Television burst onto the scene after the Second World War and soon became the most important mass medium.  But it had a long history before that:

• in 1925 C. Francis Jenkins in the U.S. and John L. Baird in Great Britain sucessfully demonstrated workable television techniques.  See The Mechanical TV Era
• these were electromechanical and quite low-definition.
• early research on the transmission of pictures included both still pictures and the possibility of moving pictures, once it was understood that if you scanned fast enough the eye would see a continuous image (persistence of vision).  Facimile was successfully demonstrated in 1921 by Francis Jenkins
• Francis Jenkins was a tinkerer--inventor of a motion picture projector and some automobile innovations.  He used two rings of prisms to scan an image horizontally and vertically for radio transmission.  He demonstrated this publicly in 1925 with great hoopla about the potential of what he called radio vision.  But he could produce only 48-line silhouettes.  John Baird in England achieved 8 line pictures in 1925, and by Jan. 1926 he was producing half-tones.
• by 1927 AT&T was demonstrating a system with decent half-tones, and while the company said this was to supplement telephone the demonstration emphasized bringing movie theater content home (newsreels, etc.).  They even demonstrated a mechanism for color television in 1929

• consumers were excited by the prospect of television just around the corner
• regularly scheduled broadcasts were available after 1928--18 stations scattered around the country, broadcasting in the shortwave band, and consumers could buy kits or commercially produced sets.
• but the low-definition pictures--60 line--were far inferior to motion pictures, and this limited the audience.  The FCC decided not to license commercial stations, feeling that the technology was not yet satisfactory and to license it would encourage public investment in technology that would quickly become obsolescent
• by 1933 the engineering limitations caused the first boom to collapse.
• the entertainment value wasn't high enough--it was the needs of programming first and foremost that drove the development of new technology
• under financial pressures of the depression most stations stopped broadcasting.

• by the eve of the first World War several researchers had become convinced that cathode ray tubes were the key to television. Philo T. Farnsworth (independent inventor with only a high school education) and Vladimir K. Zworykin (Russian immigrant with a Ph.D. working for RCA) developed an all-electronic, higher definition form of television.
•  In Dec. 1923 Zworykin filed a patent for an all-electronic television, but the results were disappointing because of the failings of the cathode ray tube technology of the time.  RCA refused to invest in development until 1930, when Zworykin got more clout by becoming head of the RCA industrial research lab and the low-definition system was clearly on the way out.
• the significance was realized--the patent was not issued for 15 years because of disputes.
• In May 1935 RCA committed $1 million to research and development of the new technology.  They followed a careful R&D step by step program with extensive field demonstrations in New York City.  By Jan 1937 picture definition had been increased to 441 lines--for the first time you could see a baseball or football .
• the picture tube of the camera, however, was not efficient enough, and Philo Farnsworth didn't want to  sell his patent on a better one.  He wanted to license it, so his earnings would reflect its long-term success, and RCA had a policy to not license patents (they did offer to buy it).  Finally they signed a non-exclusive cross-licensing agreement, as each had technology the other needed.
• despite earlier disappointments, the public was eager.  But it was necessary to make sure it would pay--industry had invested something like $13 million by 1939 and earned nothing.  The advertising industry took a wait-and-see attitude.

 early tv

• FM radio was coming in at the same time using the same part of the spectrum, adding to the complications.  FCC wanted to see a mature technology, which was pretty good at this point, and also agreement over standards, which was not.  RCA had major competitors, such as Philco, promoting rival systems.
• RCA went ahead anyway with public broadcasting in 1939, and a number of firms started to sell television sets (with disappointing results), but the quick FCC approval they expected did not come.  People were reluctant to buy sets without standardization--in some markets they could receive only one of two rival stations.
• There was a political uproar over FCC refusal to license, but meanwhile the industry could not agree on standards.  Finally a government National Television System Committee created in 1940 forced a compromise.
• commercial service was finally authorized in the spring of 1941: 525 lines, 30 frames per second.
• the interest was there--by the end of 1941 32 stations were licensed and experimenting with programming.  The first thing they learned was that sports were popular, and increased sports broadcasting.  Dramas and news were the other main components.  Variety shows were not as popular as radio experience would have suggested.  Political coverage was quite popular during the presidential election
• but sets could not be produced until the war was over--in fact all radio and TV production was banned in April 1942.  By the time the war was over the technology was there for a significantly improved receiver.

 WNBQ Chicago, 1948

• in 1950 only 9 percent of American homes had TVs, four years later the figure was 55 percent.  By 1967 95% of American homes had TVs and watched an average of 5 hours of television per day.
• programming was copied from radio--even sitcoms--but now with easier potential for prerecording.  The first prerecorded serial was "I Love Lucy" in 1951.

 I Love Lucy (1951)

• Became a part of the culture--the TV dinner was introduced in 1954.
• commentators quickly worried about people staying home instead of going out to movies.  In 1961 the head of the FCC declared television a "vast wasteland"
• but that was what people liked about the medium--what Raymond Williams called mobile privatization.
• What difference did television make?
• Created a bias towards immediacy.  Desensitized viewers towards suffering and violence?

• Color television was first introduced in 1955 and became universal by 1965.
• satellite transmission 1963
• PBS 1967
• VCR (betamax) introduced 1975
• Ted Turner 's global news service 1979
• cable started in the late 1940s but didn't become predominant until the 1980s-- the promise was that many more stations would reduce the lowest common denominator effect.
• Digital TV and High Definition TV have been slow in coming
• broadband and interactive TV are expected to revolutionize the medium
• analog TV is scheduled to cease broadcasting in Dec. 2006, though an extension until 2009 is expected