In 1949, Robert Nuber, a beer-delivery truck driver earning $70.00 a week, brought home to his family the city’s first television set. Mrs. Nuber wasn’t so impressed with being the first family in town that owned a television, she feared that it was too expensive of a luxury, so she had the set returned to the store. She eventually relented and the set was returned to the Nuber home making them the very first ones in the city of Erie to own a television.
At the time, when the Nuber family bought their television, WICU was the only television station broadcasting in the Erie area. It was the very beginning of television. There were only two locally produced programs that were broadcast twice a night, one of which was an amateur talent show. Except for two nightly programs, the station was mostly off the air. There was no network affiliation in the beginning, it was totally a local effort. Commercials were local and broadcast live. The entertainment was mostly local amateur acts: song, dance, musicians, recitals, commentaries and etc. There was no news service or reports. There wasn’t much on television in the beginning, but that didn’t matter: the television-set itself was more than entertaining.
WICU (channel 12) began broadcasting in Erie on March 15, 1949. The station was founded by Edward Lamb, an attorney from Toledo, Ohio, who also owned the Erie Dispatch-Herald. Erie was sandwiched between Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Steubenville to the south, Cleveland and Youngstown to the west, Buffalo to the east, and London, Ontario, to the north. This created a large doughnut in Northwestern Pennsylvania where there could only be one VHF license. WICU was fortunate to gain that license, and as a result was the market leader in Erie for most of its history. Channel 12 held a monopoly on Erie television until WSEE-TV signed-on in 1954 as a CBS affiliate. The then-two separately owned stations aired ABC programs until WJET-TV(channel 24) signed-on in 1966.
— Fortunately Life Magazine took an interest in the Nuber family and took some pictures.
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| After some discussion it was decided that the television would sit where the radio sat. Next? Where to put the radio. |
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| The Nuber's youngest child "Rita" investigates the new television |
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| The Nuber family gathers around the set and watches television for the first time in their lives |
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| Everyone has finished watching television for the night and Mr. and Mrs. Nuber are now in the kitchen cleaning up after the big event. |
