History of Television - Mitchell Stephens
History of Television
Article by Mitchell    Stephens
Few inventions have had    as much effect on contemporary American society as television. Before 1947 the    number of U.S. homes with television sets could be measured in the thousands.    By the late 1990s, 98 percent of U.S. homes had at least one television set,    and those sets were on for an average of more than seven hours a day. The typical    American spends (depending on the survey and the time of year) from two-and-a-half    to almost five hours a day watching television. It is significant not only that    this time is being spent with television but that it is not being spent engaging    in other activities, such as reading or going out or socializing.
EXPERIMENTS
Electronic television was    first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1927. The system    was designed by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor who had lived    in a house without electricity until he was 14. While still in high school,    Farnsworth had begun to conceive of a system that could capture moving images    in a form that could be coded onto radio waves and then transformed back into    a picture on a screen. Boris Rosing in Russia had conducted some crude experiments    in transmitting images 16 years before Farnsworth's first success. Also, a mechanical    television system, which scanned images using a rotating disk with holes arranged    in a spiral pattern, had been demonstrated by John Logie Baird in England and    Charles Francis Jenkins in the United States earlier in the 1920s. However,    Farnsworth's invention, which scanned images with a beam of electrons, is the    direct ancestor of modern television. The first image he transmitted on it was    a simple line. Soon he aimed his primitive camera at a dollar sign because an    investor had asked, "When are we going to see some dollars in this thing, Farnsworth?"
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
RCA, the company that dominated    the radio business in the United States with its two NBC networks, invested    $50 million in the development of electronic television. To direct the effort,    the company's president, David Sarnoff, hired the Russian-born scientist Vladimir    Kosma Zworykin, who had participated in Rosing's experiments. In 1939, RCA televised    the opening of the New York World's Fair, including a speech by President Franklin    Delano Roosevelt, who was the first president to appear on television. Later    that year RCA paid for a license to use Farnsworth's television patents. RCA    began selling television sets with 5 by 12 in (12.7 by 25.4 cm) picture tubes.    The company also began broadcasting regular programs, including scenes captured    by a mobile unit and, on May 17, 1939, the first televised baseball gameÑbetween    Princeton and Columbia universities. By 1941 the Columbia Broadcasting System    (CBS), RCA's main competition in radio, was broadcasting two 15-minute newscasts    a day to a tiny audience on its New York television station.
Early television was quite    primitive. All the action at that first televised baseball game had to be captured    by a single camera, and the limitations of early cameras forced actors in dramas    to work under impossibly hot lights, wearing black lipstick and green makeup    (the cameras had trouble with the color white). The early newscasts on CBS were    "chalk talks," with a newsman moving a pointer across a map of Europe, then    consumed by war. The poor quality of the picture made it difficult to make out    the newsman, let alone the map. World War II slowed the development of television,    as companies like RCA turned their attention to military production. Television's    progress was further slowed by a struggle over wavelength allocations with the    new FM radio and a battle over government regulation. The Federal Communications    Commission's (FCC) 1941 ruling that the National Broadcasting Company (NBC)    had to sell one of its two radio networks was upheld by the Supreme Court in    1943. The second network became the new American Broadcasting Company (ABC),    which would enter television early in the next decade. Six experimental television    stations remained on the air during the warÑone each in Chicago, Philadelphia,    Los Angeles, and Schenectady, N.Y., and two in New York City. But full-scale    commercial television broadcasting did not begin in the United States until    1947.
THE BEGINNING OF COMMERCIAL    TELEVISION
By 1949 Americans who lived    within range of the growing number of television stations in the country could    watch, for example, The Texaco Star Theater (1948), starring Milton Berle,    or the children's program, Howdy Doody (1947Ð60). They could also    choose between two 15-minute newscastsÑCBS TV News (1948) with    Douglas Edwards and NBC's Camel News Caravan (1948) with John Cameron    Swayze (who was required by the tobacco company sponsor to have a burning cigarette    always visible when he was on camera). Many early programsÑsuch as Amos    'n' Andy (1951) or The Jack Benny Show (1950Ð65)Ñwere    borrowed from early television's older, more established Big Brother: network    radio. Most of the formats of the new programsÑnewscasts, situation comedies,    variety shows, and dramasÑwere borrowed from radio, too (see radio broadcasting    and television programming). NBC and CBS took the funds needed to establish    this new medium from their radio profits. However, television networks soon    would be making substantial profits of their own, and network radio would all    but disappear, except as a carrier of hourly newscasts. Ideas on what to do    with the element television added to radio, the visuals, sometimes seemed in    short supply. On news programs, in particular, the temptation was to fill the    screen with "talking heads," newscasters simply reading the news, as they might    have for radio. For shots of news events, the networks relied initially on the    newsreel companies, whose work had been shown previously in movie studios. The    number of television sets in use rose from 6,000 in 1946 to some 12 million    by 1951. No new invention entered American homes faster than black and white    television sets; by 1955 half of all U.S. homes had one.
McCARTHYISM
In 1947 the House Committee    on Un-American Activities began an investigation of the film industry, and Sen.    Joseph R. McCarthy soon began to inveigh against what he claimed was Communist    infiltration of the government. Broadcasting, too, felt the impact of this growing    national witch-hunt. Three former members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation    (FBI) published "Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts on Communism," and in    1950 a pamphlet, "Red Channels," listed the supposedly Communist associations    of 151 performing artists. Anti-Communist vigilantes applied pressure to advertisersÑthe    source of network profits. Political beliefs suddenly became grounds for getting    fired. Most of the producers, writers, and actors who were accused of having    had left-wing leanings found themselves blacklisted, unable to get work. CBS    even instituted a loyalty oath for its employees. Among the few individuals    in television well positioned enough and brave enough to take a stand against    McCarthyism was the distinguished former radio reporter Edward R. Murrow. In    partnership with the news producer Fred Friendly, Murrow began See It Now,    a television documentary series, in 1950. On Mar. 9, 1954, Murrow narrated a    report on McCarthy, exposing the senator's shoddy tactics. Of McCarthy, Murrow    observed, "His mistake has been to confuse dissent with disloyalty." A nervous    CBS refused to promote Murrow and Friendly's program. Offered free time by CBS,    McCarthy replied on April 6, calling Murrow "the leader and the cleverest of    the jackal pack which is always found at the throat of anyone who dares to expose    Communist traitors." In this TV appearance, McCarthy proved to be his own worst    enemy, and it became apparent that Murrow had helped to break McCarthy's reign    of fear. In 1954 the U.S. Senate censured McCarthy, and CBS's "security" office    was closed down.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Between 1953 and 1955,    television programming began to take some steps away from radio formats. NBC    television president Sylvester Weaver devised the "spectacular," a notable example    of which was Peter Pan (1955), starring Mary Martin, which attracted    60 million viewers. Weaver also developed the magazine-format programs Today,    which made its debut in 1952 with Dave Garroway as host (until 1961), and The    Tonight Show, which began in 1953 hosted by Steve Allen (until 1957). The    third network, ABC, turned its first profit with youth-oriented shows such as Disneyland, which debuted in 1954 (and has since been broadcast under    different names), and The Mickey Mouse Club (1955Ð59; see Disney,    Walt).
The programming that dominated    the two major networks in the mid-1950s borrowed heavily from another medium:    theater. NBC and CBS presented such noteworthy, and critically acclaimed, dramatic    anthologies as Kraft Television Theater (1947), Studio One (1948), Playhouse 90 (1956), and The U.S. Steel Hour (1953). Memorable    television dramas of the eraÑmost of them broadcast liveÑincluded    Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955), starring Rod Steiger (Ernest Borgnine    starred in the film), and Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men (1954). By    the 1955Ð56 television season, 14 of these live-drama anthology series were    being broadcast. This is often looked back on as the "Golden Age" of television.    However, by 1960 only one of these series was still on the air. Viewers apparently    preferred dramas or comedies that, while perhaps less literary, at least had    the virtue of sustaining a familiar set of characters week after week. I    Love Lucy, the hugely successful situation comedy starring Lucille Ball    and Desi Arnaz, had been recorded on film since it debuted in 1951 (lasting    until 1957). It had many imitators. The Honeymooners, starring Jackie    Gleason, was first broadcast, also via film, in 1955 (lasting until 1956 with    the original cast). The first videotape recorder was invented by Ampex in 1956    (see video; video recording; video technology). Another format introduced in    the mid-1950s was the big-money quiz show. The $64,000 Question (1955Ð58)    and Twenty-One (1956Ð58) quickly shot to the top of the ratings.    In 1959, however, the creator of The $64,000 Question, Louis C. Cowan,    by that time president of CBS television, was forced to resign from the network    amid revelations of widespread fixing of game shows (see Van Doren, Charles).
TELEVISION AND POLITICS
Television news first covered    the presidential nominating conventions of the two major parties, events then    still at the heart of America politics, in 1952. The term "anchorman" was used,    probably for the first time, to describe Walter Cronkite's central role in CBS's    convention coverage that year. In succeeding decades these conventions would    become so concerned with looking good on television that they would lose their    spontaneity and eventually their news value. The power of television news increased    with the arrival of the popular newscast, The Huntley-Brinkley Report,    on NBC in 1956 (see Huntley, Chet, and Brinkley, David). The networks had begun    producing their own news film. Increasingly, they began to compete with newspapers    as the country's primary source of news (see journalism).
The election of a young    and vital president in 1960, John F. Kennedy, seemed to provide evidence of    how profoundly television would change politics. Commentators pointed to the    first televised debate that fall between Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for    president, and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican's nominee. A    survey of those who listened to the debate on radio indicated that Nixon had    won; however, those who watched on television, and were able to contrast Nixon's    poor posture and poorly shaven face with Kennedy's poise and grace, were more    likely to think Kennedy had won the debate. Television's coverage of the assassination    of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and of the events that followed, provided    further evidence of the medium's power. Most Americans joined in watching coverage    of the shocking and tragic events, not as crowds in the streets, but from their    own living rooms. A newscast that would soon surpass the popularity of Huntley-Brinkley, The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, debuted in 1962 (and was broadcast    until 1981). By the end of the decade Cronkite had become not just a highly    respected journalist but, according to public opinion surveys, "the most trusted    man in America." His role in coverage of the Vietnam War would be important.    While the overwhelming majority of television news reports on the Vietnam War    were supportive of U.S. policy, television news film of the fighting sometimes    gave Americans back home an unfamiliar, harsh, and unromantic view of combat.    Many believed it contributed to growing public dissatisfaction with the war.    And some of the anger of those defending U.S. policy in Vietnam was leveled    against television news. In 1965, CBS reporter Morley Safer accompanied a group    of U.S. Marines on a "search and destroy" mission to a complex of hamlets called    Cam Ne. The Marines faced no enemy resistance, yet they held cigarette lighters    to the thatched roofs and proceeded to "waste" Cam Ne. After much debate, Safer's    filmed report on the incident was shown on CBS. Early the next morning the president    of CBS received an angry phone call from the president of the United States,    Lyndon B. Johnson, accusing the network of a lack of patriotism. During the    Tet offensive in 1968, Cronkite went to Vietnam to report a documentary on the    state of the war. That documentary, broadcast on Feb. 28, 1968, concluded with    what Cronkite has described as "a clearly labeled editorial": "It is increasingly    clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate,"    he said. President Johnson was watching Cronkite's report. According to Bill    Moyers, one of his press aides at the time: "The president flipped off the set    and said, `If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America.'"
THE THREE NETWORKS AT    THE HEIGHT OF THEIR POWER
In 1964 color broadcasting    began on prime-time television. The FCC initially approved a CBS color system,    then swung in RCA's favor after Sarnoff swamped the marketplace with black-and-white    sets compatible with RCA color (the CBS color system was not compatible with    black-and-white sets and would have required the purchase of new sets). During    the 1960s and 1970s a country increasingly fascinated with television was limited    to watching almost exclusively what appeared on the three major networks: CBS,    NBC, and ABC. These networks purchased time to broadcast their programs from    about 200 affiliates eachÑstations in each of the major cities or metropolitan    areas of the United States. In the larger cities, there might also be a few    independent stations (mostly playing reruns of old network shows) and perhaps    a fledgling public broadcasting channel. Programming on each of the three networks    was designed to grab a mass audience. Network shows therefore catered, as critics    put it, to the lowest common denominator. James Aubrey, president of CBS television,    doubled the network's profits between 1960 and 1966 by broadcasting simple comedies    like The Beverly Hillbillies (1962Ð71). In 1961, Newton Minow, then    chairman of the FCC, called television a "vast wasteland." Programming became    a little more adventurous with the arrival of more realistic situation comedies,    beginning with CBS's All in the Family in 1971 (broadcast until 1979).    Along with situation comediesÑusually a half-hour focused on either a    family and their neighbors or a group of co-workersÑthe other main staple    of network prime-time programming has been the one-hour drama, featuring the    adventures of police, detectives, doctors, lawyers, or, in the early decades    of television, cowboys. Daytime television programming consisted primarily of    soap operas and quiz shows until the 1980s, when talk shows discussing subjects    that were formerly taboo, such as sexuality, became popular.
The three major networks    have always been in a continual race for ratings and advertising dollars. CBS    and NBC dominated through the mid-1970s, when ABC, traditionally regarded as    a poor third, rose to the top of the ratings, largely because of shrewd scheduling.
PUBLIC BROADCASTING
A Carnegie Commission report    in 1967 recommended the creation of a fourth, noncommercial, public television    network built around the educational nonprofit stations already in operation    throughout the United States (see television, noncommercial). Congress created    the Public Broadcasting System that year. Unlike commercial networks, which    are centered in New York and Los Angeles, PBS's key stations, many of which    produce programs that are shown throughout the network, are spread across the    country. PBS comprises more than 300 stations, more than any commercial network.    Some of the most praised programs on PBS, such as the dramatic series Upstairs,    Downstairs (1971), have been imports from Britain, which has long had a    reputation for producing high-quality television. Perhaps the most influential    of PBS's original contributions to American television were the educational    program for preschoolers, Sesame Street, which first appeared in 1969Ñand    is still a popular programÑand a thoughtful news program called The    NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (1995; originally The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,    first broadcast in 1975Ñsee MacNeil, Robert and Lehrer, Jim). Among the    many special series produced for public broadcasting, The Civil War (1990),    a five-part historical documentary, was particularly successful and won some    of the largest audiences ever achieved by public TV. PBS funds come from three    major sources: congressional appropriations (which suffered substantial cuts    beginning in 1982), viewer donations, and private corporate underwriters. None    of these types of contributions are problem-free. Government funding brings    the possibility of government interference. Conservatives, dating back to the    Nixon administration, have pressured PBS to make its programming less liberal.    The search for viewer donations has led to long on-air fundraising campaigns.    And some critics contend that the need to win corporate support discourages    programming that might challenge corporate values.
THE RISE OF CABLE
The force that would challenge    the dominance of the three major television networks and offer Americans the    choice of dozens and potentially hundreds of television channelsÑcable    TVÑbegan quietly in a few geographically isolated towns. Large antennas    erected in high places gave everyone connected the chance to receive all the    channels available in the nearest city. By 1960 the United States had about    640 such CATV (community antenna television) systems. It soon became apparent,    however, that the "television deprived" were not the only viewers who might    want access to additional channels and additional programming. In New York City,    cable operators contracted to broadcast the home games of the local basketball    and hockey teams. By 1971 cable had more than 80,000 subscribers in New York.    Then networks specifically designed to be distributed by the cable system began    to appear: Time Inc.'s Home Box Office (HBO) in 1975; Ted Turner's "superstation,"    soon renamed WTBS, in 1976; C-SPAN (live broadcasts of the House of Representatives),    ESPN (sports), and Nickelodeon (children's programming), all in 1979. Turner    followed with the Cable News Network (CNN) the next year.
INTERNATIONAL GROWTH
Television's development    followed different patterns in other countries. Often government, not private    corporations, owned some, most, or all of the major networks. In Great Britain    the British Broadcasting Corporation, the country's dominant radio broadcaster,    established and retained dominance over television. The BBC, funded by a tax    on the sale of television sets, established a worldwide reputation for producing    quality programming. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also freed by government    support from many commercial pressures, was praised by some observers for the    seriousness of much of its news and public-affairs programming. France's major    television networks were also supported by the government; however, in France    that support was seen as encouraging a tilt in news coverage toward the side    of whatever party happened to be in power. By the late 1980s and 1990s, as cable    and direct-satellite television systems increased the number of channels, the    hold of these government-funded networks began to weaken. Most countries around    the world began moving more toward the U.S. model of privately owned, advertiser-supported    television networks.
POLITICS ADAPTS TO TELEVISION
By the 1980s politicians    and government leaders were familiar enough with the workings of television    to be able to exploit the medium to their own ends. This seemed particularly    apparent during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, himself formerly the host of    a television show (General Electric Theater, 1954Ð62). Reagan's skilled    advisors were masters of the art of arranging flags and releasing balloons to    place him in the most attractive settings. They also knew how to craft and release    messages to maximize positive coverage on television newscasts. The Persian    Gulf War in 1991 provided further proof of the power of television, with pictures    of U.S. bombs falling on the Iraqi capital broadcast live in the United States.    Both Iraqi and U.S. leaders admitted to monitoring CNN to help keep up with    news of the war. However, the U.S. Defense Department, armed with lessons learned    in Vietnam, succeeded in keeping most reporters well away from the action and    the bloodshed. Instead, pictures were provided to television by the military    of "smart" bombs deftly hitting their targets.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
In the 1980s, home videocassette    recorders became widely available. Viewers gained the ability to record and    replay programs and, more significantly, to rent and watch movies at times of    their own choosing in their own homes. Video games also became popular during    this decade, particularly with the young, and the television, formally just    the site of passive entertainment, became an intricate, moving, computerized    game board. The number of cable networks grew throughout the 1980s and then    exploded in the 1990s as improved cable technology and direct-broadcast satellite    television multiplied the channels available to viewers. The number of broadcast    networks increased also, with the success of the Fox network and then the arrival    of the UPN and WB networks. The share the broadcast networks attracted continued    to erode, from well over 90 percent in the early 1980s to under 50 percent by    1997. Although the population of the United States has continued to grow, the    Nielson Media Research company estimated that fewer people watched the highly    publicized final episode of Seinfeld in 1998 (first aired in 1990; see    Seinfeld, Jerry) than watched the final episode of MASH in 1983 (first    aired in 1972). The trial of former football star O. J. Simpson in 1994 for    the murder of his wife (he was acquitted) further demonstrated the hold that    cable networks had on American audiences. Some stations carried almost every    minute of the lengthy trial live and then filled the evening with talk shows    dissecting that day's developments. The effects of television on children, particularly    through its emphasis on violence and sex, has long been an issue for social    scientists, parents, and politicians (see children's television). In the late    1980s and 1990s, with increased competition brought on by the proliferation    of cable networks, talk shows and "tabloid" news shows seemed to broaden further    frank or sensational on-air discussion of sex.
In response to government    pressure, the television industry decided to display ratings of its programs    in 1996. The ratings were designed to indicate the age groups for which the    programs might be suitable: TV-G (for general audiences), TV-PG (parental guidance    suggested), TV-14 (unsuitable for children under 14), and TV-MA (for mature    audiences only). In response to additional complaints, all the networks except    NBC agreed the next year to add V (for violence), S (for sex), L (for course    language) and D (for suggestive dialogue) to those ratings. Also, the "V-chip"    imbedded in new television sets, in accordance with a provision of a telecommunications    bill passed in 1996, gave parents the power to automatically prevent their children    from watching television programs with inappropriate ratings. Critics of the    ratings saw them as a step toward censorship and questioned whether a TV-14    rating would make a program seem more, not less, attractive to an inquisitive    child. In 1997 the federal government gave each U.S. television broadcaster    an additional channel on which to introduce high definition television, or HDTV.    Initial transmissions of this high-resolution form of television, in which images    appear much sharper and clearer, began in 1998. Standard television sets cannot    pick up HDTV and will presumably have to be replaced or modified by 2006, when    traditional, low-definition television broadcasts are scheduled to end and broadcasters    are scheduled to return their original, non-HDTV channel to the government.    The HDTV format approved in the United States calls for television signals to    be transmitted digitally. This will allow for further convergence between computers,    the Internet, and television.
In 1998 it was already    possible to view video on the World Wide Web and to see and search television    broadcasts on a computer. As computers become more powerful, they should be    able to handle video as easily as they now handle text. The television schedule    may eventually be replaced by a system in which viewers are able to watch digitally    stored and distributed programs or segments of programs whenever they want.    Such technological changes, including the spread of new cable networks, have    been arriving slower in most other countries than in the United States. Indeed,    according to one survey, it was only in the 1990s that the spread of television    transmitters, television sets, and electricity made it possible for half of    the individuals in the world to watch television. However, television's attraction    globally is strong. Those human beings who have a television set watch it, by    one estimate, for an average of two-and-a-half hours a day.
Mitchell Stephens
Bibliography: Barnouw,    Erik, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television, 2d ed. (1990);    Fisher, David E. and Marshall J., Tube: The Invention of Television (1997);    Stephens, Mitchell, Broadcast News, 3d ed. (1993), A History of News (1996) and The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word (1998); Watson,    Mary A., Defining Visions: Television and the American Experience since 1945 (1997).