The First WRTI Broadcast

According to John B. Roberts

The following is written by Gerry Wilkinson....Jerry Klein and I have been debating exactly when the very first broadcast from the WRTI studios in Thomas Hall took place. We've been doing this for almost ten months. Well, the answer isn't as easy as it sounds. On Sunday afternoon, January 25, 1998, I spoke again to Professor John B. Roberts. Here's the answer.

The very first broadcast to originate from the Thomas Hall studios did take place on January 22, 1948. However, it was NOT on WRTI. It was a simulcast on the three WFIL stations; AM, FM and TV. It was with film television cameras and everything. Remember that the money for the studios came from Walter Annenberg and he owned the three WFIL Stations plus the Philadelphia Inquirer. The newspaper ran a big article with a picture on the 23rd of January.

The first WRTI broadcast, as far as Professor Roberts can remember, was about two to four weeks later with continuous operation beginning at that point. "Continuous meant from 1 pm to 8 pm, or some such schedule, " Roberts said. (Actually, the first broadcast was March 15th because that's when they hooked up the transmitter. Programming was two hours a day during the first semester of operation. For two weeks before, programming was fed via wire as a feed to Mitten Hall.)

The Swarthmore wired wireless station was on the air before WRTI with the University of Pennsylvania station coming a little while later. These three universities formed a network with each station providing a part of the program schedule.