Tremendous assets

In connection with this year’s crowning of Charles, American Radio Library has picked up a 1953 BBC magazine about a similar ceremony.

Most of the magazine is about the American extension of the coverage, not BBC’s own.

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The whole of the scheduled programmes over the CBS-TV network are to be sponsored by the giant Willys-Overland Motors company. There is just one exception; the actual crowning, being universally regarded as a religious ceremony, will be brought to American viewers as a public service.

The organisation of this same-day viewing can scarcely have been surpassed in the history of TV. But it should be realised, of course, that the feat would not have been possible without the tremendous assets available to American television companies backed, as they are, by sponsors willing to finance and organise on a breathtaking scale for their TV audiences.

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Sounds like government-paid BBC was just a bit jealous of US corporate sponsors.

Beside the text is a picture of CBS covering Ike’s inauguration earlier in ’53.

Hmm. I wonder which “giant” auto company was sponsoring the event? This was NOT the normal way of covering an event. Every TV station had at least one remote van with a camera platform on top and a transmitter inside, a necessary part of their “tremendous assets”. The Packard was obviously borrowed from a dealer, and obviously inconvenient. The announcers were standing on the seats and hanging off the side, and the crooked trunk lid wouldn’t close over the equipment.

After I noticed the crookedness, my eyes were also snagged by the sharp corners on the trunk lid. I halfway remembered other 1953 cars with rounded trunk lids. To check my memory, here’s a ’53 Ford and a ’53 Chevy and a ’53 Plymouth. All rounded and less likely to poke your hand or eye. Rounding requires more complicated dies and assembly. Packard was cutting budget corners by NOT cutting sheetmetal corners. A luxury car should be more refined than a Ford, not less refined.

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Later: DailyMail has a well-written story on the competition between the US networks to carry the ceremony. A real spy thriller. CBS and NBC were eager to use their Tremendous Assets. Canada was still deeply connected to the motherland, and CBC in Canada received an official flight from London carrying one film reel. CBS and NBC arranged with London to ship extra reels aboard this flight, then built studios at Logan in Boston and hired stunt pilots to get those reels from Labrador to Boston. Meanwhile, ABC without Tremendous Assets had simply arranged for a direct wire from Montreal. All the planning went astray, NBC simply shared ABC’s wire from Montreal, and CBS’s stunt pilot reached Boston 15 minutes after NBC and ABC had started.

But the above article written by BBC gave CBS credit for being the official outlet.

I guess owning the conversation counts more than getting the news. Murrow’s direct wire to Deepstate was the winner.