To those of you with recording from the Dumont Network.

[Peanutbutter]

Apparently you guys have some rare items (but You knew that)
Even the performers from the Network don't have them.
This was written on IMDB.com.
It's a story about the WB giving itself a funeral... Anyways, Just read.

" The WB network plans to sign off on Sept. 17 by airing pilots of some of its biggest hits, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Felicity and Dawson's Creek. According to Daily Variety, it also plans to air promos from its 11-year history and clips of some of the actors who have appeared on its shows over the years. The trade publication observed that such a farewell for a network is "unprecedented." The only other network ever to shut down, the Dumont network, did so in 1956 -- again after an 11-year run. Few recordings of its programs even exist today. In 1996, actress Edie Adams, widow of comedian Ernie Kovacs, testified that virtually none of her late husband's early programs exist. She recalled that there had been a dispute over who was to pay for storing the programs that did exist on so-called kinescope recordings. The dispute, she said, was settled when they were loaded onto trucks, driven to a waiting barge, which "made a right at the Statue of Liberty and dumped them in the upper New York Bay."

"

Here's the link, just scroll to bottom of page.
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-06-30/

That's a shame that she has no record of her husband's work.

[Lamont]

ive got a few discs of kovacs shows, so some survived!!

[Peanutbutter]

You should send some to his wife.
She'd appreciate it

[TMC]

http://www.avclub.com/article/dumont...-years--240641

Engineer Allen B. DuMont (1901-1965) was one of the true pioneers of television technology in the 1930s, and the sets manufactured by his company, DuMont Laboratories, in Passaic, New Jersey, were considered among the finest in the industry. The problem was, nobody was buying the darned things. TV sets were very expensive—about $5,000 in today’s money—and there were hardly any regularly scheduled broadcasts back then. Undaunted and despite not having any kind of show-business background, the engineer decided to produce his very own television broadcasts, including game shows, dramas, comedies, and sports. This led to the mid-August 1946 debut of the upstart DuMont Network, the first television network to challenge the supremacy of CBS and NBC.

It’s not exactly fair to call DuMont “the fourth network,” since it actually beat ABC to the TV airwaves by a couple of years. Among the network’s major discoveries was a comic dynamo named Jackie Gleason, who headlined a variety program called Cavalcade Of Stars. It was this show that introduced the world to the character of bellicose bus driver Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners. Gleason’s sidekick, Art Carney, is present here, too, as dim bulb Ed Norton. Gleason and Carney would eventually jump ship to CBS, but this sketch is from their DuMont days.

[TMC]

http://www.avclub.com/article/tune-l...and-cbs-252063

This week’s entry: DuMont Television Network

What it’s about: In the 1940s, at the dawn of television, there were no streaming services, no cable, no niche programming. America had but three monolithic networks: NBC, CBS, and… DTN? Yes, the DuMont Television Network was a major player in the ’40s and early ’50s, but folded after 10 years. Upstart rival ABC took its place in the firmament.

Strangest fact: A lot of DuMont’s early success was owed to World War II. The network was started by DuMont Laboratories, which was the first to bring an all-electronic TV set to market in 1938. (Previous models displayed the image on a mechanical zoetrope-like spinner.) In the ’30s, however, TV sets were merely a novelty, as there was very little actual programming being broadcast. DuMont made the bulk of its money in other technologies, including helping the Army develop radar as part of the war effort.

To give TV consumers something to watch, DuMont opened a TV station in New York. While rivals CBS and NBC scaled down their broadcast hours during wartime, DuMont’s station, with the catchy call-sign W2XWV, continued with a full schedule. As the war drew to a close, DuMont opened a second station in Washington, D.C., and used an experimental technology—coaxial cable—to connect the two stations to its New Jersey headquarters. The cable was used so both stations could simultaneously announce the detonation of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, and company founder Dr. Allen DuMont considered that the beginning of the network that bore his name, although he wouldn’t add a third station (Pittsburgh’s WDTV) until 1949.

Thing we were happiest to learn: While DuMont didn’t have the money and established talent that NBC’s and CBS’s radio networks provided, it still managed to be the innovator of the three. DuMont rejected the single-sponsor business model (which often gave the sponsor more power over content than the network) in favor of a series of short ads, which became TV’s sole model until PBS and pay cable came along in the 1970s.

DuMont also continued with technical innovations. It extended its coaxial cable to Chicago, and then the West Coast, which meant it could be a truly nationwide network. (Previously, East Coast stations would make kinescopes—a film of a TV screen—and ship them around the country.)

But it was programming where DuMont would have the biggest impact. It aired the first made-for-TV movie, Talk Fast, Mister; the first sitcom, Mary Kay And Johnny; the first network soap opera, Faraway Hill; and the first TV game show, Cash And Carry. DuMont’s most popular variety show, Cavalcade Of Stars, made its host—Jackie Gleason—into TV’s biggest star. He’d take the show to CBS, but not before creating a recurring sketch that would spin off into one of the most influential shows ever to air—The Honeymooners. DuMont also hosted one iteration of one of early television’s most creative and visually inventive programs, The Ernie Kovacs Show. Life Is Worth Living, in which host Bishop Fulton Sheen discussed philosophy and psychology, routinely brought in 10 million viewers, and is believed to still be the highest-rated religious programming ever aired.

[Roundhouse]

This was incredibly interesting. Younger, and just getting my feet wet with really archiving original broadcast content - and I hadn't even heard of DTV. What a great story; I wonder how different the television landscape would be if the Honeymooners hadn't jumped ship to CBS?

[RetroTVNitekatt]

Originally Posted by Peanutbutter

That's a shame that she has no record of her husband's work.

It's only the DuMont material that is missing (Barring one show), along with most of his TONIGHT SHOW episodes. (Of his brief run filling in for Steve Allen on Monday and Tuesday for several months, only two shows are known to "officially" exist)

His NBC night-time and daytime shows mostly exist, same with his ABC Shows. All 3 have a high existence rate (The ABC Show exist mostly as Video Tapes, not kine scopes and were more easily reused so there are greater holes in his ABC work than NBC work) and what formed the basis for the two DVD sets.