Music in Motion on Bell Telephone Hour

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The Bell Telephone Hour, also known as The Telephone Hour, is a concert series broadcast on NBC Radio Network from April 29, 1940 to June 30, 1958. Sponsored by Bell Telephone as the name implies, it showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week. It continued on television from 1959 to 1968. Throughout the program's run on both radio and television, the studio orchestra on the program was conducted by Donald Voorhees.

The TV show, seen on NBC from January 12, 1959, to April 28, 1968, was one of the first TV series to be telecast exclusively in color, using the color TV system perfected by RCA in 1954. It aired every week on Friday evenings at 10:00 pm, then was switched to Tuesday evenings at 10:00 pm in 1963. It was noted for its Christmas specials, frequently featuring opera stars and stars of musical theater and ballet. In the fall of 1965, the show was switched to an earlier time, Sundays at 6:30 pm.

In 1960, the program alternated weeks with Sing Along with Mitch. Beginning in 1965, the program sometimes had to share its time slot with an NBC news series called Actuality Specials on NBC, and was telecast every other week. In the fall of 1963, the program alternated with The Andy Williams Show.[citation needed]

During its last season, 1967–1968, the program was switched back to its old Friday-night time slot and the format changed from a videotaped and mostly musical presentation to filmed documentaries about classical musicians made on location. By this point, The Bell Telephone Hour was seen as a relic of a bygone era in television history.

One of the most notable of the Bell Telephone Hour documentary programs combined a tour of the Museo del Prado in Madrid, with performances by such noted Spanish musicians as Andrés Segovia, Alicia de Larrocha, and Victoria de los Ángeles. Another was a profile of Cleveland Orchestra conductor George Szell. This one was not a biography of Szell, but a documentary showing how he worked with the orchestra.