1953 College Football Season
September 19
Nebraska vs Oregon - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
September 26
Dartmouth vs Holy Cross - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
October 3
Ohio State vs California - NBC, Tom Harmon, Lindsey Nelson
October 10
Oklahoma vs Texas - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
October 17
Tennessee vs Alabama - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
October 24
Cornell @ Princeton
Syracuse @ Illinois
Indiana @ Iowa
Ole Miss vs Arkansas @ Memphis
NBC showed roughly a quarter of each game in a format called "Panorama", sort of an early version of today's NFL Red Zone. See below for details.
October 31
Pittsburgh vs Minnesota - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
November 7
Georgia @ Florida - NBC, Lindsey Nelson, Bill Munday
North Carolina @ South Carolina - NBC (WIS-Columbia only), Ray Stanfield
Wisconsin @ Northwestern - NBC, Mel Allen, Jimmy Dudley
Kansas @ Kansas State - NBC, announcers unknown
Note: NBC and sponsor General Motors had planned for another "Panorama" broadcast, but due to overwhelming negative feedback, decided to regionalize broadcasts of the full games instead.
November 14
Michigan State Michigan - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
November 21
USC vs UCLA - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
November 26
BYU vs Utah - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
November 28
Army vs Navy - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
December 5
Southern Methodist @ Notre Dame - NBC, Mel Allen, Lindsey Nelson
As originally posted by tvnut in the forum in 2018:
The October 24 football "Panorama," as NBC named it, was largely a technical success, but fans weren't thrilled. Sponsor General Motors reported 2,500 letters were 7-1 against doing it again, and GM convinced the NCAA and NBC to go to regional coverage on November 7.
The Panorama had been announced on April 27, when the year's TV plan was announced. The dates and teams involved were announced on August 22.
The October 24 telecast began at 2:45 p.m. ET. Kickoff times: Cornell at Princeton, 2 p.m.; Syracuse at Illinois and Indiana at Iowa, 2:30 p.m.; Mississippi vs. Arkansas at Memphis, Tenn., 3 p.m. So three games were in progress when the telecast began. It apparently ran until 6 p.m. ET.
The idea was to show about a quarter of each game, cutting to key action any any of the four games when a team got close to the goal line. Think NFL RedZone, 50 years plus in advance. The feeds from all four games went to NBC Chicago, where the game to be shown was picked out and fed to the network.
Wrote reviewer Larry Wolters in the Chicago Tribune: "On the whole, the control group for the games, centered in Chicago, kept good track of the various contests to the end that viewers saw a lot of action from Champaign, including a long touchdown pass. They did even better from Iowa City, picking up the Iowa touchdown near the close of the first half and the winning drive across the Indiana goal in final minutes of the last quarter. However, most of the drama of the Princeton-Cornell game eluded the camera men. The southern game didn't interest our viewing circle so we listened to radio while it was on the screen."
Wolters reported the entire setup (17 crew at each game, 16 more at NBC in the Merchandise Mart, line charges) cost an extra $50,000 above the usual week's budget. He wrote sponsor GM "seemed to regard it imperative to saturate the afternoon with commercials."
He also thought the announcers ought to have mentioned which teams were playing more often, and threw in this: "What the NCAA has forgotten in this experiment (which will be tried again Nov. 7) is that football essentially is a suspenseful drama that usually builds toward a climax if the teams are at all evenly matched. ... For this reason we feel this device of switching to four games is doomed to ultimate failure. It can make nobody (except bigwigs of the NCAA) happy and it will make millions of people unhappy."
The reaction came in swiftly and loudly, and by the end of the week, the second panorama was dead, replaced by regional telecasts.
The revised November 7 schedule (times ET, including 15-minute pregame show):
1:15 p.m.: Florida vs. Georgia at Jacksonville, Fla., shown in most of south and WRC Washington.
1:45 p.m.: North Carolina at South Carolina, shown only on WIS Columbia, S.C.
2:15 p.m.: Wisconsin at Northwestern, shown in midwest and east.
2:45 p.m.: Kansas at Kansas State, shown in plains, southwest and west.