Chapter 5: television & the power of visual culture

First TV Transmission

Sep 7, 1927

In 1927, Philo Farnsworth made the world's first working television system with electronic scanning of both the pickup and display devices,[17] which he first demonstrated to the press on 1 September 1928.

Television

Period: Sep 7, 1927 to Feb 8, 1983

Freezing TV Licenses

Oct 10, 1940

In the 1940's, the FCC began assigning certain channels to specific geographic ares to make sure there was no interference.

Camel Newsreel Theater

Feb 10, 1948

A daily evening newsccast that began in February of 194, it was originally a ten mintue Fow Movietone newreel that was also shown in theatres, this filmed news service was converted to a live broadcast one year later.

The Quiz Show Scandals

Dec 5, 1950

The Quiz Show Scandals The temptation of advertisers and their agencies to exploit network television reached a peak in the quiz show craze of the late 1950s. Quizzers had been popular in radio a decade earlier, but TV had been reluctant to venture deeply into the genre until the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 invalidated an FCC rule that restricted giveaway programs and treated the quiz shows as a form of lottery. The first program to emerge following this ruling was The $64,000 Question, a half-hour show that premiered in June 1955. Its concept was taken from a radio quiz show popular throughout the 1940s, Take It or Leave It (later renamed The $64 Question), where contestants started with $1 and doubled their winnings by answering questions until reaching the top prize, "the $64 question." Television simply increased the jackpot a thousandfold. There had never been a success like this TV show: within a few weeks the CBS quizzer was the leading show on television, and it stayed there during the 1955-1956 season, falling to number four the next season and to number twenty in 1957-1958.The program employed a seductive set featuring an eye-catching category board, a modernistic isolation booth in which competitors stood (ostensibly to prevent them from overhearing answers offered from the audience) to answer the big-money questions, plus engaging contestants, attractive women such as actress Barbara Britton for the Revlon cosmetics commercials, and a glib host in Hal March. Contestants apparently relied on their own expertise in topics as diverse as Shakespeare, boxing, opera, the Bible, and art.

I Love Lucy

Jan 15, 1951

Luc y became the first TV program filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Kinescope

Mar 22, 1951

A film camera recorded a live TV show off of a studio monitor.

Affiliate Stations

May 12, 1956

In 1956, the CBS program became the frist news show videotaped for rebroadcast on an affiliate station in western time zones.

TV newsmagazines

Aug 16, 1968

Television news magazines provide a similar service to print news magazines, but their stories are presented as short television documentaries rather than written articles. These broadcasts serve as an alternative in covering certain issues more in-depth than regular newscasts. The formula, first established by Panorama on the BBC in 1953 has proved successful around the world. Television news magazines provide several stories not seen on regular newscasts, including celebrity profiles, coverage of big businesses, hidden camera techniques, better international coverage, exposing and correcting injustices, in-depth coverage of a headline story, and hot topic interviews. In the United States, television news magazines were very popular in the 1990s since they were a cheap and easy way to better use the investment in national television network Nightly News departments. Television news magazines once aired five nights a week on most television networks.[1] However, with the success of reality shows, news magazines have largely been supplanted. Reality shows cost slightly less to produce and attain a younger and more loyal audience than the news magazines they replaced. Thus, the audience once attracted to news magazine shows have largely drifted to Cable television in the United States, where common news magazine topics such as nature, science, celebrities, and politics all have their own specialty channel.

Ted Turners Independent Station

Dec 11, 1976

In December of 1976, Ted Turner beamed, or uplinked, the signal from WTBS, his Atlanta- based independent station, to a satellite, where cable systems and broadcast stations around the country could access, or downlink, it.

M*A*S*H

Feb 8, 1983

The final episode of MASH was aired.