SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — As we celebrate ABC4’s 75th anniversary, we take a look back at the beginning of our live remote broadcasts — bringing events happening around the state to the screens of those viewers watching at home.

In fact, ABC4 was one of the very first stations in the country to have a mobile unit. During our earliest years, crews would empty the building and load up the van, just in time for an on-location broadcast of whatever was worth seeing at the time.

Oftentimes, audiences couldn’t help but stare at the remote broadcast van and crew as it was once a rare phenomenon to televise out in the field.

Still, our team worked hard to bring viewers the events they wanted to see from the comfort of their own living rooms. We broadcasted all varieties of events, including baseball, wrestling, boxing, parades, state fairs, ribbon cuttings, and even book signings.

We covered it all and made every show as exciting as possible with some of our “pioneer” announcers like Paul James, Dave Garroway, and Alan Moll — each bringing viewers on a play-by-play journey into what was happening, even when things didn’t go as planned.

According to Moll, who recalled one live broadcast of a controlled avalanche that saw technical difficulties: “It never went off… Danny kept yelling in the earphones to ‘cue the avalanche’… Ahh, but it was live.”

Come rain or shine, our station and its crew did everything they could to make each live broadcast a magical experience for loyal viewers — a tradition that we continue to this day.