Little did the u.s and the world know that almost 60 years we are still talking about them and still listening to their music in 2021. This is why children they are and will always be the greatest band of them all. Nuff Said

It’s hilarious how these old newsmen not just reported on the Beatles, but dismissed them. Stay tuned for the Beatles being more popular and influential than these guys could imagine!

Watched it with my Mom; I was 18 and in love with them...still am.

The Beatles were a phenomenon then and they're music longevity has stood the test of time like no other band or singer ever in history!

3:06 "One reason for the Beatles' popularity may be that it's almost impossible to hear them." You'll eat those words!

This obviously was the final story on this national network news show, placed there because it was considered light, amusing, and inconsequential. People in the USA at the time literally did not know there were rock groups in Britain; the latter were never heard on the radio in America. This would change hugely and dramatically within a few months of this news broadcast.

I remember that Jack Parr on the Tonight show pipped his rival Ed Sullivan by showing video performances of the Beatles before their live appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. To me in Grade 10, seeing that gave me an ephemeral feeling of indefinable excitement. We loved the Beatles immediately, and we rooted for them. We WANTED their songs to be number one, and when they had five of the top ten hits on the hit parade, it felt like vindication for our initial excitement.

For "Hard Core Fans" I would make that "Millions of fans" because there were millions of fans and there still are despite the Beatles period being now so long ago which demonstrates the strength of their music and the attraction of their combined personalities.

Goodnight Edwin, who never in his life thought that 60 years later no one would remember who he was, but everyone in the world knows who The Beatles were.

The Beatles are such mythic figures in the world of music--and popular culture, period--that it's sobering to see reports like this and remember that they were four ordinary guys who had to claw their way up the ladder like anyone else. Hard to believe that less than a year later they'd have the world in their grasp...

Four days before JFK died. A true cusp of history - the shift from post-50s to full-blown '60s.

I love how they said merseyside section of liverpool. Trust me as Scouser myself the entirety of liverpool is in merseyside. Merseysides a county not a town

I watched this by myself when I was 9 years old on the evening news. They used to end most broadcasts with special interest segments, this being one of those. I did not fully understand it, they were so different from anything that had preceded them. Something those growing up in this age of imitation and conformity might have a hard time conceiving of. It seemed like a circus of sorts, except that they sang. Also at some point there was a shot of a woman, I remember her as a little fat. I thought she had something to do with all this. But it was a short blip, and really they were just so unique, at age 9 I was not able to really know what the hell I was looking at, I figured it was something people in England understood better.

it must have been mind-blowing then when they were first heard on radio as it is nearly 60 years later

Ironically, this was a few days before JFK's assassination, after the assassination, The Beatles brought a psychological uplift after the tragedy.

I remember when they were on Ed Sullivan, My oldest Brother was 16 and my foster Sister 19, I was a 6y/o playing hairdresser, had my foster Mom's box of curlers and clips and I was brushing and putting curlers in her hair...well.. Ha ha...Anyway the Beatles came on with big fan fare from Ed, my older siblings were glued to the screen and my foster Mom said "Oh for Pete's sake"!

Still a month away from American radio playing their music. First time I heard “Hold Your Hand” I was hooked, it was far far better than most of the rock n roll we were listening to. With exceptions like “Runaway” and a few others.

They were the "perfect storm". They came along at a time when American music had gotten a little stale. In the UK the economy was going great and young people had "disposable income". TV was becoming omnipresent. Their comedic abilities helped soften them to older generations. They had incredible timing for knowing when to change their music. They were amazing!

One neat thing about my life is being born in fall of 1957 I got to see the whole Beatles story from beginning to end--and "end" which is still now ongoing! I had the Beatle wig, the Beatle boots and all the 45's for my little record player and yup, I was there when dad fired up the old blonde Magnavox, black and white 25 inches and it hummed into focus to show Ed Sullivan introduce The Beatles for the first time. It was really something to see. There was no real rock and roll then, just Sinatra and the crooners and show tunes, that was it. Elvis may have gotten the ball rolling but it was The Beatles who put their own music into the stratosphere. This was a different age too. No video tapes, no CD's no internet, no nothing really. You had to read about them in the papers then wait for the next record to come out. And when WDGY in Minneapolis, when it was a rock and roll station played the latest Beatles tune, everyone would stop to listen, you could hear the radios echoing down the block in the suburbs. Yeah. Some scholar once said that guys of this magnitude only come around maybe once every 400 years, history wise. So this was pretty cool in my life to have seen it all!

Fabulous video! Enjoyed it thru an' thru

"One reason for the Beatles popularity may be that it's almost impossible to hear them." I guess even back then there was editorializing in news broadcasts...

The British Invasion really kinda gave the country an uplift after the Kennedy assassination. The Beatles, The Stones, The Dave Clark Five, The Kinks etc; were a breath of fresh air. I watched TV that whole weekend when JFK was shot in Dallas. I watched on live TV when Jack Ruby shot Oswald. The chaos that followed. The funeral etc; Those Brits did us a great favor by helping us out of our national funk a few months later and I don't think we ever got around to thanking them. I just hope they know what a great service they did for us.

Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Harry Reasoner , Howard K.Smith, Frank Reynolds ,that Cronkite guy....

File under " Everybody wants to be the First " Dept. This report was before Jack Paar's Jan. 3rd show, both of them shown before Sullivan's Feb. 9th program. However, their fame spread so quickly that within a month, 73 million people tuned in that Sunday night. The rest, quite literally, is history.

if you are not old enough to remember, it is hard to convey how serious this broadcast was and how seriously it was taken by Americans. We were still in the times where adults thought of young people as those "crazy teenagers". H&B demonstrate that belief, along with Edwin Newman, in the way they report on the Beatles. Truly nobody could see then what they would become but the snarkiness really irks me. Especially when you consider that adults thought nothing of sending "crazy teenagers" into Hell in Viet Nam in the years after this. The assassination, the Beatles, Viet Nam made us feel like we were in a blender and god decided to hit the puree button. The only redeeming element of course was the Beatles who in many ways saved america's youth from going mad.

Fascinating that this would appear four days before President Kennedy was assassinated. Looking back, the Beatles have been described as "just what the U.S. needed as an antidote to the sadness we felt on 11/22/63." The Beatles were much more than that. They became the models and leaders of a musical movement unlike any in history. Yeah, I'm a Beatles fan. Since I was 12. And now I'm 67.

Yes Edwin Newman and Huntley Brinkley in the body of their report sarcastically put down the Beatles never realising that they were to be the greatest rock band of all-time.

On February 7, 1964, Huntley reported this item: "Like a good little news organization, we sent three cameramen out to Kennedy Airport today to cover the arrival of a group from England known as 'The Beatles'... however, upon viewing the footage, I feel there is absolutely no need to show any of that film."

Wonder if Edwin Newman ever grew to love the Beatles like the entire universe did!

Most Americans of my generation don't want to discuss anything that happened during the second half of the month of November, 1963.

They edited the end, where Edwin Newman could be heard yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

"One reason for the Beatle's popularity may be that it's almost impossible to hear them." Haha! All the adults bashed them back then. I'm 66 and I know. First time they played in America on the Ed Sullivan show my father kept saying "They're not playing those guitars." He did grow to appreciate them rather quickly though.

The world was about to change ... forever

"The quality of Mersey is not strained." BAAAD pun.

Edwin Neumann. Thank you for your report

Little did anyone know.

The kids knew what they were screaming about.

Who knew that in a few days, a national tragedy would occur that would make what was a passing phenomenon a psychological uplift & cultural icon?

It's 2021 and they're still relevant, still the greatest group ever and still being studied as if they just played their first concert yesterday. Oh, then there's those songs they wrote while touring and playing up to 220 shows when they were here. Some shows they played twice....They were the closet thing to musical perfection. Go to Liverpool if you can. We did and I can die in peace now....

I remember learning about them from this news report when I about 9. But quickly forgotten after the tragedy that happened 4 days later. But to be rediscovered early the follow year.

Fantastic!!!

too bad the video was not included

Love the slight at the end...

Brian Wilson to his brothers: " Oh, we have to step on the gas!"

The best of the best ever

Old men reporting on something they didn,t have clue what it was.

The November 18, 1963 start stunning Beatlemania in America ~

So sad that the video of this report no longer exists!

Brinkley's daughter married a pop musician I believe, & from this recording am guessing he wasn't pleased

The start of “ Beatlemania “ .

Wow, whoever said that news reporters didn’t add in their personal bias into their reporting back then needs to hear this. I get it though. Once you hit a certain age, popular music is never as good as the music you heard at age 13.

Very few people will remember Huntley, Brinkley, or Newman, or the deaf artist. The Beatles, on the other hand . . .

well chet the world heard and love it

I guess everyone is noticing the date of the report, only days before JFK was killed in Dallas. The Beatles second album in The UK was released the very day of the assassination, by the way.

I watched the news report on CBS News a couple weeks after the Kennedy assassination. I was 11. The report included a cut from I Want to Hold Your Hand and I remember how new and exciting it sounded.

So Edwin and Chet are so very wrong and quite dead. Meanwhile, The Beatles music lives on into infinity.

After the events of November 22,of that year, The Beatles would no longer be dismissed as an abstract foreign rock band.

"The quality of Mersey is somewhat strained" -- great Edwin Newman line.

I was 12 and heard this report on TV and saw a pic of the Beatles in Time magazine. There was alot of good music on the radio at this time ie "Little" Stevie Wonder "Fingertips" part 1 and 2. Other great Motown groups like Martha and the Vandellas "Heat Wave". "Freewheelin' " Bob Dylan. So the Beatles had competition. "From Me To You" played on the radio that summer and thought it was a great song but it didn't go very high on the charts. Another Beatle song had gotten alot of airplay in LA where I lived (KFWB, KRLA) "Listen Do You Want to Know A Secret" but it was Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas not the Beatles Then JFK was assassinated. Set the stage for the Ed Sullivan Shows which blew all of young America away. I know, I was one of them.

I was 7 yrs old when JFK was killed. Couple of days later, saw Ruby kill Oswald on live TV. I thought 'There is something wrong with this country'. When The Beatles debuted, the music was fantastic but their look was equally new. I thought their hair was from the middle-ages. Their hair became so popular it changed men's hairstyles around the world. Beatles4Ever

Fueron autodidactas en su género musical,aunque fueron tiempos nuevos,donde estos músicos y otros que se dedicaban a este arte no las tenían claras a lo que se dedicaban pero fueron haciendo camino mientras lo experimentaban y otros músicos que surgirían en el futuro inmediato se fijarian en sus errores como en sus aciertos pero como quiera que fue su caso,tuvieron un ÉXITO ROTUNDO;aplausos a los 4 fantásticos,"The Beatles".......

I remember in Long Beach just after. their television appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. Walking down by the old Rainbow Pier. As it seemed all the cars were playing the same radio station of The Beatles " There is kind of a hush all over the world. You can hear the sound of people falling in love ?"It was a beautiful magic knight?

An important time for the Beatles, this report was 4 days before Kennedy's assassination and they touched down in New York at Kennedy airport in February 1964, 11 weeks after Kennedy's assassination, some say they helped put a smile back on American Teen faces after the national mourning.

What would I give to be in the same time during the era of the greatest band ever to walk the earth 🌎

Even more amazing than the their records and appearances in Feb.'64 shaking up America and causing Huntley and Brinkley to eat their words already,was the fact that as that broadcast happened that Nov.18th day,Walter Shenson and United Artists were already negotiating on the Hard Day's Night movie deal with Brian and the lads!!!!Think about THAT!!!!!

Typical older announcer's comment about a Beatles' concert: "One reason for the Beatles' popularity may be that it's almost impossible to hear them." 3:05

I get tickled when I hear some people say that the Beatles weren't the best musical act in history. What other artist or group has had 100,000 screaming fans come to simply greet them at an airport arrival?

Three months later, they hit Ed Sullivan and change everything.

I remember watching these stuffed shirts on TV when I was a little kid. At the time not one of these stuffed shirts knew they were covering a story that would become the most successful music group in the 20th century and beyond. Even though these guys were wrong, I am proud too have grown up during this era and was part of the baby boomer music. The best music ever.

JFK being at all aware of the Beatles in his final days sounds so incredible, but with this report coming four days before Dallas, it's at least possible. Edwin Newman was dismissive here, but this was pre-Ed Sullivan, the invasion, and all the rest. I had no idea who the Beatles were when they appeared on Sullivan. I was more taken with the audience screaming than the performance. To this day, mid and late Beatles has usually warmed my heart than the early songs. With a few exceptions. Michelle particularly.

Well I guess ol' Chet & David would live to eat THOSE parting words....

This is the first time I've seen this since it's original broadcast. The next we heard of them was Ed Sullivan saying they would be coming on the show! Money, friends, and women come and go, but I still have my original Beatles LP's!

The old announcer did have one good line: "The quality of Mersey? It is somewhat strained." 2:45

Crazy times

I no doubt missed this report on TV as my Dad watched Walter Cronkite on our only B&W TV. 4 days later, on a Friday, Kennedy was shot. We had a gloomy week off from school, getting let out early that Friday and a cancelled pep rally and basketball game that evening. Nothing upbeat happened until in January when we heard "She loves you" and "I want to hold your hand" on the radio. We knew it was something new and watched them on Ed Sullivan a month later. They really turned me on to music!

The Beatles are simply the greatest band ever. Why? They have sold over 1 billion records. That’s billion, with a B.

The Beatles saved America.

'The reason they may be so popular is because no one can hear them?' and other little digs in there just show how little they thought of popular music at the time

Still in 2023 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

4 days later, you-know-what

This is from Nov 18th 63. 4 days befor kennedy assassination Nov 22 63. Same day second Beatles album wtb comes out in England. Nov 25 63 Kennedy's funeral. Same day wtb Beatlemania album released in Canada. ( same as uk album) the first Beatles album released in North America...

Keep an eye on those guys; they just might go places.

And goodnight for nbc news. They had no idea that their world would change very soon.

This is november 1963 before the beatles went in the ed sullivan show 9 february 1964

The always literate Edwn Newman references Shakespeare at 2:50. "The quality of Mersey is somewhat strained" is a parody of a line in The Merchant of Venice. Portia suggests that the vengeful Shylock not make such outrageous demands as a pound of flesh to settle a debt: "The quality of mercy is not strained/It droppeth as the gentle rain upon the earth beneath/It blesseth him that gives and him that takes..."

me still don't understands why all these teenage girls felt they had to screaming their lungs out. Why?

Did I hear the announcer say "pudding bowl haircuts"?

I'm 70 and recall hearing about them and seeing photos of them for the first time in Life Magazine, and I'm sure that magazine had to have come out during November of 1963. PRIOR to Kennedy's assassination on the 22nd. Was totally floored seeing them on Ed Sullivan 's Show 3 months later Feb 9th, 1964.

Red faces all round for these reporters!

Beatlemania!

Obviously, only the audio here is original. Someone assembled this video montage to accompany it. Either it was only a radio broadcast, or someone found the audio recording of a TV broadcast.

It was supposed to have aired that insane weekend after Kennedy's assassination on the Fri. They chose to air it a few weeks later in an effort to offer something a bit lighter. I'd say it was a beam of hope.

Such a dismissive report on the most transformational, phenomenal group in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Is all... These reporters couldn't have known a musical tsunami was about to reach our shores.

News reporters cleaver play on words. It’s my guess that two hundred years from now the Beatles will still be remembered. Unlike Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Edward Newman.

"One reason for their popularity may be because it's almost impossible to hear them". What?? LOL! 😂 Wish I was born back then 4 Beatlemania. I love 2 hear stories from older Gens that were there. 😊💖

♡♡♡

I got up to pee, I was eleven, I wandered into the TV room where Mom and Pop were watching Jack Parr, it was a bio moment hearing and seeing them for the first time, my life was changed.

Who knew what would happen in just a few months? 🤔

I think this very report was telecast with moving video instead stills like the uploader here used for this.

"One reason for the Beatles' popularity's that it's almost impossible to hear them". Clueless.