Media Technology

Unit Subtitle: Brief History

of American Television
Broadcasting

2006 Texas Trade and Industrial Education

Broadcasting - a young media

1700s
1837
1876
1920
1948

newspapers in US
telegraph
telephone
1st commercially licensed radio
station-KDKA Pittsburgh, Penn.
TVs in homes

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Television Development
1920s

1926

1928

Many people/companies
experimenting with and
developing TV
Philo T. Farnsworth, American,
experimented with electronic TV
stream of electrons
Vladimir Zworykin develop/refines
iconoscope tube

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Television Development
1928

1931
1935

1st TV Drama Broadcast

The Queens Messenger from GE
station
CBS - experimental scheduled TV
Electronic TV is demonstrated to
press
Few people have TVs

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Television Development
1936

1939

Germany televises Olympics

Britain few hours of regular
programming a day
RCA presents TV at New York
Worlds Fair

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Television Development
1941
1942
1945

FCC authorizes TV broadcast

CBS 15 hours programming per
week
150 applications for TV stations

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Color Television
During War, CBS experimented w/ color
1946
CBS presents non-compatible
mechanical color system
1947
FCC refuses CBS color request
1948
50 TV stations on air,
124 authorized
FCC - four year freeze on new
TV licenses
2006 Texas Trade and Media
Ind Technology I - TV History

Color Television
1950
1950

1951

Korean War slows color TV

progress
FCC announces CBS mechanical
color system
negative response from stations,
public
National Television System
Committee (NTSC) explores color

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Cable Television
1950
1952

Community Antenna Television

(CATV)
AT&T installs coaxial cable in
large cities, reduces ghosting

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

Color Television
1952

1953

FCC lifts TV freeze

FCC approves UHF
Old TVs dont get UHF,
Ruling-- all new TVs must have both
VHF and UHF
FCC approves NTSC compatible
electronic color system
Korean War ends

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

10

Video recorders
1956

Ampex demonstrates videotapes

recorder

1963

Sony home VTR $995

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

11

Television
1950s

Live dramatic series

1952-60
Rampant growth in TV
108 stations in 1952,
522 in 1960
1960
90% homes have TVs
Only NBC had color programming
1960s Large variety of TV programs
2006 Texas Trade and Media
Ind Technology I - TV History

12

Television
1966

All 3 networks have color

1967
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
authorized Corporation for Public
Broadcasting

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

13

Television
1980

1984

1% of homes have VCRs

Consumer camcorder by Sony
Stereo AM & TV
FCC begins deregulation

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

14

Cable Television
1972

1977

FCC ends ban cable TV in large

cities
HBO starts pay TV for cable
2 way cable in Columbus Ohio

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

15

Cable Television
1980
1981
1987
1998
2004

CNN begins
MTV on cable
50% of homes w/ TV have cable
Digital compression used in cable
More than 30% of US cable approximately 22.9 million receive digital cable service

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

16

Digital Television

1997

1999

2004

DVD introduced
FCC rules - all US SDTV stations must
be DTV by 2006, now 2009
Stations begin broadcasting Digital TV
and wide screen HDTV
more than 1,000 US TV stations
broadcast digital signal
3 million HDTV sets in homes
All manufactured 36 and larger sets
must have a digital tuner

2006 Texas Trade and Media

Ind Technology I - TV History

17