April 8th, 1956-September 14th, 1958
The $64,000 Challenge was the first game show to be spun off from another TV game show, the $64,000 Question. Sonny Fox served as the first host of the show but was replaced in September 1956 by Ralph Story. The show was taken off the air in September 1958 due to the TV game show scandals that were taking place.
Tom Kane, Buffalo, NY, meets his challenger, actor
Hans Conreid, New York City, at the $32,000 level in the English-language category. Ralph Story is the emcee.
Host: Ralph Story
SELECTIONS FROM ORIGINAL GRAY AUDOGRAPH DISC RECORDINGS, RECORDED OFF THE AIR, REPRESENTING SEVEN CONSECUTIVE DAYS OF KNXT LOS, ANGELES BROADCASTING, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 THRU 7, 1957.
These LOST CBS broadcasts represent an unprecedented one complete week, sign on to sign off, September 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1957 (130 hours on 130 8 & 1/2" diameter discs with a capacity to record 32 minutes per side (side one and side two had the potential capacity to record 64 minutes).
These discs were obtained in Los Angeles by Phil Gries, creator and owner of Archival Television Audio, Inc. in 2011. They were originally found in an establishment, located in Burbank, California, selling old records dispersing its inventory as they went out of business, a few years before.
The rarity of this type of media to record television is not known to have occured beyond a few incidents, as stated below, at any other time, which make this collection of TV Audio Airchecks, recorded on Gray Audograph discs, an amazing surviving artifact.
The sound quality varies with different broadcasts. After a period of almost three years, processing and digitizing these 130 two sided discs, there is recognition of the rarity of some of these broadcasts providing one of a kind surviving Television Audio Airchecks and are extremely desirable regardless of some of the extraneous sound artifacts heard on some of these tracks which were painstakingly processed and transferred one by one to optimize the sound quality and proper pitch.
NOTE:
To listen to a seminar Phil Gries presented at an ARSC presentation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2014, about these Gray Audograph Discs...their genesis, discovery and contents, go to the ATA website www.atvaudio.com and click on ARSC which can be found within the right column on the ATA Home Page.
GRAY AUDIOGRAPH (1946 - 1976)
History:
The Gray Audograph was a dictation disc recording format introduced in 1946 by the Gray Manufacturing Company in the United States. It recorded sound by pressing grooves into soft vinyl discs, like the competing, but incompatible, SoundScriber and VoiceWriter formats.
Audiograph discs were blue thin plastic flexible discs, recorded from the inside to the outside, the opposite of conventional phonograph discs. Another difference compared to phonograph discs (78, 45, 33 & 1/2) was that the audiograph was driven by a surface-mounted wheel, meaning that its recording and playback speed decreased toward the edge of the disc (like the Compact Disc and other digital formats), to keep a more constant linear velocity and to improve playing time.
The mandatory speed variation correction requires playback on an Audograph player, which ATA possesses and has modified, allowing line out output connections, direct line, to the input of any other recording format device.
Gray Audograph discs were available in three different sizes. The 6-inch diameter disc offered 10 minutes of recording time per side, the 6 & 1/2" disc offered 15 minutes per side. The
8 & 1/2" disc, which is extant in the ATA archive, offered 30 minutes of recording per side.
ALONG WITH THE DICTABELT RECORDER, A GRAY AUDOGRAPH RECORDER MACHINE CAPTURED THE ACTUAL LIVE SOUNDS RECORDED OF GUN SHOTS AT THE TIME OF THE JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION. THESE AUDIO SOUNDS WERE USED IN THE REVIEW BY THE UNITED STATES HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS.
THE GRAY COMPANY CEASED MANUFACTURE OF THE GRAY AUDOGRAPH RECORDER IN 1976.
