Behind the scenes at WISN in 1979 - As seen LIVE on WMVS (PBS)

[Weeters 1569]

In May of 1979, Milwaukee Public Television/WMVS' "Milwaukee: Behind the Headlines" program aired a two hour feature on the inner workings of the WISN-TV newsroom. The program features a very unique, and rare, live simulcast of WISN's Action News at 10 program from the control room and studio floor. That's right, viewers could watch the WISN broadcast on Channel 12, or flip over to Channel 10 and watch the same program from "behind the scenes". WMVS rolled their cameras into the WISN Broadcast Center right up next to the WISN cameras for this extremely unique look into how TV worked in 1979.

 

There are three cameras here (four if you count the one capturing this scene)... But only two of them are WISN's! The camera on the right, although the same model as WISN's cameras, is feeding the WMVS broadcast.

 

Part 1: https://kaltura.uga.edu/media/t/1_kr6xuhf7

Part 2: https://kaltura.uga.edu/media/t/1_oq8duewg <The 10pm news simulcast starts at the start of Part 2.

 

Interesting thing to note: Hello - a cut from the image campaign - closes the show, but the opens are still the ABC World News synth theme. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the actual "Hello News" music package came much later, possibly more than a year or two after the campaign first launched, and this seems to be a confirmation of that.