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MANCHESTER (N.H.) UNION LEADER
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1954

WMTW-TV NOW OPERATING

John Norton Is Station Manager

John H. Norton, Jr., a veteran of more than 20 years in the radio and television industry, will manage Mt. Washington TV in his capacity as vice president and general manager. Norton comes to WMTW from Chicago, IL, where he was vice president in charge of the American Broadcasting company’s central division.

Norton has been an executive broadcasting for most of his 23 years experience and has been confronted with every type of radio and television problem-sales, publicity, promotion and advertising policies -all of which has paved the way for his success in television as well as standard broadcasting.

Except for two years employment with a Wall Street firm, Norton has been in radio since his graduation in 1929 from the University of Maryland, where he majored in political science.

In 1931, he joined NBC’s commercial engineering department and shortly thereafter was appointed assistant manager of that network's owned-and-operated stations. In 1936, he became assistant to the vice president in charge of station relations.

Three years later, when NBC’s Red and Blue networks split, he was named manager of Blue’s station relations. He remained in that capacity when the Blue Network became a separate corporation.

Other promotions were rapid. In December 1945, Norton was made vice president in charge of ABC’s stations department. In the spring of 1948, Norton moved to Chicago to assume the position of vice president.

He lives with his wife, Virginia, and two children in Falmouth, a suburb of Portland, Me.

Madigan Heads Program Department

John T. Madigan, a veteran of many years in the broadcasting-telecasting field, will serve as program director of Mt. Washington-TV, Channel 8.

Madigan's capabilities were expertly summed up in a statement by John H. Norton, Jr. vice president and general manager of WMTW. Norton said: “Mr. Madigan’s background and experience in the field of program development has been outstanding. It is gratifying to me to have Madigan join the staff of WMTW, where I am certain his abilities as an outstanding contributor to television programming will become immediately apparent to our vast viewing audience in the tri-state area which our coverage will embrace.”

Outstanding among Madigan’s programming supervision was the American Broadcasting company’s coverage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in June, 1953. Madigan conceived the plan which enabled the ABC Television Network to score a clean beat over other American networks on the televising of films of the actual coronation proceedings.

Plan Succeeded

It was Madigan who had made prior arrangements for a microwave relay link via the Canadian Broadcasting corporation to the United States, enabling the ABC-TV Network to be fed the coronation films the instant the CBC put them on the air. Thus, the ABC-TV Network was the first major network in the U.S. to present the coronation proceedings to American televiewers.

Most recently he was the vital spark plug in the lengthy Army-McCarthy hearings, which the ABC-TV Network fed on a live basis throughout the entire time the hearings were in session, supervising the feed from Washington as well as the entire technical setup for the televising of the hearings.

A native of Dunkirk, N. Y., Madigan had been with the American Broadcasting company and its predecessor, the Blue Network, since August 1943, at which time he was appointed manager of the network’s newsroom. Successively he served as national news editor, director of news and most recently as manager of TV special events for ABC.

Editor's note: According to Tom Madigan, nephew, John returned to ABC before passing away in 1975.

Parker Vincent Is Engineering Crew Chief

Parker H. Vincent, a veteran of 15 years in the broadcasting and telecasting field will be chief engineer of Mt. Washington TV.
Vincent's first assigment as chief engineer of the world's largest television station was to supervise assembly of the transmitting equipment, set up and wired at Manchester, NH.

He came to WMTW from Olean, N. Y., where he was chief engineer at WHDL, AM-FM where he carried out important pioneering work in establishing an automatic remotely controlled high-powered FM station.

Previously, Vincent was project engineer at the Rust Industrial Company, Inc., of Manchester, NH. He was is charge of numerous broadcast and remote control projects.

Former radio experience includes W0CB, Yarmouth Mass.; member of the teaching staff at Lowell Technical Institute; broadcast engineer at station WLLH, Lowell, Mass; chief engineer and station manager at WHOB, Gardner, Massachusetts.