The Story of Communication:

TV—Fascinating Facts

• Several social scientists believe that TV has become a greater setter of standards than school, church, and maybe even family.
• Some early experiments that led to television were conducted before the invention of radio.
• An Idaho teenager, Philo Farnsworth, began patenting his ideas by age 19. They form part of the basis of television technology.
• The first time TV covered a presidential convention, in 1940, heat from lights led delegates to ask that the telecast be stopped.
• The first television sets sold to the public cost nearly as much as a new car, and there was hardly any programming.
• The reason television in the U.S. is mostly privately owned can be traced to government refusal to buy Samuel Morse’s telegraph.
• The first TV remote was called “Lazy Bone.” Viewers often tripped over the cord connecting it to the set.
• An early TV remote depended on photocells. On sunny days it sometimes changed channels by itself.
• Vaudeville, almost killed by the movies, was brought back to life on television.
• Two cowboy actors, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy, owned their own B-movies. They made fortunes when the studios tried to starve the TV industry.
• When a soap opera character has a baby, viewers send baby gifts to the actress, thinking the baby is real.
• One expert said small children prefer commercials to programs because the folks on commercials are the ones who smile.
• An early television store owner was embarrassed that he had to drive people up a hill to see a picture. He helped invent cable TV.
• Because apartment residents might get hurt in rooftop “antenna wars,” some landlords put up master antennas. Cable TV came later.
• One of the first cable operators owned a TV store. He strung cable to improve viewing and did not accept payment for it.
• When CNN began, network journalists laughed and called it “Chicken Noodle News.” After CNN’s fine Gulf War reporting, they stopped laughing.
• People in many parts of the world see American TV programs, but may react to them quite differently than Americans do.
• Laika, the dog sent into space on the Soviet satellite Sputnik II, was on a one-way trip. There were no plans to bring her back.
• During the Vietnam War it cost a TV network about $3,000 to send a video news story across the U.S. Today it costs about $75.
• Can you be accused of thievery while sitting at home watching TV? Yes, if you use a satellite dish without paying for pay programs.
• It’s estimated that the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the Bible could circle the Earth over a fiber optic strand in less than two seconds.

Other Resources for TV

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