In the early 1970s, there was a fierce battle for local news ratings between Twin Cities outlets WCCO-TV 4 and KSTP TV-5. Channel 4 had been #1 for quite some time with it’s classic lineup of Dave Moore as anchor, weather with Bud Kraehling, and sportscaster Hal Scott. Suddenly, Channel 5 came on strong with Ted O’Brien as anchor, Tom Ryther’s sports, and Barry ZeVan the Weatherman! This was shortly before the Hubbards hired Ron Magers who brought them back to first place.
Here are two cuts of KSTP-TV’s 6:00 news intro: The first is their weekday lineup. The second is their Saturday newscast with John Evans as anchor, Roy Finden doing weather, and and Ed Karow’s sports.
Also included is a commercial for Western Airlines, “the oooooonly way to fly!” I believe Western Airlines was sold as a news adjacency since there is a short news tease before the spot. I remember hearing the Western commercial frequently, just before the news began.
The audio quality of this clip is only fair. At age 8, I had not yet discovered the magical qualities of patch cords. It was recorded by placing the pencil microphone of my Spartan/Atlantic “shoebox” recorder next to the small side speaker of my Wards Airline 9″ black and white TV. Needless to say, there’s some distortion and lots of good ‘ol “buzz” from the video signal. Source tape was an Audio Magnetics 60 minute “bag” cassette.
KSTP_TV_The_World_Today_News_March_1973