Television History - A Timeline
| Before there was Eleanor,
there was Portia, and before
Mr.
Mason, there was Mr.
District Attorney. To understand this genre in its historical context,
one must be able to place it in its time. The development of television
is inextricably entwined and dependent on the development of film, radio,
and even the telephone, so this timeline is not exclusive to the small
screen. It offers a broad illustration of the history of television and
includes major events in inventions, programming, and relevant laws and
regulations. What kind of equipment did people use to listen or watch,
what were the most popular shows, what was the government doing to control
all of this? More detailed information on specific lawyer programs is set
out in Fictional Lawyers, Real
Judges and A Chronological List.
All illustrative links to are to remote websites.
1817
1825
Dr. John Paris invents the thaumatrope. 1831
1837
1839
1844
1851
1853
1856
1861
1862
Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) and Joseph Bates create the Holmes stereo viewer, an advancement on Sir Charles Wheatstone's 1838 invention. By the turn of the century Underwood & Underwood is producing 100,000 viewers year. 1865
Caselli's pantelegraph transmits images between Paris and Lyon. 1876
Emile Berliner invents a transmitter for Bell's telephone, which will increase the volume of the transmitted voice. 1877
German physicist Eugen Goldstein coins the term "cathode rays" to describe the light emitted when an electric current is forced through a vacuum tube. Thomas Edison patents the phonograph and establishes the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company. Alexander Graham Bell and two investors, Gardiner C. Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, form the Bell Telephone Company, which they sell the next year to a group of financiers. 1878
William Crookes confirmed the existence of cathode rays by building a tube to display them in. The first telephone exchange in the United States opens in New Haven, Ct., under license from Bell Telephone. Thomas Edison forms the Edison Electric Light Company. 1879
1880
1883
1884
Bell Telephone's first long distance telephone line, between Boston and New York City, opens. Emile Berliner speaks at the opening ceremonies. 1885
1886
1887
1888
The Kodak camera goes on sale, preloaded with 100 exposures, no viewfinder or focus, and meant to be sent back to Kodak for developing and reloading. Oberlin Smith publishes a description of magnetic recording in Electrical World; it is not known if he created a working model of his drawings. 1889
Louis Glass and William S. Arnold place a coin-operated Edison cylinder phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, patenting it as the Nickel-in-the-Slot (U.S. 428,750). Public telephone stations are available. Columbia Phonograph Co. issues a one-page music record catalog. 1891
1892
The Edison General Electric Company merges with two others to form General Electric Company. 1894
Edison films strongman Eugene Sandow and two of the earliest recorded Native American dances on film, Sioux Ghost Dance and Buffalo Dance. William Dickson, at the Edison Laboratory, combines sound and film for the first time. The film was separated from the cylinder but the cylinder was recently found and rejoined. Valdemar Poulsen, a mechanic with the Copenhagen Telegraph Company, patents the telegraphone, the first successful magnetic recording device. The beginning of the record industry is marked by Emil Berliner's creation of the United States Gramophone Company, which sells his patented gramophone and rubber disc records which were much sturdier than Edison's cylinders. Ethnologist James Mooney records the first published American Indian music. The Pathe brothers, Charles and Emile, establish a company to build phonographs, soon adding recorded and blank cylinders to their inventory. 1895
The competition to the Kinetoscope is the Mutoscope, invented by Herman Casler, one of the founders of American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. In Berlin, Max and Emil Skladanowsky invent a chronophotographic camera and the Bioskop projector and show motion pictures to a paying audience. Louis Lumiere invents a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit, and projector together in one unit, called the Cinematographe. In the basement of the Salon du Grand Café, an audience watches a 15-minute series of shorts for one franc. Their first film was of workers leaving the Lumiere factory. The first narrative is The Gardener. 1896
A few months after seeing Lumiere's films, former magician Georges Melies transforms the Theatre Robert-Houdin into the first public movie theater and begins production on his own movies, using stop-action and magic tricks in many of them. Vaudeville performers Albert Smith, J. Stuart Blackton, and Ronald Reader form the American Vitagraph Company, inventing their own projector but showing Kinetoscope films as a background to their act. William "Pop" Rock rents an empty building on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans, has 400 seats installed, and opens "Vitascope Hall," the first theater in America expressly designed to show movies. He later joins Smith, Blackton, and Reader in their partnership. Hand-colored films are shown with a Vitascope projector in New York City. Kodak manufactures the first print film designed for projection. 1897
German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun constructs the cathode ray tube scanning device. 1898
1899
Eastman chemist Frank Lovejoy develops a way to manufacture film in 1,000 foot lengths, making it possible to shoot longer scenes. AT&T reorganizes and becomes the parent company of American Bell Telephone Company. 1900
Southern Bell Telephone Company connects telephone wires with the existing underwater telegraph cable running between Key West and Havana and John W. Atkins, manager of the Key West office of the International Ocean Telegraph Company, makes the first international phone call. The first words he heard: "I don't understand you." General Electric establishes an industrial research laboratory for product development. Kodak's $1 Brownie puts photography in almost everyone's reach. 1901
Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal in Newfoundland - "dot-dot-dot, " Morse code for the letter "s" - from England. The Victor Talking Machine Company is created in 1901 as a reorganization of the Berliner Gramophone Company and the Consolidated Talking Machine Company. It will produce both phonographs and disk records with Berliner's trademark "His Master's Voice." 1902
George Melies' A Trip to the Moon tops the box office. 1903
Adolph Zukor gets into the movie business when he buys a nickelodeon. 1904
1905
John Harris and Harry Davis of Pittsburgh open the first nickelodeon when they partition off a part of their arcade and add 96 seats, charging 5 cents to see The Great Train Robbery. The Pathe Company devises a stencil system for film coloring that replaces hand-coloring each frame. 1906
Reginald Fessenden connects a carbon telephone transmitter into an Alexanderson alternator at a telegraph station and ship radio operators hear not the usual Morse code messages, but Fessenden playing his violin and reading poetry. The first talking machine with an enclosed floating horn is released by Victor, the "Victrola," selling for $200. Eugene Lauste patents the first sound-on-film in England, takes it to the United States for a demonstration in 1911, but does not have the money to continue a commercial application.. The Pathe brothers open the Omni-Pathe, the first structure built from ground-up to be a motion picture theater. 1907
Adolph Zukor distributes the first multi-reel film, Pathe's hand-colored, 3-reel Passion Play. 1908
D.W. Griffith makes his film industry debut as an extra in American Mutoscope's Professional Jealousy. 1909
The first U.S.-made feature film is Vitagraph's Les Miserables, although its four reels were released separately since the producers thought American audiences could not sit through an entire hour of film. Charles Pathé shows the first newsreel, the "Pathe-Journal," in a Paris theater; the following year they are shown in American theaters. A series of 20 short films marks the first public appearance of color film in Natural Color Kinematograph Company's presentation at the Palace Theatre in London. "Information" is available on the telephone. 1910
26,000,000 people attend 10,000 movie theaters each week. The first federal communication law, the Wireless Ship Act, Pub. L. No. 61-262, 36 Stat. 629 (repealed 1934), requires that U.S. passenger ships be outfitted with devices for radio communication. 1912
The Radio Act of 1912, Pub. L. No. 62-264, 37 Stat. 302, legislates an international distress signal - SOS - which can be heard at least 100 nautical miles away, requires station owners to be licensed, assigns three- and four-letter codes to radio stations, and limits broadcasting to the 360m wavelength. 1913
1914
The Perils of Pauline begins its serialization. 1915
The Mutual Film Corporation takes its censorship case to the Supreme Court and loses, the Court deciding in Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915) that states have the right to censor a film before it is shown . 1916
The DeForest Company's experimental radio station, 2XG in New York City, broadcasts the returns of the presidential election in its first program. Adolph Zukor's Famous Players merges with Jesse Lasky's Feature Play Company to form Famous Players-Lasky. His partners include Samuel Goldwyn and C. B. DeMille. D. W. Griffiths' Intolerance tops the box office, a long-time record holder for the most expensive film ever made, at $1.9 million. The U.S. House holds hearings on establishing a Federal Motion Picture Commission to censor films. Among the witnesses are representatives from Vitagraph, Universal Film, Paramount, Washington Secular League, New York Civic League, Maryland Mothers Congress, and Children of the American Revolution. 1917
Radio station 2XG broadcasts the first wireless in-home dance when Thomas Gaty of New Jersey amplifies his receiver and and seven couples begin dancing to the music signal. Radio magazine QST suggests that advertising and news shows would work well on radio. 1919
1920
Dame Nellie Melba is heard a thousand miles away in a concert broadcast from a Marconi station in Chelmsford, England. 1921
RCA makes its broadcast debut with station WJY of the heavyweight fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier. 1922
AT&T starts WEAF in New York primarily as an r&d tool but it is also the first station to have program sponsors and to institute "chain broadcasting," later known as networks. It will eventually become the NBC Red network. It broadcasts the first commercial, an offer of farm land on Long Island. There are 60,000 U.S. households with radio sets by the end of the year, 0.2% of all households, when Marconi releases the first mass-produced radio. Ed Wynn brings the first full-length comedy show and the first studio audience to radio with The Perfect Fool on WJZ. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) is established by the major Hollywood production studios in response to increasing government censorship of films. It is better known as the Hayes Office, for its first director, Will Hayes. 1923
Charles Jenkins gives the first public demonstration of television with his mechanical system. A.C. Nielsen Company is founded to provide measurements of radio audiences for advertisers. Lee De Forest, working for Bell Telephone Labs, produces the first commercially available photo/optical film system. Leica introduces a 35mm. camera. 1925
RCA buys WEAF from AT&T and also gets the right to use AT&T's phone lines to transmit radio programs between cities. The forerunner of PBS and NPR is formed: Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations. Warner Brothers buys Vitagraph for $735,000. and turns the Brooklyn studio into Vitaphone, which experiments with synchronizing sound with film. Radios may be mass-produced but can still be expensive. The Super-Zenith runs $240-$2,000. 1926
1927
The first practical demonstration of television is arranged by Bell Labs and AT&T, when Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in Washington DC spoke to the president of AT&T in New York. The New York Times reports a clear reception. All About Television, the first serious hobbyist television magazine, is published. Talent agent Arthur Judson founds the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting Company because David Sarnoff won't use his actors on NBC. NBC broadcasts the Alabama-Stanford 7-7 tie in the Rose Bowl, the first coast to coast radio program. The Jazz Singer, released by Warner Brothers and using the Vitaphone sound-on-disk system, is the first fully talking motion picture. The Radio Act, 47 U.S.C. 81-119 (1927) (repealed 1934), regulates programming, sets up a system for issuing licenses, and makes it clear that the airwaves can be used only with the Government's permission. The Federal Radio Commission is established. 1928
W2XBS, the RCA experimental television station and lab, begins operations in New York City. The Federal Radio Commission issues the first television license (W3XK) to Charles Jenkins in Wheaton, Maryland, who plans to broadcast "radiomovies." The first mechanical television sets go on sale: GE sells one in a fancy cabinet and in England, Baird sets are available, but only with a license. David Sarnoff and Joseph Kennedy merge the RKO theater chain with Pathe Studios and Film Booking Office of America to create the RKO Corporation. 1929
RCA's W2XBS begins broadcasting the image of Felix the Cat, placed on a record player turntable, using a mechanical scanning disk and an electronic kinescope receiver. The image was 2" high, in 60 lines (compared to HDTV's 720 or 1,080), and broadcasts lasted around 2 hours a day. Bell Labs demonstrates a mechanical television color television system. William Paley buys the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting Company for $400,000. and renames it Columbia Broadcasting System. RCA purchases Victor Talking Machine Company for $154 million and begins manufacturing radios and phonographs. Kodak introduces motion picture film designed for making sound motion pictures. 1930
Charles Jenkins broadcasts the first TV commercial and is promptly fined by the FRC. Paul Galvin puts a working radio receiver into his Studebaker automobile and demonstrates it at the Radio Manufacturer's Association meeting in Atlantic City, NJ. He calls it the "motorola," a combination of "motor" and "Victrola," and sells it for $120. The Hays Office adopts the Motion Picture Production Code, a detailed description of what is morally acceptable on the screen. 1931
Charles Jenkin's mechanical television set, Radiovisor Model 100 sells as a kit for $42.50. There are 16,700,000 radio receivers in U.S. homes, and the market penetration exceeds 50%. 1932
A consent decree forces GE and Westinghouse to sell off their stake in RCA and allow its patents to be licensed. 1933
1934
The Federal Communications Act of 1934 is signed, merging the FRC and parts of the ICC and Postmaster General agencies into the FCC. It is empowered to regulate all non-federal use of the radio spectrum, including radio and television, and all interstate telecommunications. 1935
1936
1937
Electronic television is still slow to come to the United States. The Communications Act of 1937, 47 U.S.C. 315, requires that stations provide equal time to all legal candidates for office if they gave time to any one. 1939
Dumont Company, along with RCA and GE begins producing electronic television sets for consumers. Kits are available for the less affluent. 1940
Dr. Peter Goldmark at CBS develops and demonstrates electronic color TV but it is incompatible with the 525-line broadcast standard. The first Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence are given out. 1941
W2XBS goes commercial as WNBT (NBC) and General Mills sponsors a baseball game between Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Just before the game starts, the first "legal" commercial, for Bulova watches, appears. It lasts 10 seconds and costs $9. Later in the day, Ralph Edwards hosts the first tv game show, "Truth Or Consequences," simulcast on radio and tv. The station jumped the legal gun by actually beginning its broadcasts the day before. WCBS goes on the air with the first newscast the same day (July 1). Both CBS and NBC have regularly scheduled programming of approximately 15 hours per week. There are approximately 7,000 television sets in the U.S. Americans hear a radio broadcast of the Pearl Harbor attack. CBS broadcasts televised news of the attack. Commercial production of television equipment stops until the end of the war. 1942
1943
Vladimir Zworykin develops a better camera tube - the Orthicon - with enough light sensitivity to record outdoor events at night. WRGB, Schenectady, broadcasts the first complete opera, Hansel and Gretel. The Voice of Firestone Televues documentary series premiers, the first series to feature original programming and the first to go network-wide the following spring. 1944
The FCC opens hearings on postwar allocations for new stations. 1945
Dumont's first network hookup - Washington to NewYork - announces the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. 1946
The prime time schedule opens with NBC programming on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Friday, and Dumont on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Dumont's Faraway Hill is the first network tv soap opera, the only program on Wednesday nights. James Beard hosts the first network tv cooking show, I Love to Eat, a fifteen minute show on Friday nights on NBC. Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo is founded; the name changes to Sony in 1958. 1947
In March, Dumont premieres the first network children's show, Small Fry Club, at 7 p.m. Monday-Friday. It had originated on radio in 1921. Harry Truman is the first president to address the nation from the White House via television. It is a plea for food for Europe. Public Prosecutor is the first filmed (not live) series produced for tv in Hollywood. It is the first program created for syndication. Meet the Press and The Howdy Doody Show premiere on NBC. Afternoon programming comes to New York City. AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories scientists invent the transistor. Philco Radio Time, hosted by Big Crosby, is the first taped US radio network program. 1948
Uncle Miltie blows away the competition with Texaco Star Theater. Milton Berle, aka Mr. Television, was said to have sold more televisions than any advertising campaign could have. When the Nielsen's ratings began in 1950, TST had a market share of 61.6 Cable television is introduced in Pennsylvania as a means of bringing television to rural areas. A patent is granted to Louis W. Parker for a television receiver, the "intercarrier sound system," the modern basis for coordinating sound and picture in the television receiver. The U.S. Supreme Court hands down an opinion in U.S. v. Paramount Pictures et al, 334 U.S. 131 (1948) which requires the film studios to sell off their movie theaters. 1949
Television sets appear in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. Pacifica Radio begins operation of KPFA in Berkeley, claimed to be first listener-supported station. 1950
Audiences anticipate color television. Converters are offered. Zenith Radio Corporation creates the first television remote control in 1950, the "Lazy Bone." Lazy Bone could turn a television on and off and change channels, but it was attached by a bulky cable. Iowa State College launches WOI, the first TV station owned by an educational institution, although it operates commercially. 1951
Amos 'n Andy is the first prime-time show with an all black cast. The networks offer 27 hours of children's shows a week, much of it in the early evening, and promote televisions as an educational tool to their parents. CBS' Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts edges out Milton Berle with a 53.8 share over his 52.0. 1952
Black-and-white portable TV era begins. The Today Show begins, with Dave Garroway as its host. Theater television reaches its peak with the broadcast of the Walcott/Marciano fight. Fifty movie theaters in 30 cities were wired together for the event. The first congressional hearings on television violence are held by the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Subcommittee. 1953
Color TV broadcasting officially begins on The Colgate Comedy Hour after the FCC adopts the RCA system as the standard. ABC merges with Paramount. The University of Houston signs on the first noncommercial educational TV station, KUHT. 1954
The first all-electronic color television sets are Westinghouse's and the RCA CT-100, selling for $1,000. Just over half of all American households own televisions. The Tonight Show, the longest running talk show on television, debuts. The first public television station, WQED-TV makes its debut in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Army-McCarthy congressional hearings are broadcast live and repeated at night, bringing the country face to face with zealot Joe McCarthy's zeal as he tracks down the Commies. 1955
Sales of RCA color sets jump from 5,000 in the previous year to 20,000. Quiz shows hit their peak when The $64,000 Question tops the ratings with a 47.5 share. The following year brings questions about fraud and in 1958 they were pulled when a disgruntled contestant on Dotto reveals all. The Mickey Mouse Club and Captain Kangaroo debut. 1956
Robert Adler invents the first wireless remote control, the Zenith Space Commander. Ampex introduces the first practical videotape system of broadcast quality. Nat King Cole is the first black entertainer to host a network variety show. Elvis Presley appears on the Ed Sullivan Show and scandalizes the nation. 1957
Perry Mason premieres, ranking 19th the following year and reaching its peak in popularity in 1961 with a fifth place. 1960
The first battery-operated transistorized TV is for sale. There are 67,145,000 television sets in the U.S. 1961
John F. Kennedy holds the first live televised presidential news conference. The Defenders opens the door for law-inspired social commentary. Moscow welcomes home astronaut Yuri Gagarin in the first western viewing of live television from the USSR in a BBC broadcast. 1962
Johnny Carson succeeds Jack Paar as host of the Tonight Show. AT&T launches Telstar, the first satellite to send television signals. The All Channel Receiver Act, Pub. L. No. 87-529, 76 Stat. 150 requires that all television sets sold in the U.S. be able to pick up UHF stations as well as VH. 1963
TV is used on a U.S. manned space flight, the Mercury 9. The low-brow takes over when The Beverly Hillbillies ranks first, with a 36. rating. 1964
The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. 3% of tv households have color tv. 1965
The fall season opens with almost all of NBC's prime time schedule produced on color film. CBS follows in 1966, and ABC in 1967. 1967
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, P.L. 90-129 (1967), authorizes federal operating aid to public stations through a new agency, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1968
60 Minutes, the longest running primetime tv program, makes Mike Wallace the eldest statesman of news reporters. Dan Rowan and Dick Martin's Laugh-In changes the style and pace of tv comedy, shooting to the top of the ratings within weeks of its debut. Japan's public broadcasting network, NHK, begins research on high definition television. 1969
In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969), the Supreme Court holds that the FCC did not violate the First Amendment in requiring a radio or television station to give reply time to people who were the subject of a personal attack or political editorial. 1970
Viacom is formed after CBS spins off its television programming arm as a result of the FCC's Fin-Syn rules which limit the financial interest television networks can have in syndicated programming. ABC gets the rights from the National Football League to show their games on Monday Night Football, making Howard "The Mouth" Cosell's career. 1971
Masterpiece Theatre debuts with "The First Churchills" on PBS. National Public Radio begins service with the live broadcast of Senate hearings on ending the Vietnam War and All Things Considered. Susan Stamberg is the first woman to anchor a daily national broadcast. The first "instant" camera, the Polaroid SX-70 sells for $180. 1972
Boston's WGBH Caption Center prepares the first open-captioned national broadcast, Julia Child's The French Chef. The Polaroid SX 70 Land Camera offers instant color developing and a compact shape. Television and Social Behavior; Reports and Papers, a 5-volume report to the Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior, concludes that there is a causal link between viewing television violence and subsequent antisocial acts. 1973
The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities conducts the Watergate hearings, televised on all networks. 1974
The Department of Justice files an antitrust suit against AT&T, seeking to break its monopoly. 1975
HBO begins program distribution via satellite. PBS launches its first national pledge drive, Festival 75. 1976
Turner Broadcasting's WTCG becomes cable television's first Superstation as it is beamed via satellite to cable homes across the country. 1977
PBS begins operation by satellite. Roots is the first tv mini-series. 1978
98% of U.S. households own at least one television. Dallas begins its 13-year run as a low-rated spring show. The episode revealing who shot J.R. (11/21/80) was the most highly viewed program up to that time. 1979
1980
Ted Turner's Cable News Network debuts with 24-hour national news reporting and 1.7 million subscribers. Constant media attention to the Iranian hostage crisis led to Jimmy Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan in the presidential election. 1981
The MTV network premieres, aiming at the 18-24 age bracket with its music videos and reality programming. 1982
David Letterman begins decades of late-night talk show success with Late Night with David Letterman. 1983
AT&T opens the first commercial cellular telephone system in the United States in Chicago. 1984
AT&T agrees to divest and the Bell System is dead, replaced by AT&T and seven regional telephone holding companies. The Supreme Court rules in Sony Corporation of America et al. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., et al., 464 U.S. 417 that there is no copyright infringement in videotaping television broadcasts for later viewing in a private setting. 1985
GE acquires NBC as part of a $6.3 billion deal for RCA. The first Blockbuster Video store opens in Dallas. The U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit (Quincy Cable TV v. FCC, 768 F.2d 1434) rules the FCC's "must-carry" rules requiring cable companies to include local stations are unconstitutional and an FCC inquiry into the "fairness doctrine" concludes the policy no longer serves the public interest. 1986
Stereo sound in television broadcasting is available in all major U.S. population centers. WGBH introduces Descriptive Video Service for vision-impaired viewers. L.A. Law supposedly causes a huge upswing in law school applications. A kinder, gentler audience appreciates Bill Cosby's wide-appeal The Cosby Show, making it number one in the ratings and reflecting the dominance of the sitcom. The FCC breaks up the Spanish International Network because of rules relating to foreign ownership of television stations. It is sold to Hallmark, and becomes Univision, the largest Spanish language network in the U.S. 1989
Whittle Communications stirs controversy by offering free satellite dishes and TV sets to schools that show the daily Channel One newscast with commercials. 1990
More than 200 million VCRs a year are sold worldwide. Ken Burns’ The Civil War breaks PBS audience records with an estimated national audience of 13.9 million people, far exceeding the 8.7 million people who lived in the Confederacy at the start of the war. The 1990 Children's Television Act, Pub. L. No. 101-437, 104 Stat. 996, is the first congressional act that specifically regulated children's television. One of its requirements was a minimum of 3 hours per week of educational programming. Some stations tried to claim The Flintstones was a history program. The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 mandates that since July 1993, all televisions manufactured for sale in the U.S. must contain a built-in caption decoder if the picture tube is 13" or larger. 1991
The first TVs with built-in closed-caption display capability are introduced in the U.S. U.S. testing of HDTV systems begins. Fox Broadcasting is the first network to permit condom advertising on television. 1992
The Cartoon Network opens, fueled by Ted Turner's acquisition of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. 1993
1994
Viacom acquires Paramount Communications for $10 billion and Blockbuster Video for $8.4 billion. RCA puts the Direct Satellite System into service. Ted Turner launches the Turner Classic Movies station. Republicans win a majority in the House and new Speaker Newt Gingrich soon announces plan to “zero out” CPB funding. Netscape Communications releases Netscape Navigator 1.0, the first user-friendly graphical web browser, and the internet is finally available to non-geeks. 1995
Westinghouse Corporation buys CBS for $5.4 billion. The first television program ("Computer Chronicles") is delivered via the Internet. PBS Online debuts. Flat-screen plasma display TVs are introduced at $20,000. By 1997 they are half that price. The WB television broadcast network is launched. 1996
The FCC approves the Advanced TV Systems Committee's HDTV standard and HDTV is broadcast and received live at WHD-TV in Washington, D.C. There are one billion TV sets world-wide. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, is passed "To promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies." This allows companies to own more broadcast stations in a given market. 1997
The FCC sets 2003 as the deadline for public TV stations to begin DTV simulcasting. 1998
Seven public TV stations are among first DTV broadcasters and PBS premieres “Chihuly Over Venice,” the first national broadcast of a program produced and edited in HDTV. DVD technology becomes commercially viable although fewer than 2% of U.S. households have DVD players. 1999
Victoria's Secret Super Bowl ad parades scantily clad models across the tv screen and a reported 1 million people turn away from the game to log on to the Web address promoted in the ad. Three days later, they webcast their annual fashion show and a record 750,000 comes to watch in spite of slow, if not impossible, connections and a grainy picture worse than that of a 1930 Dumont. Viacom and CBS merge. Tivo enters the market, a hard-disc based personal recorder that allows the tv viewer to pause a live show, record, and skip over advertisements. The Recording Industry Assn. of America files a lawsuit against the music website Napster, accusing it of operating as a haven for music piracy on the Internet. 2000
The AOL/Time Warner agreement becomes the largest corporate merger in history and the world's largest media and entertainment company. 85% of U.S. households own VCRs and 98% own more than one tv. Feature film Quantum Project is produced for Internet distribution, not theaters. British "newscaster" Ananova joins other virtual performers on tv and the Net. Seven of the top thirty programs are reality shows; Survivor is number one, along with five days of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? 2001
Multi-casting begins when WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina simultaneously broadcasts on one of its digital channels along with its regular CBS programming. Movie box office receipts in U.S. climb to $8.4 billion. Apple Computer introduces the iPod, a portable MP3 player that will hold 5 gigabytes in downloaded music. It costs $399. XM Satellite Radio beats out rival Sirius Satellite Radio by being the first to launch commercial-free, satellite broadcasted radio programming, available to subscribers for $12.95/month for 100 channels streaming into cars, homes, boats, and outdoors. The recording industry has a major win over internet file sharers in A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1028 (9th Cir. 2001). 2002
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is the first big budget film shot with digital cameras. MTV reports that it reaches 250 million homes world wide. Camera-equipped cell phones take off in Japan and are introduced to the U.S. the following year. 2003
The Supreme Court mandates Internet porn filters in federally funded public libraries in U.S. v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003). Cable TV offers TiVo-like features: storing programs and skipping commercials. 2004
Twenty CBS'-owned stations are fined a total of $550,000 by the FCC after a "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl half-time program Basic cable networks' ratings beat out the no-charge, local broadcast networks in the first week of the fall season. GE now owns the NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, CNBC, USA, SciFi and Trio networks, as well as Universal Studio, Universal's 5,000 film library, 32,000 television episodes, and 5 theme parks. In addition to ABC, the Walt Disney Company also owns 10 television and 64 radio stations, 12 cable networks, 4 television and 8 movie production and distribution companies, and 15 theme parks. Viacom owns 16 CBS and 18 UPN stations, as well as 5 others. It also owns 15 cable networks, 3 television and production networks (including the largest syndicator, King World), 185 radio stations and Paramount Pictures. There are more than 300 cable networks. It's Betamax all over again with Sony and Disney's Blu-ray versus Toshiba and Paramount's HD DVD technologies for high definition dvd's. Sony buys MGM Studios for $5 billion, gaining the world's largest movie library, over 7,000 titles, and with estimates of the DVD-related value of those titles at over $1 billion per year. More than 30,000 movie titles are available on DVD. Raleigh, NC TV station WRAL is the first television station in the U.S. to provide video news, weather and traffic information to cell-phone users. 2005
Eastman Kodak Co. unveils a high-end ($600.) digital touch-screen camera that can e-mail pictures using Wi-Fi (card $100.) It can store up to 1,500 pictures and record video. =============================================================== For some very useful websites on the history of television, try these: Ad Access: John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and
Marketing History -- http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/
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