A significant event occurred in Johnson City at 7 pm on October 26, 1953. On that day, home-based television arrived in Johnson City. Prior to that historic occasion, televiewers had to rely on sprawling antennas towering above their rooftops to capture faint image signals from distant stations such as WBTV in Charlotte.

Herb Howard, a former program director at the station, has the distinction of uttering the first words heard over the new enterprise. He shared his remembrances of those happy days in a recent phone interview. The veteran airman was unsure of his exact verbiage that evening nearly 53 years ago but deems it went something like this: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen; this is WJHL Television signing on the air. The station is owned by WJHL Incorporated with a license to operate on channel 11 from Johnson City, Tennessee. Welcome to our first evening of broadcasting.”

After some brief words, the station went directly into the first broadcast, sponsored by Free Service Tire Company, from atop Tannery Knob. At 7:30, some local country music entertainers were featured. Eventually, the lineup included the husband-wife team of Bonnie Lou and Buster Moore on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights. The station also engaged Homer Harris, a seven-foot guitar playing cowboy singer, and his trick horse, Stardust, on Tuesday nights.

The remaining Thursday 7:30 slot was reserved for singing cowboy star, Gene Autry, whose program came to the station via film.” Unfortunately, those live classic shows were not recorded, as duplication technology was not yet available for commercial use. At 8:00 each evening, the station went to network programming using Kinescope recordings - black and white films taken directly from the picture tube. Obtaining these reels for nightly broadcasting required someone routinely picking them up at the airport. The broadcast delay was usually 2-3 weeks.

WJHL slowly achieved full-day broadcasting by gradually migrating toward earlier sign-on and later sign-off times. The station’s metal building on Tannery Knob was rather large, having a spacious main studio, control room and observation room. The studio contained numerous sets. After one program concluded, everyone promptly relocated to the next one. Religious broadcasts were usually presented first, followed by news, sports and weather. There were additional sets for other programs, such as country music and fishing.

Herb recalled how difficult it was for employees to navigate their cars up Tannery Knob during inclement weather. Bill Marrs, fondly known as Professor Kingfish, hosted a live half-hour hunting and fishing program on Tuesday nights. He was well known for his work over WJHL Radio. Fishermen routinely brought their daily catch into the studio, leaving behind a lingering telltale odor. 

Herb was a good friend of Berlin “Pecos Ben” Benfield, who hosted a 2-hour cowboy show each afternoon. Some advertisers used live animals - dogs, chickens and pigs - in live commercials. One sponsor [Nick Carter] from Elizabethton did outlandish things to promote his successful furniture business.

The ushering in of television into the Tri-Cities area developed as an offshoot of WJHL Radio. The station began operation in 1938, becoming the most powerful one in the Tri-Cities area, achieving 5000 watts and earning a sizable audience share. Most of the television announcers made the transition from the radio station.

Herb explained his involvement with the station: “I worked part time at the radio station while attending high school. I had no previous TV experience and there was very little college training for broadcasting in those days. I hung around the station, getting acquainted with the people who worked there and making myself available. I was offered full time employment in 1945 when the studio was located at 412 South Roan Street, later moving to West Main Street. The television and radio stations initially shared offices even though the TV operation was situated on Tannery Knob. Announcers made about $75 a week back then, with additional income for doing live commercials. My moving from radio to television was a natural extension of my employment. I continued working in both mediums the entire time I was with them.”

 WJHL-TV became a CBS network affiliate, but it also had business connections with ABC, NBC and the Dumont network. Tom Lyons, one of the original announcers handled sports, including play-by-play events on radio. Dick Ellis replaced him in 1955. Initially, WJHL read news from the wire service, as there was very little remote reporting of news in those days. Video cameras had not yet become available. They relied heavily on news from the Associated Press and the United Press, which was read over the air. Facsimile pictures were taken from a fax machine and mounted on an easel for use by the news broadcasters.

By the spring of 1954, external live broadcasts became a reality using the new technology of microwave and coaxial cables. The station also acquired 16-millimeter film capability that allowed reporters to travel to remote locations to capture news. News broadcasts were read from text lying on the desk in front of the newsman. Commercials required the use of cue cards.   

Herb, as the station’s first weatherman, recalled the antiquated methods used to report the weather: “The duration of the weather report was only five minutes. Just prior to going on the air, I talked with people at Tri-Cities Airport to obtain up-to-date climate reports. My weather map was a wall mounted blackboard containing an outline of the United States. I used chalk to mark the highs and lows around the country. This was a far cry from today’s highly sophisticated colorful electronic boards. It has been said that we did little more than tell our viewers whether it was going to rain or not. We did a bit more than that. Herb enjoyed his off-the-air celebrity status: “People recognized me from TV and would often talk to me in some public place as if they had known me all my life. That was an image we strived to maintain.”

Howard explained that miscues were frequent on live broadcasts: “I was doing a commercial for the Bonnie Lou and Buster segment. I was promoting a grocery store’s freshly ground coffee machine, telling viewers how easy it was to grind your own coffee beans right in the store. I put the beans in the machine and told my audience that all you had to do was push one little button. However, when I flipped the switch, nothing happened; I tried two or three more times to get it to work without success. I could almost hear the people laughing at me. “After finding the machine to be unplugged, I added an element of humor to the commercial by telling folks how easy it is to grind your own coffee bean … provided the power cord is plugged in.”

Herb recalled another awkward episode: “Hecht’s Bakery was the sponsor for the Gene Autry segment. We were advertising a cake that the sponsor was featuring in its store. “A cameramen was clowning a bit with the cake and caused it to slide onto the floor. Walter Heeb, the producer, wisely placed a portion of the cake that had not been damaged back onto the platter. Herb then instructed the camera operators to get a tight close-up shot of that portion of the cake. The commercial went without a hitch with nobody apparently knowing what had happened."

On a particularly hot summer day, Howard was doing the weather report. The studio doors had been opened to make things a bit more bearable. Unknown to him, a good-sized bug was crawling on his shoulder. Although, a viewer called to tell the station to get that bug off his shoulder, Herb didn’t learn of it until after the program was over.

Male broadcasters had to wear a mascara type of makeup on their faces to keep their clean-shaven faces from showing beard stubs over the tube. Herb said that off camera they looked like a bunch of clowns. Close attention was given to what people wore over the air to determine the shades of gray each color would appear on black and white television. For this reason, men wore blue shirts rather than white ones because the former ones appeared naturally white on television. A white shirt just did not look right on the screen.

In early October 1956, the station experienced a harrowing event that had the whole town buzzing. On that Saturday morning, the large tower on Tannery Knob suddenly and without warning fell to the ground, ending up as a twisted heap of metal. Workmen had been tightening the guy wires. The tower hit part of the building but fortunately missed the transmitter. Had it hit the latter, the station would have been off the air much longer. Engineers quickly built a shorter tower to a height of 50 to 100 feet that was just tall enough to get above the trees. The antenna was remounted on the tower’s stub. Although the station was broadcasting at reduced power during this time due to the shorter tower, the signal surprisingly extended well into the area. Remarkably, the station returned to broadcasting at normal full power within five days. 

Mr. Lancaster realized that their “announce booth” would not be ready. This unit was important so announcers could stand in it and do commercials or announcements. The keen thinking owner came up with the idea of renting an outside telephone booth from the local phone company. Herb said that, while the booth was not the best acoustically, it reduced the noise and got them through a jam.

The broadcaster had words of admiration for Haynes Lancaster, Sr.: “It took a tremendous amount of optimism and fortitude to invest in a TV station in Johnson City in the 1950s. Haynes was willing to make this investment.”

Howard left WJHL in 1958, having achieved the rank of program director. After getting his doctoral degree, he accepted a job in radio, teaching production and journalism at the University of Tennessee, where he remained until his retirement in 1999. He offered these concluding words: “Looking back, my working in early television was a happy time for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly. My early work at WJHL [radio and television] really contributed to what would become my lifetime career.”