This was Television on April 3
1953: TV Guide releases its first issue
After beginning life in 1948 as a local New York publication, The TeleVision Guide, the coffee table mainstay launched its national edition on this date. The cover featured a photo of Desi Arnaz, Jr., the newborn son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who the issue dubbed “Lucy’s $50,000,000 Baby.” The magazine has gone through multiple publishers and countless iterations in six decades. The advent of technologies like cable guides and the internet have lessened its ubiquity; TV Guide boasted a circulation of roughly two million in 2012, a relatively high total for the era but a small fraction of its peak of roughly 20 million in the 1970s. -A.D.
Today’s Birthdays: Leigh-Allyn Baker, sitcom mom (41); Alec Baldwin, network exec (55); Jamie Bamber, space pilot (40); Amanda Bynes, sketch comic (27)0; Jennie Garth, Beverly Hillsian (41); Julie Ann Haddock, tomboy (48); Kevin Hagen, prairie doc (d. 2005); Eddie Murphy, SNLer (52); David Hyde Pierce, snob (54); Cobie Smulders, local news host (31).
This Was Television 
Add Your Thoughts