Saturday, January 22, 1972: KTLA Channel 5 - the first local commercial independent television station in Los Angeles celebrated its 25th anniversary on the air.
Also in 1972, the series 'The Streets Of San Francisco' began its 5-season run; the Virginia Slims Championships of women's tennis was first played and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (also known as the Bill of Rights) enacted since 1789 went under the microscope.
1970 marked the start of the Virginia Slims pro tour. "Britain," Billie Jean King believed, "has the right idea. We should all be called players, not professionals and amateurs."
Billie Jean won her 100th singles match at Wimbledon in 1982. "I didn't realize until yesterday that this was going to be my 100th singles match," she later confessed. Billie Jean played her first Wimbledon match in 1961. "In my first year at Wimbledon," she recounted in 1975, "I had to share a room for $1.20 a night, including breakfast. All we ate were hamburgers and French fries. When I left I'd put on so much weight I couldn't button up my skirt."
On reflection she acknowledged, "I'm happy I came along when I did. It makes me feel good to know other women will have the opportunity to pursue their careers the way they want to from now on."
On the Saturday and Sunday of January 19 and 20 in 1974, 6500 tennis fans each night packed the San Francisco Civic Auditorium to watch Billie Jean played Chris Evert in the opening tennis event of the women's pro tour.
"I've waited 20 years to see crowds like this," Billie Jean enthused afterward. Tennis enthusiasts waited 6 hours before tickets went on sale. Some 2,000 plus fans
had to be turned away because there were no seats left. "It was the most enthusiastic crowd I've ever played before," Chris remembered.
That year California was chosen as the venue to host the Virginia Slims Championships. "When we played at San Francisco," Billie Jean explained of their decision, "people began queuing up for tickets at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We had to turn hundreds away."
In 1988, Chris Evert won her second last singles title at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles. "The name Billie Jean," she conceded, "and what she has done in tennis is intimidating."
Quinn Martin produced 'The Streets Of San Francisco'. "The first show I ever produced," he reminisced, "was 'The Jane Wyman Show.'"
'The Streets Of San Francisco' was shot on location. Quinn emphasized, "I can make a show looks 5 times better on location. A show is successful because of the stars and the scripts. I think location shooting adds about 20% to the intrinsic value of a show."
The 1950s, star Karl Malden remarked, "was the Golden Age when everything was live but it also was the age when many mistakes were being made and panic reigned."
Co-star Michael Douglas shared, "Back in my father's (Kirk Douglas) day, there was a normal progression for an actor's career. He could get his start on Broadway, then a studio would take him over and mold his career. But when I went to New York in 1968, there was no theater. I did a little off-Broadway, then I made 2 or 3 pictures that didn't go. The studios don't put actors under contract anymore, so I figured the best way to move my career along was to get into a TV series."
Lawrence Welk made his TV debut on KTLA Channel 5 in 1951. He voiced in 1974, "I have the reputation of being a square...I learned that if I'm going to be...a successful musician, I have to learn and evolve a style the people like...I am, basically deep in my heart, a jazz musician. Dixieland jazz."
Quinn Martin believed, "I think television in general has to renovate itself....We can't keep giving the public the same thing. We tend to drive people away from television."
The First Amendment rights offered protection of free speech amongst other freedoms in American society. In 1972, freedom of speech became the talking point in the media.
"Because (broadcast journalism's) technology depends on the use of frequencies rather than printing presses," Julian Goodman, the chief at NBC, pointed out at the time, "the government decided long ago to administer the system by federal licensing. And the federal license for using a frequency can become federal control over how it is used – control growing out of administrative and judicial interpretations of the public interest standard."
Reuven Frank who was in charge of 'NBC News', expressed about the First Amendment, "If you do not believe it ought to apply to news on television, you do not believe that it is an absolute need that news be free...That is not the way you express your belief but that is what you believe. This belief, to go back, is said to be based on the physical difference between print and broadcasting, between wood pulp and radio waves, not between what they carry."
"We must look ahead to where journalism itself is going. Today," Julian stated in 1972, "we have 2 worlds of the press – the world of the printed press and the world of electronic news. In the the former, constitutional guarantees of the press freedom are recognized and respected. In the latter they are being weakened."
"What of the future?" Julian asked. "We are facing an explosive growth in electronic communications...Is it a newspaper entitled to a strict First Amendment protection, or is it a licensed frequency subject to government control? Is the technology of news presentation to be the basis for determining how much or how little press freedom the American public should have?...But if we continue the restrictions on a freedom of broadcast journalism, they are likely to carry over to the expanded forms of electronic news."
In a freedom of the press debate, 'Washington Post' editor Benjamin Bradlee maintained, "If a government has a right to tell a newspaper what not to print, it inherits automatically the right to tell a newspaper what to print."
"The freedom of speech the First Amendment is involved with," a Harvard Law School professor made known, "is that basically the press should never have to go to the government in advance and get permission. They should rely on the criminal process then."
Freedom of the press, Mr. Justice Murphy declared in 1947, "Those guarantees are not for the benefit of the press so much as the benefit of all of us. A free press lies at the heart of our democracy and its preservation is essential to the survival of liberty."
Also in 1972, the series 'The Streets Of San Francisco' began its 5-season run; the Virginia Slims Championships of women's tennis was first played and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (also known as the Bill of Rights) enacted since 1789 went under the microscope.
1970 marked the start of the Virginia Slims pro tour. "Britain," Billie Jean King believed, "has the right idea. We should all be called players, not professionals and amateurs."
Billie Jean won her 100th singles match at Wimbledon in 1982. "I didn't realize until yesterday that this was going to be my 100th singles match," she later confessed. Billie Jean played her first Wimbledon match in 1961. "In my first year at Wimbledon," she recounted in 1975, "I had to share a room for $1.20 a night, including breakfast. All we ate were hamburgers and French fries. When I left I'd put on so much weight I couldn't button up my skirt."
On reflection she acknowledged, "I'm happy I came along when I did. It makes me feel good to know other women will have the opportunity to pursue their careers the way they want to from now on."
On the Saturday and Sunday of January 19 and 20 in 1974, 6500 tennis fans each night packed the San Francisco Civic Auditorium to watch Billie Jean played Chris Evert in the opening tennis event of the women's pro tour.
"I've waited 20 years to see crowds like this," Billie Jean enthused afterward. Tennis enthusiasts waited 6 hours before tickets went on sale. Some 2,000 plus fans
had to be turned away because there were no seats left. "It was the most enthusiastic crowd I've ever played before," Chris remembered.
That year California was chosen as the venue to host the Virginia Slims Championships. "When we played at San Francisco," Billie Jean explained of their decision, "people began queuing up for tickets at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We had to turn hundreds away."
In 1988, Chris Evert won her second last singles title at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles. "The name Billie Jean," she conceded, "and what she has done in tennis is intimidating."
Quinn Martin produced 'The Streets Of San Francisco'. "The first show I ever produced," he reminisced, "was 'The Jane Wyman Show.'"
'The Streets Of San Francisco' was shot on location. Quinn emphasized, "I can make a show looks 5 times better on location. A show is successful because of the stars and the scripts. I think location shooting adds about 20% to the intrinsic value of a show."
The 1950s, star Karl Malden remarked, "was the Golden Age when everything was live but it also was the age when many mistakes were being made and panic reigned."
Co-star Michael Douglas shared, "Back in my father's (Kirk Douglas) day, there was a normal progression for an actor's career. He could get his start on Broadway, then a studio would take him over and mold his career. But when I went to New York in 1968, there was no theater. I did a little off-Broadway, then I made 2 or 3 pictures that didn't go. The studios don't put actors under contract anymore, so I figured the best way to move my career along was to get into a TV series."
Lawrence Welk made his TV debut on KTLA Channel 5 in 1951. He voiced in 1974, "I have the reputation of being a square...I learned that if I'm going to be...a successful musician, I have to learn and evolve a style the people like...I am, basically deep in my heart, a jazz musician. Dixieland jazz."
Quinn Martin believed, "I think television in general has to renovate itself....We can't keep giving the public the same thing. We tend to drive people away from television."
The First Amendment rights offered protection of free speech amongst other freedoms in American society. In 1972, freedom of speech became the talking point in the media.
"Because (broadcast journalism's) technology depends on the use of frequencies rather than printing presses," Julian Goodman, the chief at NBC, pointed out at the time, "the government decided long ago to administer the system by federal licensing. And the federal license for using a frequency can become federal control over how it is used – control growing out of administrative and judicial interpretations of the public interest standard."
Reuven Frank who was in charge of 'NBC News', expressed about the First Amendment, "If you do not believe it ought to apply to news on television, you do not believe that it is an absolute need that news be free...That is not the way you express your belief but that is what you believe. This belief, to go back, is said to be based on the physical difference between print and broadcasting, between wood pulp and radio waves, not between what they carry."
"We must look ahead to where journalism itself is going. Today," Julian stated in 1972, "we have 2 worlds of the press – the world of the printed press and the world of electronic news. In the the former, constitutional guarantees of the press freedom are recognized and respected. In the latter they are being weakened."
"What of the future?" Julian asked. "We are facing an explosive growth in electronic communications...Is it a newspaper entitled to a strict First Amendment protection, or is it a licensed frequency subject to government control? Is the technology of news presentation to be the basis for determining how much or how little press freedom the American public should have?...But if we continue the restrictions on a freedom of broadcast journalism, they are likely to carry over to the expanded forms of electronic news."
In a freedom of the press debate, 'Washington Post' editor Benjamin Bradlee maintained, "If a government has a right to tell a newspaper what not to print, it inherits automatically the right to tell a newspaper what to print."
"The freedom of speech the First Amendment is involved with," a Harvard Law School professor made known, "is that basically the press should never have to go to the government in advance and get permission. They should rely on the criminal process then."
Freedom of the press, Mr. Justice Murphy declared in 1947, "Those guarantees are not for the benefit of the press so much as the benefit of all of us. A free press lies at the heart of our democracy and its preservation is essential to the survival of liberty."
