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NY TV debut 2/11/49 at 8:30 pm on WATV/13. Earliest documented NYC showing for Waggner's 1939 adventure, though the two earlier films in Monogram aviation series from a comic strip both debuted on WNBT in 1942 and the fourth bowed 6/23/48 on WATV. 
2/11/54 from 7 to 8 pm on WATV. 66 minutes in theaters, future blacklistee Bernard Vourhaus' 1938 crime drama was one of many Republics offered to local stations by Hollywood Television Service in 53-minute cuts designed to fill one-hour time slots. NY TV debut 11/24/53 on WATV.
2/11/59 at 11 pm on WNEW's "Five Star Movie.'' MGM's "Forbidden Hollywood'' videocassette release claimed Wellman's 1931 scorcher with young Clark Gable was among pre-codes heavily censored for TV, but does anymore really know this for a fact?
NY TV debut 2/11/64 at 11:20 pm on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Welder Goddard falls for soldier Tufts in Sandrich's deservedly forgotten 1944 follow-up to the trio's more successful SO PROUDLY WE HAIL!
2/11/64 at 4:05 am on WCBS' "The Late Late Show III.'' Yet another Claire Trevor vehicle I've never heard of, a 1936 musical. WNEW had a repeat of NAVY WIFE (1935) with then-ubiquitous Trevor at 10 am.
2/11/69 from 4:15 to 5:30 on WNJU's "Cine de la Tarde.'' Spanish-dubbed showing was first time I'd seen 1932 Ruben's lurid thriller that WOR had premiered 10/28/59 on its midnight "Mystery Movie'' but had retired to the shelf within two years.
US TV debut 2/11/74 on "The ABC Monday Night Movie.'' Castellano was Oscar nominated, reprising his Broadway role in 1970 adaptation of Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor's play. Diane Keaton's screen debut.
2/11/79 from 7 to 10 pm on "CBS Movie Spectacular.'' One of the greatest debacles in the history of motion pictures on TV. GWTW made network debut on NBC to record ratings for a one-off showing in two parts on 11/7 and 11/8/76 (despite 14 showings for its debut on HBO that June).
NBC, which paid a reported $5 million for a single screening, never showed it again. But CBS, which had pursued GWTW as early as 1956, decided it had the potential to become a perennial like THE WIZARD OF OZ, which had shown on CBS (or NBC) almost annually since 1959.
So CBS paid MGM a reported $35 million for a 20-year exclusive license to GWTW, which precluded not only further pay-TV showings but also a home video release. CBS' first showing, also in two parts, was scheduled to begin 40 years years ago tonight.
GWTW did not have much competition when it debuted on NBC to an expected enormous audience share. But in 1979 on CBS, GWTW was up against the US TV debut of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' on NBC as well as "Elvis,'' a new made-for-TV movie with Kurt Russell on ABC.
Much to everyone surprise and CBS' embarrassment, Part 1 of the GWTW rerun, despite a one-hour head start, ran second to "Elvis,'' which attracted 43 million viewers to GWTW's 36 million. CUCKOO'S NEST, also running from 8 to 11, was close behind with 32 million viewers.
CBS repeated GWTW and 1981 and 1984. Ted Turner, who bought the MGM library in 1985, wanted to show GWTW on his networks and acquired CBS' TV rights in a deal that included additional runs of THE WIZARD OF OZ for CBS, which showed it until 1998.
Why didn't GWTW have the repeatability of OZ on TV? Its sheer length, mandating two-part showings, with part two (the networks ignored the original intermission break) much draggier. Also it dates in ways that OZ doesn't.
