Video tape control room at the Grand Central Terminal studios of CBS in New York Photo courtesy of the Retired CBS Engineers

STUDIOS AND FACILITIES

During television's Golden Age in the 1950s, programming schedules expanded and America's appetite for new programs grew so rapidly that the networks, whose primary production facilities were in New York City, pressed former Broadway theaters into service as studios. CBS set up shop in space at Grand Central Terminal, building studios and control rooms in available space in the historic building. Many of the original variety and game shows originated from Broadway theaters. The original Tonight Show with Steve Allen was produced in The Hudson Theater. Ted Mack, Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan all used CBS's Studio 50 on Broadway, later renamed The Ed Sullivan Theater which is today home to The Late Show with David Letterman. CBS used it's Grand Central facilities as master control for the network right up to 1964 before beginning a move to the new CBS Broadcast Center in the renovated Sheffield Farms Dairy building on West 57th Street. NBC used a number of Broadway theaters for program origination in addition to their famous studios at Rockefeller Center. And many of the game shows produced by ABC originated in theaters as well.

On the west coast, CBS's Television City in Hollywood opened in the late 1950s as did NBC Color City in Burbank. ABC used a number of different facilities around Hollywood including the famous Hollywood Palace on Vine Street. Merv Griffin's long running syndicated talk show was taped down the street on Vine at the TAV Celebrity Theatre.

In this spirit, we are quite proud to include below the photo galleries of our friend Dennis Degan. Dennis is with the Today Show at NBC in New York and has allowed us to present these great and historic pictures that he has collected over the years that include some of the world's most important, prestigious and busiest studios and broadcast facilities.

Dennis has not only photographed and thus helped preserve the history of the major broadcast centers run by NBC, CBS and ABC, but has also captured those times in what I call the American Television Gallery that spans a lot of local station facilities from the 1970s forward too. We hope you enjoy this rare glimpse behind the scenes and remember, we welcome your comments, stories and your photos.