WSB-TV's "Action News" At 6:00pm - February 1, 1978

[@cindypruitt9534]

This makes me so happy ! Glad that John and Monica are still with us. This even has an old lip quencher commercial.

[@angieyard9247]

Being an Alanta native growing up by the airport, I am so digging this! Wow we thought we had traffic problems.........only if the highways looked like that now beforeeeeeee construction lol. Love going back and seeing this. I was in the 9th grade......

[@ChironAce]

I wouldn't born for another seven months and wouldn't be in Atlanta for a year; this is gold.

[@ShawnC.T.]

Monica Kaufman was a cutie pie, I saw her downtown at the corner of Washington Street and Capitol Square around 1986, an she was even better looking in person...

[@gpowellish1]

Yeah she spoke at my school a lot back in the 70's when I was a kid.

[@TheMrlocalcelebrity1]

Rest in Peace Miss Florence Henderson.

[@kaizersolze]

Interesting! John Pruitt and Johnny Beckman both ended up on WXIA. This was one of Monica Kaufman's *MANY* hairstyles. 75/85 was a mess back then and it's still a mess now (especially 85). The street signs in Atlanta were black on white and all caps back then. When I was born, they had already changed them to white on green in mixed cases; I remember channel 2 had the big red 2 for their logo then they went to that stylized yellow 2 that they've had since the 80s. La Choy Chicken Chow Mein is STILL sold! That accent you hear from the Fulton County commission is long gone! Atlanta is far more diverse now than it was back then. Nice trip down memory lane! Something else: the Loews Grand theatre is placed in "midtown" in this news story, but it's clearly in downtown. It certainly was demolished and now the Georgia Pacific Building is there -- clad in pink granite with a "stairstep" look to it. It looks 2-dimensional when you face it directly but 3-dimensional from the sides. Midtown is about a mile or two north now at North Avenue. A Gallery Furniture commercial brought me here.

[@robertlandonijr2481]

On Right channel , i can hear the control room audio . great addition to this video

[@aafife499]

Thanks for posting. Great stuff!

[@LordChristopherOfMidway]

Some observations: 1) It seems like most every reporter story (what we call a "package" in the business) is something they used to call a "synch-roll," judging by the director calling for both a film and a "cart" and saying "sound up." The reporter track was on carts played at the same time as the film, and the film had to be edited exactly to the cart, with a little bit of pad so that the track didn't step on the soundbites, which happened a couple of times in this newscast. That opening report sounded like a nightmare of carts and film. I counted at least three different projectors being used and dissolves between them. And the director just played it out like a song. Of course, scripts had to be marked METICULOUSLY, or this wouldn't work. 2) Wow, WSB had a tremendous number of reporters at this time. Or did it just seem like that? Most of these stories were pretty short, too, no longer than 1:30 -- hence the "Action News" branding, which was just "Eyewitness News" with shorter stories. 3) Notice the glitch going in and out of the "LAC" -- "Live Action Cam." I gather some things just weren't put through a time-base corrector or frame synch, even though I think I hear the director talking about this. 4) That beautiful old plantation building seen in the WSB FCC announcement is gone.

[@bmasters1981]

"2) Wow, WSB had a tremendous number of reporters at this time. Or did it just seem like that? Most of these stories were pretty short, too, no longer than 1:30 -- hence the "Action News" branding, which was just "Eyewitness News" with shorter stories." So basically, WPVI 6ABC of Philly had a form of Eyewitness News in Action News?

[@jessecoffey4737]

1:00:55 - By this point, diplexing allowed video and audio to be fed through the same lines. Atlanta and the rest of the nation now got the same great network audio received in New York and Los Angeles. Also, a Norelco PC-70 can be seen to the right of the man talking at 59:45.

[@MikeLutton]

must of got fixed i dont see it

[@microbios8586]

What's remarkable is all the people with heavy Savannah-esque accents which you will never find in Atlanta nowadays. It's rather bizarre. This is not the same place.

[@ChironAce]

The Great Migration of '90s took care of that.

[@sayhibobbi]

Compliments to the director; if I'd lost the switcher, I certainly would not have been as calm.

[@ShawnC.T.]

Lol, I wouldn't have trusted Sidney Dorsey to watch my two dogs I had at the time. This report involving the police benevolent association, which he was the president, just shows what a "shady character" he was at the time, and definitely later on in life. This is the man who had his political rival, murdered in cold blood in 2000, to keep him from probing into corruption orchestrated by Sidney Dorsey, while he was DeKalb County Sheriff. As a result of being convicted on ordering someones murder, he is now in a Georgia state prison, where he will remain for the rest of his natural life...

[@christophermattox3972]

On my left channel I here Control room audio communication. WSB we’ll always and forever be my station.

[@cltsrd]

I really enjoy watching the old Atlanta newscasts. Would love to see more if you have them, or if you know of a good online resource.

[@newstarcadefan]

If you can (if you haven't done so already) check out the behind the scenes newsroom footage. It's plenty chaotic.

[@jpowers55]

I was 2 months old.

[@moxie96]

This was not my local channel but this news aired an hour before I was born! The news music sounds very similar to my local channel 2 KTVU OAKLAND CA.

[@patrickgallagher1161]

moxie96 Oakland Native too

[@videonut1988]

moxie96, KETV in Omaha and WIS in Columbia in the Carolinas used that same theme.

[@mshroye2]

Frozen steak dinners?!?! Why do these not exist now. It’d be so awesome to come home after a long day and pop a steak meal in the oven.

[@jabba0017]

They were surprisingly good.

[@guriausa]

And now I know who George Busbee Pkwy is named after.

[@khalifaofthemosthigh5936]

Wow the good ole days.

[@CoasterMan13Official]

Looks great. I grew up in the early 2010s with the hi-fi garbage, but the low fi stuff feels so good, it needs a strong comeback!

[@davehenry2519]

Winn Dixie Commercial at about 58:30

[@tyrese3745]

Question: When did John Pruitt leave WSB-TV Channel 2 for competitive WXIA-TV's 11 Alive Newsroom in 1978?

[@DeAngeloStevens]

Sunday January 1, 1978 through Sunday December 31, 1978 that's 28 years before Sunday January 1, 2006 through Sunday December 31, 2006.

[@brianarbenz1329]

A wider expressway! Oh boy, soon Atlanta traffic will be easy for ever and ever!

[@hrtvfan2870]

I wonder when WSB replaced Move Closer to Your World with News People for the theme music.

[@Creepingdeathx81]

Who knew you could buy cigarettes in a theatre?

[@newstarcadefan]

Yup, but we know better now to have smokes in the theater.

[@romantikwater4285]

I was born 26 days later.

[@robinrichards72]

HOV! Ha! Those took another 15 or so years to show up. 😂

[@kmart3697]

WSB was NBC now NBC

[@facebook51ify]

WSB-TV was NBC now ABC since Monday, September 1, 1980!

[@facebook51ify]

Jean Pierre vargas alvarez wsb is now ABC.

[@1thetvzone]

I did some digging around and found out later in 1978 John Pruitt would end up going over to WXIA at the time until 2008/09 which was right next door to WSB. Johnny Beckman as well would go over to be the chief weatherman at WXIA too. WXIA had gotten to a point in the late 70s passing up WAGA for #2. To add insult to injury WSB switched from NBC to ABC which hurt 11Alive. However NBC has 11Alive in the last 40years. Despite WSB being top rated ABC a better fit than NBC. However it would have been nice if CBS would of stayed on WAGA. a young John & Monica which was an Atlanta institution.

[@newstarcadefan]

You are correct on all counts. Though, yeah Fox snatched up the New World stations and WAGA is still a part of Fox Television Stations.

[@MyPhonePays]

You can do this

[@charlessmith6107]

Dam all they talked about was giving the police and fire departments raises lol. Nothing new under the sun.

[@microbios8586]

I would not want to live in this Atlanta. It's so backwards. They are praising highway construction here. I feel the metro has progressed for the better, but there is a long way to go.