The History and Development of Television - Term Paper Example

INTRODUCTION Perhaps no other invention in history until the computer has been both hailed as the greatest boon to mankind and damned as the worst scourge of society as the television. When one considers that this absolutely essential component of modern life has been a commonplace in most homes for only half a century, the television takes on an even greater mythic quality. Quite simply it is impossible to imagine the latter half of the 20th century without the powerful images delivered by television. From the fantastic images of men walking on the moon to the horrific images of planes flying in the World Trade Center, television more than any other medium is responsible for the shaping of the consciousness of modern man. And yet this device so vital to daily life remains a complete mystery to most people. While any elementary student can at least produce the more common mistaken identities of those who claim to have invented the light bulb or telephone, very few college professors could probably come up with even one of the many names attached to the invention of television. HISTORY OF TELEVISION In Boston, Massachusetts in 1875 a man named George Carey forwarded a theory that involved arranging a multitude of photoelectric cells arranged on panel; this was to become the very first tentative step toward the creation of modern day television. The technology of the time made Carey's idea little more than a dream, however. An improvement over Carey's design was forwarded by Constantin Senlecq in 1881. This Frenchman proposed a system involving spinning switches located between the cell panels and lamps; turning at the same rate the consequence would the connection of each cell with the lamp. The result, according to Senlecq, was that the picture could be sent along just one wire, eliminating the needs for the thousands that Carey's idea would require. Unfortunately, this idea had a distinct downside that prevented it from being realized: the number of both cells and lamps required would have been enormous (Burns, 1998, pp. 40-43). In 1921, a teenager named Philo Farnsworth become conscious of the fact that an image could be duplicated almost instantaneously when an electron beam scanned picture in horizontal lines. At the same time Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian immigrant, had devised a camera through which an image could focused via a lens to a tube that was lined with several photoelectric cells. That image was then scanned with an electron beam before broadcast to a cathode-ray tube (Abramson, 1995, p. 17-18). Farnsworth's apparatus employed an anode finger, or a very thin tube marked with a small aperture at the top which was used to scan the picture. Within the tube were magnetic coils that turned the electrons captured through the aperture into electric current. Once this was accomplished, the electric current was transmitted to a cathode-ray tube where the image was scanned once more, this time onto a fluorescent surface (Winston, 1998, pp. 108-110). Farnsworth applied for a patent in 1927 for what he called an image dissector, but he ran into a delay due to lack of funding on one hand, and constant challenges to his patent claims for another (Schwartz, 2002, pp. 83-85). It was this constant assault on his integrity that finally caused Farnsworth to sell two licences to on his patent; a British agreement with British Gaumont as well as an American agreement with RCA. RCA then issued a model of Farnsworth's image dissector in 1934 called the iconoscope, using a camera very similar to Farnsworth's tube, but claiming that it was based on Zworykin's ideas. This led to even more patent wars during which time the far richer RCA began investing more and more into the concept. RCA made the announcement that they would soon be financing the creation of commercial television during the 1939 World's Fair in New York. The World's Fair announcement was followed by the world's first television broadcasts. On May 17 of that year, NBC broadcast a college baseball game, still considered to be the very first televised sporting events. NBC broadcast live presentations of everything from comedy shows to cooking shows. In less than a year, RCA was selling four different television models while various other manufacturers leaped into the business as well, including GE and Westinghouse. Meanwhile, companies such as DuMont, and Philco squabbled over whether there an adequate supply of programmes to justify placing standards on broadcasting. Nevertheless, standards were agreed upon by the FCC the spring of 1941. By year's end, Bulova aired the world's initial television commercial (Sterling & Kittross, 2002, p. 229). And then commercial television development came to a crashing halt when Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor, throwing America into World War II. RCA resurrected television in 1944, and by the end of the war, several commercial television stations were broadcasting along the east coast of the U.S. Five-thousand TV sets were sold 1946, but by the very next year the number leaped to 160,000 in 1947. Most of these sets were not sold for use in homes, however; the majority of television purchasers were leisure businesses where people could congregate to enjoy the newest sensation, such as bars. With the introduction of more programming, sales of sets topped 3,000,000 by 1949. A LOOK AT COLOUR TELEVISION 1940 is generally considered the year that colour television began. On February 12, 1940, RCA exhibited its colour television system to FCC, but things did not go smoothly. Then CBS unveiled a sequential colour system that broke down the television image into three primary colours through a set of spinning filters in front of black and white, caused the video to be viewed in colour. A 1941 decision by the FCC to approve standards only for black-and-white television left the issue of colour up in the air. The proposal was based on the recommendation from the National Television Standards Committee, which represented the makers of electronics. RCA's guidance in the expansion of the established black & white television system gave NBC an advantage; however CBS viewed colour as the route toward catching up to NBC's dominance (Sterling & Kittross, 2002, p. 254). The CBS colour system was not compatible with RCA's standard for black-and-white television, which would have meant that houses would need one set to watch colour shows and another to watch black & white shows. That was the only problem; CBS also announced they would require more spectrum space than the National Television Standards Committee system for black & white allowed. The result was that CBS was compel to appeal for new channel space in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band At the time, RCA was working hard to create a compatible colour system that did not necessitate any further spectrum space (Sterling & Kittross, 2002, p. 256). CBS prove incapable of persuade the FCC to take up the issue of expanding the spectrum before World War II was over. Although CBS technically had the capacity to provide colour programming, it had little recourse to doing anything other than waiting while RCA sold thousands of its black & white televisions. Making matters worse for CBS, the FCC was disinclined to forward the issue following the war; after all, black & white television was proving quite popular and there was no massive outcry for colour. RCA helped the process along by doing their part to convince the FCC that no immediate action was necessary. At the same time, CBS was experiencing problems such as demonstrations of their colour process that turned into nightmares as well as dissatisfaction with the size and noise of the colour televisions. In 1946, RCA exhibit a new electronic colour receiver comprised of three picture tubes for each primary colour. While the colour itself was good, it tended to blur with movement. More importantly than the actual achievement was that it was compatible with the existing standards. Regardless, it would be another seven years before a final standard for colour was ultimately settled. CBS and RCA would both invest millions of dollars into compelling the FCC to opt for their system as the standard. RCA seemed to take a huge lead when the FCC rebuffed CBS as the standard (Salant, 1999, pp. 18-20). Then in 1950, the FCC reversed that decision and recognized the mechanical scanning system following a glowing demonstration. RCA responded with a lawsuit that sought to overturn the decision. RCA lost the lawsuit in 1951 and it appeared that CBS was on the verge of having their colour system become the standard. While RCA worked diligently to get the ruling reversed, CBS launched wholeheartedly into the manufacture of colour sets. Oddly, it wasn't RCA that undid CBS' seemingly assured victory, it was the Korean War (Chandler & Cortada, 2000, p. 24). After CBS stopped production at the beginning of the war, they also stopped producing sets. This was all the time that RCA needed to convince the National Television Standards Committee of the importance of compatibility with pre-existing standards for black & white television sets. The FCC overturned its approval of CBS colour system and in December 1953, it endorsed the compatible RCA system. Despite the money and court rulings, however, television during the 1950s was primarily a black & white showcase. Only NBC was habitually airing colour progammes by 1957 and colour production of prime-time shows would not become a commonplace until the 1960s. TELEVISION TODAY There are clashing and paradoxical views on the subject of whether television has been a boon or hindrance to society. The conventional wisdom is that television makes people dumber, wastes time and saps creativity and imagination. Yet how many people are honestly telling the truth when they say they never watch television Certainly on occasions such as the 9/11 attacks, television takes centerstage and one would be had pressed to come up with an argument that any invention in history has been so vital. Those who look beyond the obvious can point to how television is an instrument unlike any before it when it comes to communication. Others insist that television is nothing but a corrupting influence that brings unnecessary violence and explicit sex into the home. One of the distinct advantages to television, and one of the reasons why most home have more than one, is that it engenders a sense of comfort, security and intimacy with each individual viewer. Furthermore, because the greater bulk of television is episodes of dramatic re-creation that almost always tie up all loose ends nicely in the range from thirty minutes to two hours, television helps to sustain the belief that life has closure, rather than being the fearsome open-ended mystery serial it really is. That comfort cannot even be adequately acknowledged when one remembers that the primary viewers of television are children and the elderly, two groups not exactly empowered in modern society. And even for those stuck along the long middle range between childhood and being a senior citizen, television offers an escape route from the punishing grind of mapping out an escape from the onslaught of real life. In essence, television can become one's best friend. Or, according to others, it can become a direct influence of bad behavior. The one thing that everybody can agree on is that standards for allowing what may be presented on television have gotten consistently lower since the introduction of the device into the home. The first few decades of television saw extraordinary censorship of violence and sexuality; even at the height of the "swinging sixties" producers weren't allow to show Barbara Eden's navel in the American sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (Ozersky, 2003, p. 16). Contrast that innocence with the daily doses of nudity, four-letter words and graphic violence that are available through cable television or satellite twenty-four hours a day. In fact, it was the introduction of cable television that unleashed the floodgates. Before cable television and the arrival of narrowcasting, broadcasters could be relied upon to present a certain type of programming to correspond to the demographics of viewers. Back when most wives didn't head to work everyday and were home alone during school hours, the broadcast networks delivered programming designed almost exclusively to women in the form of soap operas, game shows and cooking shows. Once the kids arrived home in the afternoon television switched over to cartoons and syndicated reruns of popular kids' television shows. Primetime was a bit more expansive, having to meet the needs of the both sexes and all ages; nevertheless one very noticeable category is missing from that list. While prime time programming spanned the gamut from family-centered sitcoms to cop shows to medical dramas, especially, westerns, television was an ocean of white, middle-class faces. If a minority was ever the focus of an episode, he was more often than the villain; more likely he was just a background character. Strangely enough, during the first two decades of American television the minority group most likely to be featured as a character on television were Native Americans and it was just as likely that the actor had little to no Native American blood in his veins. The introduction of cable networks changed the face of television forever. Once R-rated movies began appearing regularly during early evening hours the floodgates burst wide open. Once parents became acclimated to the idea that a cursory surf through all the channels was likely to include full frontal nudity, images of body parts violently exploding in slow motion and literally every profanity ever created it was only a matter of time before network executives felt the freedom to push the envelope ("Is the Problem Television," 1999, p. 48). The result is that targeted demographics no longer enter into the equation; all television is homogeneous and designed only to appeal to the widest possible viewership that can be found within a rapidly dwindling audience share. MODERN TECHNOLOGY The future of television is here and it is known as high definition or HDTV. Digital television is the most revolutionary advance in television technology since the introduction of colour and the route toward achieving a standard has been just as tortuous. A digital TV differs from the standard analog type basically by having greater resolution of image, meaning a much sharper picture. HDTV works by sending an electronic signal which is stored in a binary sequence instead of existing as an endlessly varying signal. These television sets can are capable of displaying high definition television at full resolution, something that current analog sets cannot replicate. Analog sets work by essentially creating a set of lines down the length of the screen and the resolution suffers due to signal degradation during the transmission process. Digital sets offer a higher quality image because their signals suffer no degradation. Analog transmission is slowly giving way to digital transmission, but as with sales of colour television, it will not be until there is a large audience demand for the pricier sets that digital television will replace analog, and at current prices it may be decades before every home can afford to switch over to HDTV. The number of channels carried by an analog signal is only one per coaxial, whereas digital signals can carry an unlimited quantity of channels. Another important difference is that analog signal varies greatly in quality, whereas digital transmission has the quality of a DVD. HDTV offers 1080 scan lines which is more than double the number of analog screens (Brown, 1992). The result is larger ratio of width to height; HDTV is offers an aspect ratio almost quadruple the size of analog (Rubin, 1998). THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION The buzzword for the television's future is interactivity. Everyone involved in television is looking to make the experience of viewing more analogous with the experience of being on the internet. Interactive television poses many fascinating possibilities, as well as a few potential areas of great concern. The greatest concern for many is how interactivity will affect creativity. The technology is already in the works to replace commercial breaks with advertising that actually take place during the show being watched. For instance, while watching one's favourite programme in the future, there will probably be more scenes involving the characters watching television, and on the screen within the show there will be a commercial and the characters may well be commenting on the product. The future of television will change directly due to the introduction of digital video recording devices which allow viewers to edit out commercials. Ultimately, the drop in commercial viewership will be reflected in company profits, therefore advertisers must find a way to make commercials so appealing or ubiquitous that viewers can't delete ignore them (Jensen, 2005, p. 118). The most outlandish idea on this subject is the potentiality of being able to pause a show, click on the clothing a character is wearing and buy a copy of it in any size or colour. Clearly, what is meant by interactivity is the complete obliteration of the already blurred line that exists between entertainment and advertising. CONCLUSION For better or worse, television is probably here to stay. The next fifty years will doubtlessly see more innovation and the televisions of the future will probably not look anything like the enormous console sets of the 1950s. As television evolves to become more approximate to a computer than what is normally thought of as a TV, there is only thing for certain that will never change. Pandora's Box is open and television will continue to push the boundaries of taste and decency. Digital transmissions with their unlimited capacity for channels will suffer the occasional snafu and there will probably be more cases of pornography briefly showing up on a children's cable network (Nichols, 2007). The debate over whether television is a good or bad thing for society is the only predictable component of television's future. Works Cited Abramson, A. (1995). 1 The Invention. In Television An International History, Smith, A. R. (Ed.) (pp. 13-34). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, L. (1992). Les Brown's encyclopedia of television. (Vol.1, p. 259). Burns, R. (1998). Television: An International History of the Formative Years. London: The Institution of Electrical Engineers. Chandler, A. D. & Cortada, J. W. (Eds.). (2000). A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press. Is the Problem Television or Viewers. (1999, March). The American Enterprise, 10, 48. Jensen, J. F. (2005). Chapter 5 Interactive Content, Applications, and Services. In Digital Terrestrial Television in Europe, Brown, A. & Picard, R. G. (Eds.) (pp. 101-131). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nichols, A (2007, May 2). Cartoon Channel Shows Porn. Retrieved May 8, 2007, from The Daily Telegraph Web site: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21659268- 5012895,00.html Ozersky, J. (2003). Archie Bunker's America: TV in an Era of Change, 1968-1978. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Rubin, S. (1998, January 6). In your face TV, new digital signal promises crystal clear picture and monster television sets. Datebook. The San Francisco Chronicle, D1, D5. Salant, R. S. (1999). 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