940 with WPTZ (now KYW) in Philadelphia and WRGB Schenectady, NY, DuMont received its station licenses before NBC resumed its previously sporadic network broadcasts after the war.[10] ABC had just come into existence as a radio network in 1943 and did not enter network television until 1948, when it signed on a flagship station in New York City, WJZ-TV (now WABC-TV). CBS also waited until 1948 to begin network operations because it was waiting for the Federal Communications Commission to approve its color television system (which it eventually did not). Other companies – including Mutual, the Yankee Network, and Paramount itself – were interested in starting television networks, but were prevented from successfully doing so by restrictive FCC regulations; however, at least the Paramount Television Network actually did have some limited success in network operations in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Programming
Despite no history of radio programming or stable of radio stars to draw on and perennial cash shortages, DuMont was an innovative and creative network.[11] Without the radio revenues that supported mighty NBC and CBS, DuMont programmers relied on their wits and on connections with Broadway. Eventually, the network provided original programs that are remembered more than 60 years later.[3]

The network largely ignored the standard business model of 1950s TV, 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 US television. Some commercial time was sold regionally on a co-op basis, while other spots were sold network-wide.

DuMont also holds another important place in American TV 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.[12] Before then, the networks relied on separate regional networks in the two time zones for live programming, and the West Coast received network programming from kinescopes (films shot directly from live television screens) originating from the East Coast. On January 11, 1949, the coaxial cable linking East and Midwest (known in television circles as "the Golden Spike") was activated. The ceremony, hosted by DuMont and WDTV, was carried on all four networks.[13] WGN-TV (channel 9) in Chicago and WABD in New York were able to share programs through a live coaxial cable feed when WDTV signed on in Pittsburgh, because the station completed the East Coast-to-Midwest chain, allowing stations in both regions to air the same program simultaneously, which is still the standard for US TV. It was another two years before the West Coast got live programming from the East (and the East able to get live programming from the West), but this was the beginning of the modern era of network television.[14]

The first broadcasts came from DuMont's 515 Madison Avenue headquarters, and it soon found additional space, including a fully functioning theater, in the New York branch of Wanamaker's department store at Ninth Street and Broadway.[8] Later, a lease on the Adelphi Theatre on 54th Street and the Ambassador Theatre on West 49th Street gave the network a site for variety shows, and in 1954, the lavish DuMont Tele-Centre opened in the former Jacob Ruppert's Central Opera House at 205 East 67th Street.

DuMont was the first network to broadcast a film production for TV: Talk Fast, Mister, produced by RKO in 1944. DuMont also aired the first TV situation comedy, Mary Kay and Johnny, as well as the first network-televised soap opera, Faraway Hill. Cavalcade of Stars, a variety show hosted by Jackie Gleason, was the birthplace of The Honeymooners (Gleason took his variety show to CBS in 1952, but filmed the Classic 39 Honeymooners episodes at DuMont's Adelphi Theater studio in 1955-56). Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's devotional program Life Is Worth Living went up against Milton Berle in many cities, and was the first show to compete successfully in the ratings against "Mr. Television". In 1952, Sheen won an Emmy Award for "Most Outstanding Personality".[15] The network's other notable programs include:


 * Ted Mack's The Original Amateur Hour, which began on radio in the 1930s under original host Edward Bowes

The Morey Amsterdam Show, a comedy/variety show hosted by Morey Amsterdam, which started on CBS before moving to DuMont in 1949


 * Captain Video and His Video Rangers, a hugely popular kids' science fiction series[16][17]


 * The Arthur Murray Party, a dance program


 * Down You Go, a popular panel show


 * Rocky King, Inside Detective, a private eye series starring Roscoe Karns

Live coverage of boxing and professional wrestling, the latter featuring matches staged by the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, the predecessor to WWE
 * The Plainclothesman, a camera's-eye-view detective series

The Johns Hopkins Science Review, a Peabody Award winning education program


 * Cash and Carry, the first network-televised game show
 * The Ernie Kovacs Show, the first truly innovative show in what was then visual radio, not television.

The network is said to be a pioneer in TV programming aimed at minority audiences and featuring minority performers, at a time when the other American networks aired few television series for non-whites. Among DuMont's minority programs were The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, starring Asian American film actress Anna May Wong, the first US TV show to star an Asian American,[18] and The Hazel Scott Show, starring pianist and singer Hazel Scott, the first US network TV series to be hosted by a black woman.

Although DuMont's programming pre-dated videotape, many DuMont offerings were recorded on kinescopes. These kinescopes are said to be stored in a warehouse. 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.

Awards
DuMont programs are by necessity low-budget affairs, and the network received relatively few awards from the TV industry. Most awards during the 1950s went to NBC and CBS, who were able to out-spend other companies and draw on their extensive history of radio broadcasting in the relatively new television medium. DuMont, however, did win a number of awards during its years of operation.

During the 1952–53 TV season, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, host of Life Is Worth Living, won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Personality. Sheen beat out CBS's Arthur Godfrey, Edward R. Murrow and Lucille Ball, who were also nominated for the same award. Sheen was also nominated for – but did not win – consecutive Public Service Emmys in 1952, 1953, and 1954.[23]

DuMont received an Emmy nomination for Down You Go, a popular game show during the 1952–53 television season (in the category Best Audience Participation, Quiz, or Panel Program). The network was nominated twice for its coverage of professional football during the 1953–54 and 1954–55 television seasons.[24]

The Johns Hopkins Science Review, a DuMont public affairs program, was awarded a Peabody Award in 1952 in the Education category. Sheen's Emmy and the Science Review Peabody were the only national awards the DuMont Network received.[25] Though DuMont series and performers continued to win local TV awards.

Ratings
The earliest measurements of TV audiences were performed by the C. E. Hooper company of New York. DuMont performed well in the Hooper ratings; in fact, DuMont's talent program, The Original Amateur Hour, was the most popular series of the 1947–48 season.[26] Variety ranked DuMont's popular variety series Cavalcade of Stars as the tenth most popular series two seasons later.[27]

In February 1950, Hooper's competitor A. C. Nielsen bought out the Hooperatings system. DuMont did not fare well with the change: none of its shows appeared on Nielsen's annual top 20 lists of the most popular series.[27] One of the DuMont Network's biggest hits of the 1950s, Life is Worth Living, received Nielsen ratings of up to 11.1, attracting more than 10 million viewers. Sheen's one-man program – in which he discussed philosophy, psychology and other fields of thought from a Christian perspective – was the most widely viewed religious series in the history of television. 169 local television stations aired Life, and for three years the program competed successfully against NBC's popular The Milton Berle Show. The ABC and CBS programs which aired in the same timeslot were cancelled.[23]

Life is Worth Living was not the only DuMont program to achieve double-digit ratings. In 1952, Time magazine reported that popular DuMont game show Down You Go had attracted an audience estimated at 16 million viewers.[28] Similarly, DuMont's summer 1954 replacement series, The Goldbergs, achieved audiences estimated at 10 million.[29] Still, these series were only moderately popular compared to NBC's and CBS's highest-rated programs.

Nielsen was not the only company to report TV ratings, however. Companies such as Trendex, Videodex and Arbitron had also measured TV viewership. The adjacent chart comes from Videodex's August 1950 ratings breakdown, as reported in Billboard magazine.[30]