History Of Television Essay, Research Paper

The History Of Television

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 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.

The first actually television success was in San Francisco, California on September 7, 1927. Philo Taylor Fansworth a 21-year-old inventor who lived in a house without electricity till he was 14 designed this system. When Farnsworth was still in high school he developed a system that could capture moving images then convert them to radio waves and then transformed into a picture on a screen.

The first successful television transmissions occurred between 1928 and 1935. Because the pictures in this system were composed of only 30 lines, small details could not be reproduced. This system was known as a low definition system. Several hundred lines are needed to give definition comparable to 35 mm film.

The BBC introduced the first high definition system in 1936. This system consisted of 405 lines. In 1964, they introduced a second high definition set. This was a 625-line system that was better suited to many other broadcasting authorities, so it enabled an even higher picture resolution than before.

Rca, the company who owned the two dominating radio networks invested $50 million dollars in the development of electronic television. In 1939 RCA televised the opening of the New York World Fair. Durring that opening ceremony president Franklin D Roosevelt made a speech, making him the first president to appear on television. Later that year RCA purchased a license to use Farnsworth s television patents. RCA began selling the first televisions, these television sets were 5 inches by 12 inches. RCA also began broadcasting regular programs. By 1941 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began broadcasting two 15 minute newscasts a day to a tiny audience on its New York televison station.

Between 1953 and 1955, television programming began to take some steps away from radio formats. At this time there were currently 3 televisons networks. The third network, ABC, turned its first profit with youth-oriented shows such as Disneyland, which debuted in 1954.

In 1964 color broadcasting began on prime-time television. The FCC initially approved a CBS color system, and then swung in RCA’s favor after they swamped the marketplace with black-and-white television sets compatible with RCA color (the CBS color system was not compatible with black-and-white sets and would have required the purchase of a new set). During the 1960s and 1970s the US 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 in each of the major cities or metropolitan areas of the United States. In the larger cities, there were also a few independent stations, mostly playing reruns of old network shows.

In 1967 A Carnegie Commission recommended the creation of a fourth, noncommercial, public television network built around the educational nonprofit stations already in operation throughout the United States. Congress created the Public Broadcasting System that year.

The first available cable was broadcasted in the New York area. By 1071 more then 80,000 subscribers in New York alone, had subscribed to cable.

The television has become one of the greatest inventions ever made. Allowing users to get away from reality and go into a little world that could bring endless possibilities to the imagination.