Stations:
3 – KTVK-TV (ABC), Phoenix
4 – KVOA-TV (NBC), Tucson
5 – KPHO-TV (Independent), Phoenix
6 – KUAT-TV (NET), Tucson
9 – KGUN-TV (ABC), Tucson
10 – KOOL-TV (CBS), Phoenix
12 – KTAR-TV (NBC), Phoenix
13 – KOLD-TV (CBS), Tucson
NOTES: the original text of this post included references to KUAS-TV 27 in Tucson as being a direct satellite of KUAT. This was because two individuals I spoke to this morning at Arizona Public Media insisted that KUAS had gone on the air in the early '60s and was retransmitting KUAT by this time. I've since been informed that KUAS did not go on the air until the mid-'80s, thus the previous references to Channel 27 have been removed. As well, KAET was operating in Phoenix on Channel 8, transmitting educational programming as an NET affiliate.
* denotes a colorcast
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
MORNING
6:00
10 – Sunrise Semester
12 – Continental Classroom (x2)
13 – Test Tunes, Farm & Ranch
6:30
10 – D Word Roundup (I have no idea what this would be)
13 – Sunrise Semester
7:00
4/12 – Today
10/13 – Captain Kangaroo
7:40
6 – Chemistry (through to Noon)
8:00
4/12 – Say When
9 – Test Pattern Bulletin Board
10/13 – CBS Morning News (Mike Wallace anchored; one of the stories was about The Beatles)
8:25
4/12 – NBC News
8:30
3/9 – Bugs Bunny/The King & Odie
4 – Word for Word *
10/13 – I Love Lucy
12 – Play Your Hunch
9:00
3/9 – The Price is Right
4/12 – Concentration
10/13 – The Real McCoys
9:30
3/9 – Seven Keys
4/12 – Missing Links
10/13 – Pete and Gladys
10:00
3/9 – Tennessee Ernie Ford
4/12 – Your First Impression *
5 – Calendar of Events
10/13 – Love of Life
10:25
10/13 – CBS News
10:30
3/9 – Father Knows Best
4/12 – Truth or Consequences
5 – Philosophy (x2; probably an educational program from Arizona State University)
10/13 – Search for Tomorrow
10:45
10/13 – The Guiding Light
10:55
4/12 – NBC News
11:00
3/9 – General Hospital
4 – Local News
10 – George Burns & Gracie Allen
12 – Romper Room
13 – Visiting with Virginia (local housewife chat)
11:15
4 – Divorce Court
(The Kennedy assassination took place in Dallas at 11:30 Mountain Time; as KOOL-TV and KOLD-TV were taking CBS’ live East Coast feed of As the World Turns, they would have gotten Cronkite’s initial bulletins live and, therefore, were likely to be the first TV stations in Phoenix and Tucson to break the news. Both ABC and NBC were themselves dark during this half hour, and local stations provided their own programming; WNBC-TV/4 New York was airing a rerun of Batchelor Father when Don Pardo broke in locally with the first bulletin there.)
11:30
3 – Jack LaLanne
5 – Bold Journey
9 – Day in Court
10/13 – As the World Turns
12 – Love That Bob
(By Noon, each of the networks was underway with their continuous coverage of the assassination, so all scheduled entertainment programming on Channels 3, 4, 9, 10, 12 and 13 were wiped out until Monday. Nobody I was able to reach at KPHO, KAET and KUAT knows what those stations were doing; I suspect KPHO picked up one of the networks with the permission of the Phoenix affiliate – they had originally been an ABC affiliate, so I’d tentatively go in that direction – and KAET and KUAT may have had someone break into the instructional programs with the initial bulletin, after which they may have picked up a network’s coverage with permission of the Tucson and Phoenix affiliates.)(NOTE FROM NOVEMBER 23RD: I just got a communication from someone claiming that they recall both KPHO and KAET rebroadcasting the NBC coverage via an off-the-air connection with KTAR.)
AFTERNOON
12:00 NOON
3 – Douglas Fairbanks Presents
4/12 – People Will Talk *
5 – Cartoonland
6 – Geology
9 – Frank Kalil (local talk show)
10/13 – Password
12:25
4/12 – NBC News
12:30
3 – Day in Court
4/12 – The Doctors
5 – News and Weather
6 – Science Reporter
10/13 – Art Linkletter’s House Party
12:45
9 – Women’s News
1:00
3/9 – Queen for a Day
4/12 – Loretta Young Theater
5 – Open House (local talk)
6 – Spanish (5th Grade, level 1)
10/13 – To Tell the Truth
1:30
3/9 – Who Do You Trust?
4/12 – You Don’t Say *
10/13 – The Edge of Night
2:00
3/9 – Trailmaster
4/12 – The Match Game
5 – The Best of Groucho
10/13 – The Secret Storm
2:25
4/12 – NBC News
2:30
4/12 – Make Room for Daddy
5/13 – People are Funny
10 – Peter Gunn
3:00
3/4/12 – local movies (with inserts of business news on KVOA-TV and news headlines on KTAR-TV)
5 – 5-Star Playhouse (probably syndicated reruns of ‘50s anthologies like Schlitz Playhouse)
9 – Ann Sothern
10/13 – Our Miss Brooks
3:30
5 – Leave It to Beaver
9 – Marshal KGUN (cartoons)
10 – December Bride
13 – The Life of Riley
4:00
5 – It’s Wallace (local kiddie show)
10 – Talent Show
13 – The Folk Sing (I’m guessing this is a regionally-syndicated folk music program similar to Hootenanny!, as it is also scheduled on KOOL-TV in the following half-hour)
4:30
10 – The Folk Sing
12 – Ann Sothern
13 – KOLD-TV News
5:00
3 – The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
4 – Woman’s/Pictorial/Business Report
5 – Rocky & His Friends (x2)
9 – Popeye
10/13 – CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (The Beatles item from that morning’s CBS Morning News had been originally scheduled to be repeated on this broadcast; Cronkite postponed it until December 10th)
12 – News Headlines
5:05
12 – Sea Hunt
5:15
9 – Rocky & His Friends
5:30
3 – ABC News with Ron Cochran
4 – The Huntley-Brinkley Report
5 – Bachelor Father
9 – Amos ‘n’ Andy
10/13 – The Mickey Mouse Club
12 – Sports Report
EVENING
6:00
3 – Sgt. Bilko
4/5 – local news
9 – Silents Please
10/13 – Yogi Bear
12 – The Huntley-Brinkley Report
6:30
3/9 – 77 Sunset Strip
4 – Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater
5 – Maverick
10/13 – Route 66
12 – International Showtime (Don Ameche hosting European circus acts)
6:45
6 – Spanish (5th Grade)
7:00
6 – What’s New? (children’s series)
7:30
3/9 – Burke’s Law
4 – Harry’s Girls
5 – The Trail West
6 – Visit with a Sculptor
10/13 – The Great Adventure
12 – Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater
8:00
4 – The Jack Paar Program *
5 – High School Football
6 – Congress of Strings 1963 (scholarship student orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy of the Philadelphia Orchestra; sign-off at 9:30)
8:30
3/9 – The Farmer’s Daughter
10/13 – The Twilight Zone
9:00
3/9 – The Fight of the Week (scheduled match was light heavyweights Johnny Persol versus Allen Thomas; was this match cancelled or postponed due to the assassination?)
4 – Thriller
10/13 – The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
12 – The Jack Paar Program *
Approximately 9:45
3/9 – Make That Spare (bowling program hosted by Johnny Johnston that filled the remainder of the hour immediately after the boxing match ended)
10:00
3/4/5/9/10/12/13 – local news (the newscasts for KOOL-TV and KOLD-TV are both listed as Niteline; dunno if it’s a simulcast or just the title was shared)
10:15
4/12 – The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson *
10/13 – The Steve Allen Show
10:30
3/5 – movie
9 – Theater 9
11:00
4 – news
11:05
4 – movie (followed by news headlines and sign-off)
11:45
10/13 – news
12:00 Midnight
3 – movie
12 – news
13 – Mahalia (perhaps a film of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson to sign off the day?)
12:05
12 – movie
12:15
9 – Peter Gunn (followed by news headlines and sign-off)
The Arizona Daily Star of November 23rd carried a story indicating that the three commercial television networks (and four national radio networks) were all cancelling entertainment programs until after President Kennedy’s funeral on the 25th, and all of the local affiliates were following their network’s leads by doing the same on locally-originated and syndicated programming. There was still a question as to whether Tucson radio station KCUB would carry the Los Angeles Rams-Baltimore Colts NFL game from the West Coast circuit of the Mutual radio network on Sunday, but the Notre Dame college football game that weekend was definitely called off. However, ads for KOLD-TV and KOLD Radio appeared on the same page, promoting Saturday’s scheduled commercial programming; apparently, nobody at KOLD contacted the Star by press time to get the ads pulled. The KOLD Radio ad promoted the New Mexico-Arizona NCAA football game that had been scheduled for that night at 7:45; the schedule listed in the KOLD-TV ads included the following:
A second ad specifically promoted the showing of The Outriders at 10:30.
There’s also one additional item to add here, although unrelated to the TV schedules listed above. In researching this post, I came across a rather startling two-line headline in the November 17th edition of the Arizona Daily Star, the top of the two lines reading JFK SELECTS COFFIN. The story was about Kennedy choosing diplomat Frank Coffin to become the U.S. Ambassador to Panama, but I still can’t quite get past the phrasing of that top line!
WNBC-TV was not the only New York network O&O to have bulletin interruptions in the middle of a locally-originated rerun. WABC-TV was running a local repeat of a 1958 episode of "The Ann Sothern Show" at 1:30 P.M. (NYT) when the first two bulletins were transmitted by ABC. However, the first in a series of clips of ABC's coverage of the assassination as put up on YouTube had the bulletins coming in during the middle of a repeat of a 1956 episode of "Father Knows Best" - which suggests one of the network's affiliates was either running this network rerun on a one-hour tape delay, or was airing this within the Mountain time zone (but then, the 5 kHz telco audio was a dead giveaway too; WABC viewers would've heard crystal-clear 15 kHz audio, let alone seeing the "FKB" episode, as aired at 12:30 P.M. [NYT], in its entirety).
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