first local early morning newscast in the United States

[tbrokaw1983 0]

Hi there! My name's Sean! I'm 33 years old, and I've got autism. I live near St. Louis with my mom, and I'm just curious, since KSDK Channel 5 in St. Louis has aired "Today In St. Louis" since 1983 (the year after the St. Louis Cardinals won the 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers), what was the first local early morning newscast in the United States?

Thanks!
Sean

 

[TheRolyPoly 1847]

I'll respond. First off, welcome aboard since I can tell this is your first post. And second, no. I believe The Good Morning Show from WFMY-TV Greensboro is the first early local morning newscast in the United States. That program has been on since December 1957.

[Weeters 1811]

This is probably a tough one to answer because a lot of stations would do some kind of "news" broadcast (definitely nothing like what we'd call a "newscast") shortly after signing on. WFMY claims the "oldest and longest running morning show" so it's not necessarily the first. That credit probably goes to whoever decided to sign on at 7am or earlier first. I know a lot of stations wanted to try and duplicate Today locally after it debut in 1952, so WFMY in 1957 also seems quite late in that regard. I imagine other stations tried something, it didn't work out very well, and they just focused on other things and the attempt was forgotten.

 

On that note, a lot of stations have this internal lore that they did something "first", and it's almost always inaccurate or with an asterisk. I feel like there's a good half dozen "first television studio"s out there because they're simplifying a more precise claim like "first building with a room converted for television use" or "first building built from the ground up with a television studio" (I think WTMJ claims this) or "first building built exclusively for television use".

 

 

[bpatrick 61]

I`m not sure it was the first. but Tom York's Morning Show on WBRC might be in the running, having also started in 1957.  Unlike WFMY's show it is no longer on the air, having ended in 1989.

 

If you were looking at the first local morning show, you'd have to go with one that had news but was more or less a comedy show.  That was Ernie Kovacs' 3 To Get Ready on WPTZ (now KYW)

in Philadelphia.  The success of that show prompted Pat Weaver to create the Today show, which wasn't strictly a news program in the Dave Garroway era.