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History of television. Family watching TV, 1958. The concept of television is the work of many individuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first practical transmissions of moving images over a radio system used mechanical rotating perforated disks to scan a scene into a time-varying signal that could be reconstructed at a ...
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Television in the United States, the body of television programming created and broadcast in the United States. American TV programs, like American popular culture in general in the 20th and early 21st centuries, have spread far beyond the boundaries of the United States and have had a pervasive influence on global popular culture.
Until the fall of 1948, regularly scheduled programming on the four networks—the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS; later CBS Corporation), the National Broadcasting Co. (NBC), and the DuMont Television Network, which folded in 1955—was scarce. On some evenings, a network might not offer any programs at all, and it was rare for any network to broadcast a full complement of shows during the entire period that became known as prime time (8–11 pm, Eastern Standard Time). Sales of television sets were low, so, even if programs had been available, their potential audience was limited. To encourage sales, daytime sports broadcasts were scheduled on weekends in an effort to lure heads of households to purchase sets they saw demonstrated in local appliance stores and taverns—the venues where most TV viewing in America took place before 1948.
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Although a television set cost about $400—a substantial sum at the time—TV was soon “catching on like a case of high-toned scarlet fever,” according to a March 1948 edition of Newsweek magazine. By autumn of that year, most of the evening schedules on all four networks had been filled, and sets began appearing in more and more living rooms, a phenomenon many credited to comedian Milton Berle. Berle was the star of TV’s first hit show, The Texaco Star Theatre (NBC, 1948–53), a comedy-variety show that quickly became the most popular program at that point in television’s very short history. When the series debuted, fewer than 2 percent of American households had a television set; when Berle left the air in 1956 (after starring in his subsequent NBC series The Buick-Berle Show [1953–55] and The Milton Berle Show [1955–56]), TV was in 70 percent of the country’s homes, and Berle had acquired the nickname “Mr. Television.”
Jul 12, 2021 · 1920s. Television as we know it began to take shape in the 1920s. Vladimir K. Zworykin was born in Russia and became a pioneer of television technology with the development of a kinescope, which ...
Oct 24, 2018 · 1993: At the start of 1993, 98% of American households owned at least one TV, with 64% owning two or more sets. 1996: Digital satellite dishes 18 inches in diameter hit the market, becoming the bestselling electronic item in history next to the VCR. 2000: The Digital Video Disc (DVD) is introduced.
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Great programs, stars and moments in television history. The technology for television existed prior to World War II, but it was in the late 1940s that television sets became household items and ...
The Golden Age of Television. During the so-called “golden age” of television, the percentage of U.S. households that owned a television set rose from 9 percent in 1950 to 95.3 percent in 1970. The 1950s proved to be the golden age of television, during which the medium experienced massive growth in popularity.
The first proper wireless remote control was made in 1955, and it was a hit. Of course, it would not hit the complete mainstream until sometime later, though now many people are barely able to use their television sets without a remote. Some sets made today hardly have buttons anymore.
