“TREotM”: Television Arrives!

quotThe Revolutionary Evolution of the Mediaquot is a book in progress Go here to read the previous chaptersFilm first brought video so to speak to the masses packing movie theaters around the worldamp160 But as film developed from shaky to slick with color and then wider screens in the theaters tinkerers were playing with much smaller presentationsamp160 Home movies debuted in 1923 when Kodak introduced 16mm film using some of the first acetate safety filmamp160 Kodak hired a filmmaker to produce the 16mm Kodascope Libraryamp160 The format rapidly grew as it entered the education market with optical sound tracks in 1935amp160 During World War II the ease of use with the lighter cameras and cheaper film drove a lot of war and news reporting uses for newsreels and later TVIn 1927 Philo T Farnsworth filed for a patent for a amp8220dissector tubeamp8221 which demonstrated the possibility and probability of televisionamp160 Just two years later Russianborn American scientist Vladimir Zworykin demonstrated a practical system for both transmission and reception of televisionA number of experiments in the US UK and the USSR in the early amp821630s drove the development of commercially practical TVamp160General Electric once claimed the first US TV broadcaster W2XB when in early 1928 it broadcast experimental pictures from its Schenectady NY facilitiesamp160 Later that year the forerunner of WNBC launched in New York CityIn the UK Broadcast Relay Service Ltd later branded as Rediffusion which means broadcasting again launched its first radio wired service in Hull aimed at those with weak BBC signalsamp160 Rediffusion manufactured radios and sold or rented them along with the wire later coaxial cable connectionsamp160 When television came along Rediffusion also manufactured TV sets starting with service from the early experimental channelsBut the first real regularly scheduled television broadcast service began in the UK in 1936 when the BBC launched in Londonamp160 The year Life magazine debuted Broadcasting was for four hours a day with some 12000 to 15000 receivers available amp8230 many in pubsamp160Solomon Segall launched an early version of payTV called Scophony in the UK broadcasting encoded sports events to theaters with fourfoot high screens in the early amp821630s amp160Segall also developed a home receiver that was never distributedamp160 Segall was the son of a Russian rabbi who studied at the University of Moscowamp160 After the Reds beat the Whites he went to Berlin and then later studied at the London School of Economics amp160After WWII Segall went to New York and founded TeleglobePay Systems but was stymied by theater ownersamp160 Overtaken by cable he licensed his technologyamp160 He died in New York in 2001 at 101 years of ageBack in the UK after a Mickey Mouse cartoon and a test signal the BBCTV abruptly shut down on September 1 1939 at 1235 pm to prevent Axis planes from using the signals as a homing beaconamp160 The BBC resumed TV programming with the same cartoon on June 7 1946Meanwhile Orson Wellesamp8217 War of the Worlds was broadcast on radio causing panic in the streets In the USSR a 30line electromechanical TV experiment debuted in 1931 with the first commercially manufactured TV sets following in 1932amp160 Regular broadcasts began in 1937 using RCA equipment and setsBack in the US all licenses for TV broadcasts were at first experimental and noncommercialamp160 The Federal Communications Commission FCC had been willynilly issuing licenses without any real consideration about signal overlap or signal interference amp160Some stations were electromechanical some were all electric and the number of amp8220linesamp8221 of transmission varied wildlyamp160 The aforementioned Philo T Farnsworth had demonstrated the first allelectronic system in 1934 showing the real future of television in the USIn New York City RCA subsidiary NBC began regular broadcasting on April 30 1939 with the opening of the Worldamp8217s Fairamp160 But commercial broadcasting had not yet arrivedamp160 In 1941 the FCC set standards named after the National Television System Committee or NTSC with 525 lines of vertical resolution with interlaced scanning of 30 frames per second and 60 fields per second with frequency modulated soundamp160 The FCC deemed TV ready for commercials and issued commercial licenses to NBC and CBS stations in New York on July 1 1941 next in line was a Philco station in PhiladelphiaAnd then came the first TV ad amp8220Bulova Watch Timeamp8221 ran for one minute at a cost of either 4 or 9 depending upon source during a Brooklyn Dodgers versus Philadelphia Phillies game on WNBT now WNBC in New YorkNew developments in media basically ground to a halt when WWII erupted around the globe today many pundits are pointing back at the Archdukeamp8217s assignation and the adventures in the Ukraine amp160Only around 5000 TV sets were in use at the start of the war when the manufacturing of civilian TV sets was suspendedamp160 Not surprisingly the number of TV stations actively broadcasting began to dwindleamp160 Of the ten on the air before the war only six stayed on throughout the war most offering only four hours a dayIn fact mass media as a whole including newspapers magazines records movies newsreels radio and a little video at the start of WWII took as step backwards as posters think Rosie the Riveter greater government control of media and the refinement of propaganda think Goebbels all moved forwardThis doesnamp8217t mean that technological advancements involving media also stopped during the waramp160 As weamp8217ll see shortly the war generated and refined technologies that would soon have an enormous impact on mediaWeamp8217ll look at wartime media around the world in the next chapter and return to the developments of television and the explosion of media in the latter half of the 20th Century in a couple of weeksNext week Chapter 8 Part 6 amp8211 Propaganda WWII and the MediaThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers

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Paul Maxwell

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