Tweet Television's 60th Anniversary

[Mike Gebert]

Terry Teachout has an interesting piece at the Wall Street Journal about the 60th anniversary of the beginning of television as we know it. But wait, you say, TV was around back into the late 30s, certainly the late 40s. What was the big deal about 1951?

Network television as we know it came into being on Sept. 4, 1951, when AT&T threw the switch on the first transcontinental coaxial cable. Up to that time, TV had been an essentially regional phenomenon. The most important network shows were all performed live in New York, and the only way for West Coast viewers to see them was for fuzzy-looking film copies called "kinescopes" to be shipped to Los Angeles and broadcast a week later. The coaxial cable changed that by making it possible to transmit live video signals from coast to coast—in both directions. Within a matter of months, Hollywood had become a major center of TV production.

Television manufacturers ads from the
early fifties depicted families formerly
dressed watching a small screen in their
living rooms.

Where are those high ideas TV broadcasters
once promised?

Television manufacturers ads from the
early fifties depicted families formerly
dressed watching a small screen in their
living rooms.

"Formerly" dressed? They watched TV in the nude?

I blame Milton Berle. I have no idea what for, but I blame him.

Bob

Television manufacturers ads from the
early fifties depicted families formerly
dressed watching a small screen in their
living rooms.

"Formerly" dressed? They watched TV in the nude?

Hopefully not! Just think of the radiation those old sets gave off.

Dressed in formal attire will suffice?

1952 DuMont and Magnavox ads.

People dressed like that all the time in the early 1950s. It wasn't until the late '50s and the 60s that people stopped wearing ties and pearls to eat meals around the family dinner table and then go watch TV.



Jim

Barry Levinson's movie
Avalon showed the progression
of the family unit from chatting
and interacting at the dinner table
to sitting with tv dinners in front
of the tv staring at the latest
broadcast fare and not talking much.

People dressed like that all the time in the early 1950s. It wasn't until the late '50s and the 60s that people stopped wearing ties and pearls to eat meals around the family dinner table and then go watch TV.

Well, we sure didn't. I grew up in the 1950s - I was 10 in 1955. We were a solidly middle-class family; my parents having grown up in the 10s and 20s, they had a somewhat more formal idea of what middle-class respectability was than the younger parents of the time. Even so, while my mother could often be found wearing her earrings while doing the dishes, meal and TV time was strictly informal, no pearls, no ties. Even on Sunday, when the better clothes were still on from church, no one ever watched TV dressed as if they were at a swanky nightclub like this crowd.

Terry Teachout has an interesting piece at the Wall Street Journal about the 60th anniversary of the beginning of television as we know it. But wait, you say, TV was around back into the late 30s, certainly the late 40s. What was the big deal about 1951?

Television started in the UK in the London area in 1935. The studios and transmission were from Alexandria Palace (Alley Pally) which was high on a hill. The broadcasts went out in both the Baird and Marconi systems initially - with the Baird system gradually phased out. Not many people had a television set and the screen was quite small. The service was stopped in 1939 on the commencement of the war.

I think that television started in the 1930's in the US with limited transmissions here and there and a regular service out of New York in 1939.

Television was also available in Germany in the 1930's - the screen was green and white rather than black and white.

In Australia there were experimental television broadcasts as early as 1926 utilising the Baird system. Regular (electronic) services commenced in 1956.

People dressed like that all the time in the early 1950s. It wasn't until the late '50s and the 60s that people stopped wearing ties and pearls to eat meals around the family dinner table and then go watch TV.

Well, we sure didn't. I grew up in the 1950s - I was 10 in 1955. We were a solidly middle-class family; my parents having grown up in the 10s and 20s, they had a somewhat more formal idea of what middle-class respectability was than the younger parents of the time. Even so, while my mother could often be found wearing her earrings while doing the dishes, meal and TV time was strictly informal, no pearls, no ties. Even on Sunday, when the better clothes were still on from church, no one ever watched TV dressed as if they were at a swanky nightclub like this crowd.

Are you sure you weren't actually "shabby genteel"?

Swanky Jim

People dressed like that all the time in the early 1950s. It wasn't until the late '50s and the 60s that people stopped wearing ties and pearls to eat meals around the family dinner table and then go watch TV.

Well, we sure didn't. I grew up in the 1950s - I was 10 in 1955. We were a solidly middle-class family; my parents having grown up in the 10s and 20s, they had a somewhat more formal idea of what middle-class respectability was than the younger parents of the time. Even so, while my mother could often be found wearing her earrings while doing the dishes, meal and TV time was strictly informal, no pearls, no ties. Even on Sunday, when the better clothes were still on from church, no one ever watched TV dressed as if they were at a swanky nightclub like this crowd.

My family fell in between there. Dinner was not formal, but one did not slob to the table. No shirt, no shoes, none of Mom's mashed potatoes. Television time was limited, but comfy jammies were acceptable.

I have horrified memories of my aunties doing housework while dressed a la Barbara Billingsly--heels, dresses, and pearls.

I have horrified memories of my aunties doing housework while dressed a la Barbara Billingsly--heels, dresses, and pearls.

Anyone can do housewok in a do-rag, but to do it dressed to the nines .... and come out with a clean house and clean clothes ... that took talent!

Check out the Cecil B De Mille lookalike in the Magnavox ad!

Whatever about formal viewing clothes, those machines must also have had all round viewing, judging from the seating arrangements.

I had heard that children were taken to the drive-in their pajamas, not something to be replicated on this side of the Atlantic, for many reasons not least frostbite, but a formal dress code for TV? Too early for watching PBS, for which one has to dress up. It must be because CB was visiting.

Happy New Year to all.

Check out the Cecil B De Mille lookalike in the Magnavox ad!

That's no look-alike. That's Cecil B De Mille himself, along with his family! Read the fine print . . .

That's his wife Constance in the chair opposite him.

I did recognise him, I just wondered if anyone else had!
No one had commented, nor has anyone remarked the early support for TV from a Hollywood name, unusual for the time.

I did not know Mrs CB however

And the DeMilles are watching a trapeeze artist?
Don't tell me CB's 1952 "The Greatest Show on Earth" Had made it to TV within the year....................

Agnes

i still can't believe how old TV NOW is. since i'm only 33 it feels like tv has been around forever. but i know it hasn't been of course.

Yesterday was my 37th anniversary working in television so I've got more than half of those covered.

well happy belated anniversary. & you are right you do. it's just to bad that today's comedy's suck. at least i think they do. thats' why i just watch crime shows & drama's now.

Coast-to-coast coax may have been installed in 1951, but what most people don't remember (or even know) is that there was still a freeze being put on new TV station licenses by the FCC, and had been since 1948. Only 108 stations existed in the U.S. at the time; 15 states didn't have any stations, thereby truly regionalizing television. The "freeze of '48" as it was known, was put in place until important standards and decisions were decided upon, and wasn't lifted until July, 1952.

i believe i read somewhere they started working out well creating television as far back as (1929) at least somewhat anyways. odd thing is if you go online on IMDB you'll see films from say (1938) marked at tv movies. but i have yet to actually see any of these.

Television started in the UK in the London area in 1935. The studios and transmission were from Alexandria Palace (Alley Pally) which was high on a hill. The broadcasts went out in both the Baird and Marconi systems initially - with the Baird system gradually phased out. Not many people had a television set and the screen was quite small. The service was stopped in 1939 on the commencement of the war.

I know this reply is many months after the fact, but it's a topic I'm fairly interested in. The service from Alexandra Palace started in the Autumn of 1936, which is considered the official beginning of BBC Television. However, the BBC had been making regular broadcasts from Broadcasting House and later Portland Place on Baird's 30-line system from 1932. Amazingly, home video recordings exist from this period, though admittedly, they're silent, scrambled and it's next to impossible to make out what's happening on most of them. There's more info on this website http://www.tvdawn.com/

I know this reply is many months after the fact, but it's a topic I'm fairly interested in. The service from Alexandra Palace started in the Autumn of 1936, which is considered the official beginning of BBC Television. However, the BBC had been making regular broadcasts from Broadcasting House and later Portland Place on Baird's 30-line system from 1932. Amazingly, home video recordings exist from this period, though admittedly, they're silent, scrambled and it's next to impossible to make out what's happening on most of them. There's more info on this website http://www.tvdawn.com/

The 1936 date is given as the "official" start of television in London - however this is the date that regular transmissions went out in the Marconi 405 line electronic system and the Baird mechanical 30 line system was abandoned. The Baird system had been in test transmission since 1929 and regular broadcasts commenced in 1932.

It's interesting that Baird experimented with colour, 3D and television recording as early as he did.

Television in Germany started regular broadcasts in a 105 line electronic system a few months before the BBC.

The first broadcast in New York was done by WRNY, a station owned by Hugo Germsback. The transmission was receivable if you had a receiver you could buy from his catalogue.

I was reminded of this last week when I was visiting the local P.C. Richards to research a dvd player for a friend. I saw a flat screen tv that was.... must have been eight feet long. I thought "We had a tv this size when I was three. The picture tube was about eight inches."

Bob

Television in Germany started regular broadcasts in a 105 line electronic system a few months before the BBC.

See "Television under the swastika".