Broadcast Wars | The Golden Era of Minnesota's TV News | Episode 1

There was a time when people would stop what they were doing and watch the local evening news. Twin Cities PBS’s "Broadcast Wars," co-produced with Cathy Wurzer, takes us back a half century to the era when ratings battles were fierce, women and people of color were making their presence known, technology was rapidly evolving, and local TV news was as vital as it was entertaining.

0:00 “There was a time…”
1:54 The Beginning of Broadcast News
5:50 Dave Moore Heats up the Competition
10:35 What’s the Weather Today?
14:25 Women in the Newsroom
19:29 How the News is Made
26:04 Action, Reaction
29:36 Stream Broadcast Wars Now!

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#documentary #news #history

[bug]

I still have "The Scene Tonight" theme song in my head after all of these years! Dave Moore was a gem!

[bluecollarguy]

Wow, this first episode was amazing and great to watch. So nice to see many of the people from those days being interviewed and giving their recollections and stories. We were a WCCO-TV and radio household and the evening order of things was 1. Cronkite; 2. Moore; 3. Dinner. I’ve been fascinated with local broadcasting for decades with all the stories, talent moves, technological besting by station against station and the coverage by newspaper media columnists reporting on the latest behind the scenes dirt and gossip. Stan Hubbard really does come off as petulant. I remember being so very surprised when Pat Miles bolted WCCO for KARE (stupid move by ‘CCO). So happy Marcia Fluer came over to WCCO to work with Dave Nimmer on ‘Newsday’, that’s was a good show. Looking forward to the remaining episodes.

[JeremySimmons-kn]

As someone who was not born and raised in the Twin Cities, l am inspired and love the history of Twin Cities. Television and Culture.

[mh]

Lived in the Cities in the 70s & 80s. Had no idea the history I was watching and also to some degree being a part of.

[pacificostudios]

I never realized that Dave Moore was an actor until I started going to the University of Minnesota, and his picture was on the wall in Rarig Center. He was the face and voice of WCCO-TV news from the beginning, and watching him get slowly edged off the show was a tragedy. The rapport he had with Bud Kraehling was fantastic; no matter what happened that day, they made you feel o.k.

[brianarbenz]

Though I’ve never lived in Minnesota, I identify with this because my father worked as an anchorman and news writer at TV stations in three states.
And I’ve written broadcast news as part of wire service reporting. TV news stations feel like home to me.

[jperickson]

Fascinating! Thank you!

The original Monday Night Wars!

[SummitHill]

Lol, my roommate and I were journalism students back in the ‘80s when WUSA/KARE began an increased competition with other news broadcasts in town. We used to watch with an APA manual and call the station at the end of the broadcast detailing all of their errors.

[Ivearted]

Anchorman is one of my favorite movies!!

[JSB]

There was no one like Dave Moore. Sometimes I would be at some event or a movie and I'd hear that voice and turn around to see Dave Moore. He'd lecture away with his friends. The best time was when Jesse Jackson was running for president. Honeywell where I was working had the local the news people with each station dish out ice cream cones for charity. Don Shelby and Dave Moore saw my Jackson buttons and they were the only newspeople that went on filling me with news about Jackson. Those were real newspeople!

[JanetProtasiewicz-vufl]

OMG! The days of honest, respectable, truthful news! WOW! I do remember. Black & white T.V. with an antenna you had to adjust every two minutes. I was young in the 60s - 70s but my mother's favorite news channel was WCCO - channel 4. Dave Moore for sure!

[billbill]

I went to the TPT website and finished watching this excellent documentary. Personally I didn’t want it to end.

I’m 61 years old and grew up in Southeast Minnesota. It wasn’t until I was out of high school that I watched any of the Twin Cities news stations. Thanks for this wonderful program

[pacificostudios]

I don't know how it is now, but I understand that back then, the local news was the biggest chance for a local TV station to get ad revenue. Especially after local kids TV shows, like "Casey Jones & Roundhouse" fell away, everything else but news and local sports was either network or syndicated. So being #1 in Minneapolis-St. Paul meant a lot of revenue for the station. Boy I sure remember how much KSTP hyped up the state high school hockey tournament, which they covered live from the St. Paul Civic Center.

[GooseOD]

One thing left out of part 3 is that nbc primetime took over in the ratings which helped with a superior lead in for kare 11 while cbs primetime skewed older and couldn't keep up for wcco.

[randalgelking]

Born & raised in MN & this brings back tons of memories. In the end credits here I recognized Marcia Fleuer (she had an on-air newscast coughing fit & they had to break away for water), Roy Finden, Don Shelby, Cyndy Brucato, & the KSTP CrimeStoppers guy (Lou? Not Harvin)

[KylesDigitalLab]

I have a Sony BVP-30 portable camera from WCCO-TV. Nice to own a piece of their history.

[JChow-ec]

These people were/are amszing. I miss seeing them every day. ☮️💟☮️💟

[carschmn]

I didn’t know Cyndi had been along so long. Pretty cool!

[zekharye]

Speaking of actors, I have this memory of seeing the newscaster Dean Montgomery playing a lead role on stage at the Old Log Theater. (Possibly in a production of “Mr. Roberts, ” though I might be mistaken.)

[pacificostudios]

I "DO" remember "The Scene Tonight." My family never watched anything but 'CCO. I also loved WCCO-AM, and there was crossover from TV to AM radio, because WCCO was a important local brand.