In 1968 and 1969, broadcaster Bob Whitney experimented with novel television production techniques by renting studio facilities in major US cities and recording sample modules synchronized to popular records. Whitney was attempting to create a cost effective video product that would emulate the success of top forty radio. By creating a library of videotaped popular records accompanied by synchronized videos, programs could be assembled later by a video disk jockey. In 1970, a resulting marathon TV program, named The Now Explosion, was produced by Whitney and aired all weekend each week on Channel 36 in Atlanta, Georgia. Local Atlanta musical talent and young dancers starred in the program which was later picked up by stations in major US cities. The concept has been described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as music video ten years before MTV or VH1. The program's innovative approach resulted from unusual video effects generated in tempo to top forty records which were repeated in the same way selections are rotated in top forty radio. Whitney thought such programs could be distributed on 2 inch videotape to product-starved independent stations.

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Since the concept was like a radio show on TV, stations could run the program for any length of time enabling them to fill large blocks with low cost popular programming that might attract a new audience. After 13 weeks on channel 36 in Atlanta, Ted Turner acquired the program for his Atlanta station, Channel 17, and for his TV station in Charlotte, NC. The Now Explosion was then syndicated nationally. It lasted 26 weeks until it was forced to shutdown when commercial revenue did not match the high production and distribution costs in spite of high ratings. Recently, the University of Georgia Media Archives located and recovered significant amounts of this video which had been stored for 3 1/2 decades in south Florida. These segments were remastered to contemporary technical standards by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at UGA in Athens, GA, where the video is stored and is available for public viewing or academic study. Click below to get information about the archives: www.libs.uga.edu/media/index.html

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