TFTP Signs-On for June: Station Sign-On (w/ "Carolina Calling") from WBTV/Charlotte, NC (c. 1959)

Every first of the month, TFTP signs-on with a classic station sign-on sequence, to launch another month of Television from the Past...

Posted to YouTube by user 'iblefty1951'

This is maybe the oldest station sign-on sequence available out there on the interwebs: a late-1958 or 1959 sign-on from Charlotte, North Carolina, CBS affiliate WBTV that includes the first few minutes of legendary local program "Carolina Calling".

This clip begins with a customary voiceover of ownership and address information, over images of the station's studio and transmitter and a few varieties of station logo. This is followed by the image of an alarm clock (reading 7 o'clock) going off, the opening to "Carolina Calling".

"Carolina Calling" was a morning variety show, with music from Arthur Smith and his band the Cracker Jacks, with the kind of information we've come to expect from morning shows--weather conditions, etc.--sprinkled into the banter between songs. The show was a TV extension of the show by the same name that Smith had been involved with on radio in Charlotte.

Professional video taping systems (invented in 1956) only became available to local stations in the middle to latter part of 1958, and WBTV was reportedly one of the first to get one--thus dating this video-taped clip to circa 1959.