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For decades, Labor Day weekend produced one of American television’s more unusual national networks.
The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon began as a New York event on WNEW-TV in 1966. Within a few years, stations around the country were carrying the program in what became known as the “Love Network,” which eventually peaked at 213 stations in 1976. It wasn’t a network in the CBS or NBC sense. Local stations agreed to carry a common national feed, periodically breaking away for their own fundraising, personalities and sponsors.
That local component became important almost immediately. In 1968, WHEC-TV in Rochester began inserting hometown volunteers and fundraising appeals into the telecast and found that the local interruptions generated more donations. The practice soon became part of the telethon’s basic architecture.
The result was essentially a national television network assembled around a single piece of programming. Nearly six decades later, that idea may be worth another look.
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