Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena

Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena
GenreSports
Presented byChris Schenkel
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time60–90 mins.
Original release
Network
  • NBC (1946–1948)
  • DuMont (1954–1955)
  • Syndicated, through WABD (1955–1958)
Release1946 (1946) –
August 4, 1958 (1958-08-04)

Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena, sometimes named Monday Night Fights at St. Nicholas Arena,[1][2] is an American sports television program originally broadcast on NBC from 1946 to 1948, and later on the DuMont Television Network from 1954 to the network's closure in 1956. It was DuMont's last regularly scheduled program. It was then a syndicated program based at WABD television in New York City (the former flagship of DuMont) from 1956 until 1958.

Broadcast history

Before having their own program, boxing matches from St. Nicholas Arena were broadcast as part of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports.[3]

NBC

NBC broadcast Boxing From St. Nicholas Arena twice a week—at 9:30 p.m. on Mondays and at 10 p.m. on Tuesdays.[4] The series ended on May 9, 1949, as a result of budgetary problems at the sponsoring Gillette Company.[5]

DuMont

The DuMont version was hosted by Chris Schenkel; Schenkel took over for Dennis James, who had hosted most of DuMont's boxing telecasts prior to 1954.[6]

This program, which aired boxing matches from St. Nicholas Arena in New York City on Monday nights, is notable for being the final program to air on DuMont.[7] After a short period of significant decline, DuMont announced in April 1955 that all remaining scripted programming would end on a per-program basis, a process that wrapped up by September and effectively ended regular operations.[8][9] Boxing From St. Nicholas Arena was the only regularly scheduled show to remain on the lineup, as it was a co-op production and not sponsored.[10][11] Historians Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh write that DuMont's last official broadcast was a St. Nicholas Arena match on August 6, 1956.[12][a]

WABD

St. Nicholas Arena was then syndicated from WABD (a former DuMont flagship), under the "DuMont" banner, to a network of 37 stations initially.[14] Most were affiliates of ABC. It still aired it on Monday nights, a night ABC did not fully program into. When The Lawrence Welk Show moved to a later start time on ABC, it shifted the start time for St. Nicholas Arena by 30 minutes.[15] WABD continued to distribute the program to a dwindling affiliate base until the program's last broadcast on August 4, 1958, after a price dispute between the station and promoter Teddy Brenner. The broadcast aired on only five affiliates. WABD opted to air feature films in the time slot instead.[16]

Episode status

About 60 episodes of the DuMont version survive at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. However, some of these episodes are from the non-network version which continued to run on WABD after the network closed (these are also notable due to the rarity of kinescopes of local programming aired on United States television stations during the 1950s).

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Journalist Steve Tober writes that DuMont syndicated a Thanksgiving game of high school football in 1957.[13]

References

  1. ^ Podrizak, Walter J.; Castleman, Harry (1982). Watching TV: Four Decades of American Television. McGraw-Hill. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-07-010269-9.
  2. ^ Castleman, Harry; Podrazik, Walter J. (1982). Watching TV: Four Decades of American Television. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-07-010269-9. August 4, 1958. Monday Night Fights, the final show of the old Dumont network dies. At the end, it is carried on only five stations, nationwide.
  3. ^ Gamache, Ray (2010). A History of Sports Highlights: Replayed Plays from Edison to ESPN. McFarland. p. 88. ISBN 9780786456642. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  4. ^ Fearn-Banks, Kathleen (2009). The A to Z of African-American Television. Scarecrow Press. p. 53. ISBN 9780810863484. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  5. ^ Winn, J. Emmett; Brinson, Susan Lorene (2005). Transmitting the Past: Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Broadcasting. University of Alabama Press. p. 81. ISBN 9780817351755. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  6. ^ Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle (1985). The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network TV Shows (Third ed.). New York: Ballantine. pp. 113–114. ISBN 0-345-31864-1.
  7. ^ Reed, R. M.; Reed, M. K. (2012). The Encyclopedia of Television, Cable, and Video. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 176. ISBN 9781468465211. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  8. ^ "DuMont Network To Quit In Telecasting 'Spin-Off'". Broadcasting. August 15, 1955. p. 64. ProQuest 1014914488.
  9. ^ "DuMont Turns Its Corporate Back On TV Network, Leaves It To Die". Broadcasting. August 29, 1955. p. 80. ProQuest 1014916214.
  10. ^ "Du Mont To Drop Two TV Programs: Network Will Retain Boxing Bouts Weekly—Plans New Company". The New York Times. August 15, 1955. p. 35. ProQuest 113354069.
  11. ^ "Radio-Video-TV Films: DuMont Cable Down to a Thread". Variety. Vol. 198, no. 7. April 20, 1955. p. 26. ProQuest 962892954.
  12. ^ Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle (2007). "Boxing". The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present (9 ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-345-49773-4. Retrieved January 25, 2026.
  13. ^ Tober, Steve (November 20, 2017). "Thanksgiving football games a disappearing tradition". NorthJersey.com. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
  14. ^ "At Deadline: N. Y. Boxing Unit Denies Bid for Monday TV Bouts". Broadcasting-Telecasting. Vol. 51, no. 7. August 13, 1956. p. 9. ProQuest 1401218488.
  15. ^ "Radio-Television: ABC-TV Mon. Extension Cues Shift in DuM Bouts". Variety. Vol. 203, no. 11. August 15, 1956. p. 30. ProQuest 963066084.
  16. ^ "Radio-Television: Looks Like Welk's Boxed Out of An Earlier Time Slot". Variety. Vol. 211, no. 10. August 6, 1958. p. 23. ProQuest 1032370235.

Bibliography

  • David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) ISBN 1-59213-245-6
  • Alex McNeil, Total Television, Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) ISBN 0-14-024916-8
  • Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Third edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) ISBN 0-345-31864-1
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