Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Thursday, October 31, 2024
First, in television. More from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Now is the time to make a plan. Whether you plan to vote absentee by mail in person at your county auditor's office before Election Day or at your polling place on November 5th, it's important you take steps now to make your plan at voterready.iowa.gov. Remember Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Find more information at voterready.iowa.gov. This message presented by the Iowa Secretary of State. B.J. Palmer had an idea. For people in Davenport and the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois, that was nothing new, the Palmer family had founded chiropractic treatment, and B.J. Palmer had seized upon the magic of radio to tell about chiropractic, leading to his founding of the first commercial radio station in Iowa in 1922. His new idea was television. It was early in 1948, and the Palmer family announced they would put a TV station on the air from Davenport within two years. They bought a residence at 805 Brady Street to house not only their radio station, but the new television operation as well. It was conveniently located just across the street from the Palmer College of Chiropractic. On October 31st, 1949, the 400 homes in the region with television sets got a treat on Halloween, local television, as WOC-TV signed on on Channel 5. At the time, there were four national broadcast networks, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Dumont, and since it was the only station in the region, WOC-TV carried programming from all four, although it was primarily an NBC affiliate. By 1952, viewers enjoyed the local programming, but sometimes there was interference from another Channel 5 located in Ames. As a result, the Federal Communications Commission reassigned WOC to Channel 6 on the dial. That's where people first found color programming from the network in 1956. The Palmer family owned the station for its first 40 years, and just as WOC-AM was the state's first radio station, WOC-TV was Iowa's first television station, going on the air on this date in 1949. And that's Iowa Almanac for October 31st. There's more online at iowalmanac.com. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.