HISTORY OF NATAS

Local Chapter History


Photo on the left: Pictured L-R: NATAS President John Cannon, Governor Jimmy Carter, NATAS Chairman Robert F. Lewine, Atlanta Chapter Founding Vice-President Jerry Immel Photo on the right: Pictured L-R: Jerry Immel, Don Elliot Heald, Robert F. Lewine, Paul Raymon and John Cannon, holding the charter for the NATAS Atlanta chapter as it was known then.

Once the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences national office had approved the formation of the new Atlanta Chapter, as it was known back then, Cannon and Lewine came down to help sell the idea to the local stations and prospective members. On the day these photos were taken the group met with Jimmy Carter (then Governor of Georgia and U.S. Presidential candidate), Maynard Jackson (then Mayor of Atlanta) and Ted Turner.

National History

On February 12, 1946, a significant event in communications took place when, for the first time, two cities were linked by television - New York and Washington - and network television was born. Just one month later, in Hollywood - on March 14, 1946 - six men were brought together by Sid Cassyd, an audio-visual educator and author, and the organization that was to become the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was born. According to Mr. Cassyd, "It was tough talking television in Hollywood then. Like bringing entertainment coals to Newcastle." There were only eight television stations on the air, and the problems of organizing a professional television group in the motion picture capital seemed formidable.

A year later, however, on February 13, 1947, the Los Angeles Times reported that two hundred and fifty people attended the fifth formal meeting of the infant Academy. Edgar Bergan had been elected the first President on January 7, and the other officers were elected at the February 13 meeting.

Charles Brown became President in 1948, the year during which the EMMY was named by Harry Lubke, the Academy's third President. It was also in 1948 that EMMY Awards were first presented in Hollywood.

Mr. Cassyd, prime mover and founder of the organization, succeeded Harry Lubke as President in 1950, followed in successive years by Mike Stokey, Hal Roach, Jr., Charlie Ruggles, Don DeFore and Johnny Mercer. During all of these years, from 1946 though 1955, while the industry grew and expanded throughout the country, the Academy and the EMMY Awards remained a product of Los Angeles.

Almost nine years to the day after the historic first meeting in Hollywood a movement was started to enlarge the Academy through the addition of new chapters. On November 15, 1955, a luncheon meeting in New York was arranged by Ed Sullivan. This meeting was attended and addressed by Don DeFore, then President of the Academy in Hollywood, who endorsed Ed Sullivan's action to form a chapter at New York. Invited to this luncheon meeting were approximately fifty leaders from the ranks of New York's television industry - network and advertising agency executives, program packagers, performing artists, producers, directors, writers, craftsmen and sundry broadcast officials.

Within two weeks three more meetings were called by Ed Sullivan by the end of which time the organization of the New York Chapter had been entrusted to a "Committee of 100" - a group recruited to serve as the founding fathers.

On March 17, 1956, the eighth annual EMMY Awards program was presented as a joint effort of the Hollywood and New York Chapters. This marked the second network telecast of the EMMYs, but the first in which the categories were determined by the groups on both coasts and for the first time the telecast originated equally from Hollywood and New York.

In June, 1957, after extensive deliberation by the two groups, which recognized the importance to the organization's growth of such a step, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was founded by merging the three thousand members of the Hollywood and New York Chapters. Ed Sullivan was elected the first National President and the National Board of Trustees was made up of ten Governors from Hollywood and ten from New York. Now, though the Academy had begun in Hollywood in 1946, the National Academy, consolidating the two broadcast capitals, had become a reality ten and a half years later.

The TV Academy story since then is one of extraordinary growth. In its very first year as a national organization, chapters were sought by Baltimore and Chicago. In each city, groups of TV professionals who wanted to recognize achievements in local production and give their city's creative people a voice in national communications had joined to form local chapters. Baltimore and Chicago were chartered late in 1957, and a Chapter was founded in Washington, D.C. - the nation's news capital - in 1958 (Baltimore's chapter later gave up its charter and was absorbed by Washington). In 1959, two western cities recognized the need to further local production effort through membership in the Academy, and Seattle and Phoenix became the sixth and seventh Chapters respectively. San Francisco, chartered in October 1961, Columbus/Dayton/Cincinnati (1962), Cleveland (1969), San Diego (1974), Atlanta (1975), Miami (1976), Detroit (1977), Boston/New England (1978) and St. Louis have also been granted charters Philadelphia received provisional status in November of 1980.

The Structure of the Academy

In the Spring of each year, no later than June 15th, the members of the Academy's chapters elect their Board of Governors, who will administer their affairs during the following year. As soon as they take office, the Chapter Governors elect their representatives to the National Board of Trustees.

The National Academy and its Officers and Trustees administer all activities of a national character. These include the EMMY awards and annual EMMY Awards telecast; and such national projests as the Academy's journal, Television Quarterly; the Public Information, Lecture and Service Bureau; the proposed Library and Museum of Television; and various services which are provided for all members equally.

The Local Chapters and their Officers and Governors administer their own affairs and are primarily concerned with membership activities and Chapter services.