With the sad news that KQV is planning to go off the air in the new year, it seems like a good time to visit the odd way they affected broadcast rights to sporting events.
In 1937, three local radio stations, WJAS (with Rosey Rowswell), WWSW (Claude Haring) and KQV (John Boyer), would recreate road games in-studio from Western Union reports. Home games were off-limits; stations would read boxscores when the contest ended.
Bill Benswanger was the Pirates' president from 1932 to 1946. "Frankly, we didn't know whether it was good or bad," he recounted to The Pittsburgh Press' Roy McHugh. "Nobody else did, either. I was afraid it would hurt attendance, what little we had. Remember, these were Depression days. At last I said, 'Well, we'll try it.'"
It worked well enough that in 1938, the Pirates sold broadcast rights for re-creations of road games to General Mills and the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. (General Mills' Wheaties were the biggest sponsor of baseball broadcasts, and they were often joined by Mobil.) Those games would air on KDKA and WWSW.
KQV's station manager, Paul Miller, wondered what he should do. Boyer had an idea. "I'll broadcast the home games," he said.
He rented a room in the attic of a house across Bouquet St. from Forbes Field. Lookouts there would watch the game and, by telephone, pass the play-by-play back to Boyer in the downtown studio. They could see everything but the right-field corner, but they could deal with that problem. "We could see the scoreboard," said Jack Bucheit, "and we knew if a ball was hit to right field and an out went up, it was caught."
The day's radio schedule in the Press would specify the specific road game that was to be broadcast, whether it was KDKA's "Pirate-Red Game (Rosey Rowswell gives play-by-play)" or WWSW's "Pittsburgh at Cincinnati -- Baseball Game." KQV's listing for home games, though, was just "Today's Sports."
The Pirates were not happy. General manager Sam Watters tried to find the leak. Ticket takers could no longer re-admit people who left the park. He staked out the phone booths. He looked for carrier pigeons or people tossing written messages over the walls. He didn't see anyone signalling to a confederate on a nearby rooftop. He even had a couple of workmen hold up a screen on the roof of the grandstand.
But Boyer continued to broadcast. On July 6, the Pirates filed suit, asking for an injunction and $100,000 damages. Benswanger's fellow owners asked him to drop the suit, worried about bad publicity.
The case was heard July 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania by Judge F.P. Schoonmaker. The Pirates admitted they didn't know how KQV was getting their information, while the station said they hadn't re-created a road game since May 26, and had no intention of resuming that practice.
The decision in Pittsburgh Athletic Co. et al v. KQV Broadcasting Co. came down Aug. 8. Judge Schoonmaker granted the injunction.
KQV agreed to stop their broadcasts, and the club dropped its demand for monetary damages. Teams' ownership of the rights to the descriptions and accounts of their games was established. (Pictures, too, when the time came.)
"That decision has been vital not only in baseball, but in all other sports," Benswanger told McHugh in 1968. "When TV came along the precedent was established."
So, in addition to mourning many decades of KQV's radio programming, we can appreciate its role in sports broadcasting history.
All quotes are from original coverage in The Pittsburgh Press.
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A few excerpts from the decision:
"The Pittsburgh Athletic Company has granted by written contract, for a valuable consideration, to General Mills, Inc., the exclusive right to broadcast, play-by-play, descriptions or accounts of the games played by the Pirates at this and other fields. The National Broadcasting Company, also for a valuable consideration, has contracted with General Mills, Inc., to broadcast by radio over stations KDKA and WWSW, play-by-play descriptions of these games. The Socony-Vacuum Oil Company has purchased for a valuable consideration a half interest in the contract of the General Mills, Inc."
"The defendant [KQV] secures the information which it broadcasts from its own paid observers whom it stations at vantage points outside Forbes Field on premises leased by defendant. These vantage points are so located that the defendant's observers can see over the enclosures the games as they are played in Forbes Field."
"Defendant contends it is not unfairly competing with any of the plaintiffs because it obtains no compensation from a sponsor or otherwise from its baseball broadcasts. It concedes, however, that KQV seeks by its broadcast of news of baseball games to cultivate the good will of the public for its radio station. The fact that no revenue is obtained directly from the broadcast is not controlling, as these broadcast are undoubtedly designed to aid in obtaining advertising business."
"Conclusions of Law.
"2. The right, title and interest in and to the baseball games played within the parks of members of the National League, including Pittsburgh, including the property right in, and the sole right of, disseminating or publishing or selling, or licensing the right to disseminate, news, reports, descriptions, or accounts of games played in such parks, during the playing thereof, is vested exclusively in such members.
"3. The actions and threatened actions of the defendant constitute a direct and irreparable interference with, and an appropriation of, the plaintiffs' normal and legitimate business; and said action is calculated to, and does, result in the unjust enrichment of the defendant at the expense of the plaintiffs and each of them.
"9. The plaintiffs are entitled to and are hereby granted a preliminary injunction."
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