[PRCo] West Penn and Television

[Edward H. Lybarger]

PERC never claimed that TV put West Penn out of business.  CERA did that all
by themselves.  The first part of Bulletin 110 was a horrible compendium of
semifacts and wantobelieves; the West Virginia stuff was much better in
terms of accuracy.

TV was a factor, one of many.  If you lived in Manor, you got a watchable TV
signal.  But if you lived near Uniontown, as a friend of mine did, you got a
lot of snow (and not just in the winter).  His family (both parents worked)
had a very early TV, and he said it was dreadful!  So its true effects over
the region were decidedly mixed.

The fact that no one but Fred and I seems to have researched is the
operative one:  West Penn formally acknowledged prior to the end of 1948
that it would be getting out of the streetcar business, and by that time
they had written the system down to scrap value.  Pittsburgh's first TV
station took to the air in January 1949.

Ed