Television

A 1970's-era television receiver, with "rabbit ears" antennae for receiving VHF transmissions, and a loop for UHF signals

Television (also, informally, "TV" and "telly") is the electronic transmission of moving pictures. The word "television" literally means "far sight"; it was formed by combining the Greek word τῆλε ("tele", or "far") with the Latin word visio-n ("sight", from video, vis- to see) — this coinage follows the pattern of telegraph ("far writer") and telephone ("far talker"). A parallel constuction may be found in German, where it is known as "fernsehen" or "far-seer." In general usage, the meaning of "television" has been expanded to also refer to receivers, and to video in conventional broadcast as well as cable and satellite signals.The word is also used to describe, in broad terms, the content of television programming generally.

Content of television programming

The content of television has evolved considerably since the earliest broadcasts in the late 1920's in Britain. The evolution of the medium can best be understood by looking at the broad historical trends, which themselves were often driven by technical innovations, such as higher definition signals, color, and an increased number of available channels and networks.

Earliest broadcasts: 1929-1935

In its earliest days, there was a good deal of incertainty as to what exactly what sort of material was suitable for broadcasts. The BBC's earliest broadcasts using the Baird system tended to focus on music-hall performers, singers, and novelty acts. A typical daily program, from the week of December 4th 1930, included the folowing:

• Bernard Dudley - character vocalist
• Pauline & Diana - instrumental entertainment
• Keith Mason - and his ukelele
• Eric Mason - entertainer and conjurer
• Gaye Jukes - musical comedy artists
• "Coal comfort" - a sketch by L. Saxey
• Jack Royce - coon songs

1933 clip

As the earliest regularly scheduled broadcasts of television in the world, this Baird programming is quite remarkable. Most of the acts performed for only a few minutes each, as the BBC had only allocated a half-hour at morning and at night. There are, in fact, surviving home recordings of these broadcasts; using a "Silvatone" home-recording deck, a viewer in 1933 had recorded a number of snippets of the BBC signal, including a segment featuring the "Paramount Astoria Girls," a popular dance troupe of the day. These recordings have been restored by Scottish engineer Donald McLean, and give a unique window into early television, as they are the first recordings ever made of broadcast television. It is remarkable what the producers were able to accomplish with their heavy, fixed camera and sharply limited camera angle; the full recording shows faces popping out from behind a curtain, followed by the entry of the dancing girls, over which the camera was slowly panned (the only motion then possible; see image at left). Due to the fact that the Silvatone disc could record only one channel, there is no sound. In addition to live programming, cinema films were regularly shown, as Baird's had developed an early mechanical-scanning telecine process in 1929.

The BBC, in anticipation of a new higher-definition system, ended regularly scheduled 30-line transmissions in 1934.

BBC High Definition, 1936-1939

Screen capture of 1936 405-line broadcast. Courtesy of Lost British Television

On November 2, 1936, the BBC launched its new higher-definition broadcasts from new studios at Alexandra Palace. Originally, broadcasts alternated between the Baird process, which used cinema cameras and "intermediate film" processing which scanned freshly-developed film while still wet, and the all-electronic EMI-Marconi system, which used the Emitron tube (both were received electronically and displayed on Cathode-Ray tubes). Both processes suffered from some technical problems at the start, but the BBC eventually decided in favor of the EMI system; all broadcasts using Baird's system ceased early in 1937. The broadcasts were made from specially-designed studios at Alexandra Palace, and employed a new higher-definition 405-line broadcast standard as called for in the report of the Selsdon Committe to the BBC. The first announcers were Leslie Mitchell, Elizabeth Cowell, and Jasmine Bligh, and the first hour's program (repeated via both the Baird and the EMI systems) was as follows:

• 3.00 pm Opening of the BBC Television Service by GC Tryon (Postmaster General), Mr RC Norman (chairman of the BBC), and Lord Selsdon (chairman of the Television Committee).
• 3.15 Interval; Time, Weather
• 3.20 British Movietone News
• 3.30 Variety Adele Dixon (musical comedy star), Buck and Bubbles (comedians and dancers), The Lai Founs (Chinese jugglers) and the BBC Television Orchestra
• 4.00 Closedown; a chart arranged in co-operation with the Air Ministry will forecast the weather

The post-WWII era: 1945-1960

Both the UK and the US limited television broadcasting during the wartime years. In the UK, broadcasts were stopped entirely, while in the US, though broadcasts continued, no new television receivers could be manufactured or sold. The immediate post-war period was a heady one in both countries, though US growth was to be the fastest. The UK continued its pre-war model of using licensing fees for recreivers, such that the BBC transmissions had no commercial content, whereas in the US, the sponsorship model used for radio quickly became the standard for television as well.