When was television commercialized

How did such a groundbreaking technology turn from a niche invention to a living room mainstay? These early televisions started appearing in the early s. They involved mechanically scanning images then transmitting those images onto a screen.

Compared to electronic televisions, they were extremely rudimentary. One of the first mechanical televisions used a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral pattern. Both devices were invented in the early s. Prior to these two inventors, German inventor Paul Gottlieb Nipkow had developed the first mechanical television. That device sent images through wires using a rotating metal disk. The device had 18 lines of resolution.

Campbell-Swinton — combined a cathode ray tube with a mechanical scanning system to create a totally new television system. That inventor lived in a house without electricity until he was age Starting in high school, he began to think of a system that could capture moving images, transform those images into code, then move those images along radio waves to different devices.

Farnsworth was miles ahead of any mechanical television system invented to-date. The first image ever transmitted by television was a simple line. Between and , mechanical television inventors continued to tweak and test their creations. However, they were all doomed to be obsolete in comparison to modern electrical televisions: by , all TVs had been converted into the electronic system.

Understandably, all early television systems transmitted footage in black and white. The two types of televisions listed above, mechanical and electronic, worked in vastly different ways. Mechanical televisions relied on rotating disks to transmit images from a transmitter to the receiver.

Both the transmitter and receiver had rotating disks. The disks had holes in them spaced around the disk, with each hole being slightly lower than the other. To transmit images, you had to place a camera in a totally dark room, then place a very bright light behind the disk. That disk would be turned by a motor in order to make one revolution for every frame of the TV picture.

There was a lens in front of the disk to focus light onto the subject. When light hit the subject, that light would be reflected into a photoelectric cell, which then converted this light energy to electrical impulses. The electrical impulses are transmitted over the air to a receiver. The receiving end featured a radio receiver, which received the transmissions and connected them to a neon lamp placed behind the disk.

The disk would rotate while the lamp would put out light in proportion to the electrical signal it was getting from the receiver. Image courtesy of EarlyTelevision. The anodes were the positive terminals and the cathode was the negative terminal. The Cathode would release a beam of electronics into the empty space of the tube which was actually a vacuum. All of these released electrons had a negative charge and would thus be attracted to positively charged anodes. These anodes were found at the end of the CRT, which was the television screen.

As the electrons were released at one end, they were displayed on the television screen at the other end. Reality TV. Transition to Digital TV. Television's Future. Celebrity Culture. Public Broadcasting. Children's Television. The Future of Television. TV Violence. Cable Television Coming of Age. New Era in TV Sports. Cable TV's Future. Public Broadcasting's Uncertain Future. Television in the Eighties. Public Broadcasting in Britain and America. Daytime television programming consisted primarily of soap operas and quiz shows until the s, 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 mids, when ABC, traditionally regarded as a poor third, rose to the top of the ratings, largely because of shrewd scheduling.

A Carnegie Commission report in 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 stations, more than any commercial network. Some of the most praised programs on PBS, such as the dramatic series Upstairs, Downstairs , have been imports from Britain, which has long had a reputation for producing high-quality television. Among the many special series produced for public broadcasting, The Civil War , 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 , 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. Large antennas erected in high places gave everyone connected the chance to receive all the channels available in the nearest city. 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 cable had more than 80, subscribers in New York. Then networks specifically designed to be distributed by the cable system began to appear: Time Inc. 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 s and s, 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.

By the s politicians and government leaders were familiar enough with the workings of television to be able to exploit the medium to their own ends. 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 provided further proof of the power of television, with pictures of U. Both Iraqi and U. However, the U. 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. In the s, 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 s and then exploded in the s 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 s to under 50 percent by 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 first aired in ; see Seinfeld, Jerry than watched the final episode of MASH in first aired in The trial of former football star O.

Simpson in 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 s and s, 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 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 unsuitable for children under 14 , and TV-MA for mature audiences only.