“Truth or Consequences,” hosted by Bob Barker, became the first program prerecorded on videotape for subsequent airing in all time zones.

NEW YORK — The problem for Bob Barker wasn’t getting up early every day for his new TV gig.

On the morning of Dec. 31, 1956, he had bowed as host of NBC’s weekday game show, “Truth or Consequences.” And he was thrilled.

But here was the hitch: Viewers in the Eastern U.S. tuned in for his show at 11:30 a.m. It aired live — which meant each zany, stunts-filled 30-minute telecast had to originate from its studio in Hollywood at what, for Barker and his fellow Californians, was a not-so-chipper three hours earlier than that.

Then a high-tech breakthrough came to his aid. The 33-year-old Barker, launching what would be a half-century run as a beloved star first on “Truth,” and through 2007 as host of “The Price Is Right,” would notch a huge TV milestone after only three weeks: On Jan. 22, 1957, “Truth or Consequences,” with Barker presiding, became the first program to be prerecorded on videotape for subsequent airing in all time zones.

As of that show, each “Truth” half-hour not only could be produced a day or more before its intended airdate, but, more importantly to Barker, could be staged at a more agreeable hour of the day.

“We all rejoiced,” says Barker. “The bigger the studio audience and the wider-awake it was, the better for me!”

“No longer will Hollywood tourists be importuned to face a custard pie routine at 8:30 a.m.,” echoed The New York Times in explaining how Barker’s show would introduce a prototype of Ampex’s amazing new quadruplex videotape machine.

This year, the television industry is observing the 60th anniversary of that radical breakthrough, which spared television shows from either going live, with resulting inconvenience and potential screwups, or resorting to a fuzzy kinescope (a film copy of a broadcast captured directly off the TV screen) if re-airings were required.

That first Ampex machine had the bulk of an industrial kitchen range, cost upward of $45,000 (about $200,000 in 2016 dollars) and recorded only in monochrome.

Since it was incapable of electronic editing, it required laboriously cutting and splicing the tape.

The wear-and-tear of four magnetic spinning heads raking the tape’s emulsion at 3,600 rotations per minute meant a reel of the expensive two-inch-wide tape could only be used about 40 times before it was worn out.

But beside the godsend of instant playback (by contrast, kinescopes had to be developed at a lab like any other film), a TV show preserved on videotape looked as good replayed as it would have looked aired live.

Nonetheless, 60 years ago, this brown Mylar ribbon called videotape was causing quite a stir.

Starting on Nov. 30, 1956, CBS began using it for the West Coast playback of the network’s evening news three hours after airing live to Eastern viewers.

In February 1957, CBS broadcast the first of several weekly half-hours of the usually live “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” that were pretaped so the host could enjoy a leisurely vacation.

By fall 1957, Ampex was swamped with a backlog of 100 orders for its red-hot VR-1000.