Message
Cards
From 1974 to 1980, I worked at Washington Channels, the cable television system in Washington, Pennsylvania. Specifically, I worked for Cable TV-3, our local origination channel, where we presented programs of local interest for several hours each day.
We put advertising messages on as many cards as we could sell. This was a significant source of revenue for our little "station." The unsold spaces were used for public-service messages or promos, either for our own channel or for Home Box Office on channel 5. Cable TV-3 never did make a profit, and we finally had to shut the operation down in 1980. But I saved some of the message cards. Here are some examples from that stack.
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Many of the cards were hand-drawn, in black ink with pencil shading, by our advertising salesman Bill Wilson. Bill also made up a card for himself when he ran for Washington City Council. |
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Sometimes I had to create the cards. My lettering skills weren't as good as Bill's, so I used a regular typewriter, a large-type typewriter, and press-on transfer lettering in a few basic fonts such as Kabel (a popular bold font in the '70s). |
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We promoted HBO movies as well as our own programs, such as the evening news-and-talk program Greater Washington Today. |
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On my first day on the job, the GWT newscast included a Polaroid picture of a Washington & Jefferson College gateway damaged by a runaway car. On my second day, I recycled the Polaroid for use as a news promo (at left). |
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Prices
were lower then. The print shop made a big deal out of
discounting a catalog by a quarter, and Bill appealed to the
electorate's anger over "exorbitant" one-dollar parking tickets. |
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And
here are ten more examples for your enjoyment. (I cannot tell |
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