Rehoboth Museum revisits Philly TV
Broadcast news consultant and author Bill Shull recently hosted a trip down memory lane for local television enthusiasts at Rehoboth Beach Museum, where he shared vintage photos and intimate details of the early days of television in his book, “Philadelphia Television.”
From American Bandstand’s iconic lines on WFIL to the game-changing Action News on Channel 6, Shull, a Philadelphia native and newsman himself, dug deep into the history and personalities that shaped the American television experience.
“Welcome to Philadelphia, 46th and Market, standing in line for American Bandstand at the Channel 6 building,” Shull said to a crowd of nodding heads as he worked through his slides. “That was, of course, right across the street from Channel 10, the first building in the U.S. that was built to be a true TV station, from the bottom up.”
Shull revealed many of the fits, starts, challenges and solutions in early television broadcasts, including long and short broadcasting capabilities that hampered the early explosion of television.
“I’m a news guy, so all the news people were my idols,” he said. “There were pre-Action News days, but nobody knows because nobody really watched it! Action News was very basic; it was about getting into the community and at Channel 6, they were dominant.”
Shull explained WDEL, which was intended to be Wilmington’s first television station, could only broadcast on low power because higher-power transmissions interfered with the larger markets in Philadelphia and New York.
Sharing stories of early television programming and pioneers like Frontier Playhouse, Pxanne, Sally Starr and Rex Morgan’s Morning Show, he revealed how the Philadelphia stations and market helped shape the medium.
“All the celebrities would go on the Rex Morgan Morning Show when they came through,” Shull said. “He only got into TV because somebody saw him and liked him, but he got in; his real family was on the show, and his real dog was his sidekick on the show.”
Even American Bandstand went through some growing pains before it became a pop culture phenomenon, he told the crowd, which had two members who had appeared on the show in their youth.
“Bob Horn was the first host, but he got into a little bit of trouble and got replaced by this young broadcast guy from Syracuse, N.Y., Dick Clark,” Shull recalled. “And well, you know, the rest is history.”
Bill Shull’s 128-page book, “Philadelphia Television,” is currently available at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth and through online booksellers.
