TV: HISTORY AND EVOLUTION BY MARCO BRIONES AND MARIO HERNÁNDEZ

ORIGIN OF TV

There is controversy surrounding the invention of one of the most popular 21st century devices: the Television.  It took several decades for many inventors and engineers in various countries to develop the modern television.

However; two important people whose names are associated with the invention of television are Vladimir Zworykin, and Philo Farnsworth.

Although prior to 1922, the concept of television was already in existence, it was primarily due to the efforts of these two people that the concept of electronic scanning of images, which forms the bases of modern day television, was introduced. Both Zworykin and Farnsworth had applied for the same patent during the year 1923 and 1927 respectively.

The fact that Zworykin had filed for the patent earlier, he is often termed as the father of television. Nonetheless, the work of Farnsworth cannot be underestimated. In fact, many believe that at least six of his basic patents are being utilized in the manufacture of modern day television.

On the same list, is John Logie Baird—a Scot living in England who is recognized as the first to demonstrate an operational television in March of 1925. Baird transmitted the first televised pictures of moving objects in 1924, the first televised human face in 1925, and the first real-time moving object in 1926.

However, it was electronics inventor Philo Farnsworth who is credited with inventing the first completely electronic television.

The difficulty in deciding who invented the first television centers on the fact that there were several discoveries or inventions all of which were added up to make the complete TV set.

Indeed, the historical development of the TV is a complex series of events, and proclaiming any one man as the sole TV set’s inventor seems inaccurate at best.

For those who still ask, “What’s the answer to ‘Who invented TV’?” –there is no clear inventor, since there were several inventions created by different people that were merged to make the televisions we so dearly can’t live with today.

GOLDEN AGE

From television's emergence as a national medium in the late 1940s through the early 1960s, much dramatic programming was broadcast live. A staple of such programming was the "anthology." Modeled after both radio drama and the New York stage, the anthology drama featured a new "play" each week, with a new writer and set of actors. Anthology dramas proliferated on all of the broadcast networks in the 1950s, reaching a peak of popularity mid-decade with such shows as Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, Westinghouse Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, and Playhouse 90. These sixty- to ninety-minute shows were among the most prestigious items on the networks' schedules. But there were also downmarket anthology dramas, devoted to genres such as suspense (Danger and, naturally, Suspense) and science fiction (Tales of Tomorrow).

Until they were gradually overtaken by serial dramas filmed in Hollywood, such shows offered audiences a feast of literary adaptations, intimate dramas of everyday life, historical pageants, and thrillers. A mix of live theater's immediacy and risk, narrative conventions developed on radio, and film's visual finesse and spectacle, live anthology drama was a unique art form that, because of difficulties of access and preservation, is seldom discussed today. When recalled, it's often for its alumni who went on to fame in Hollywood: actors like James Dean, Paul Newman, Grace Kelly, and Sidney Poitier and directors like Arthur Penn and John Frankenheimer.

This exhibit explores what many have labeled the "Golden Age of Television": the live anthology dramas of the 1950s and early 1960s. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research boasts numerous collections that contain vital documents, photos, and films relating to the Golden Age.

EVOLUITION OF TV

The television is one of the most prominent inventions of the 20th Century.

It has become one of the most common ways people view the larger world beyond them, as well as being one of the best ways for people to escape from the world.

In the 1880s a German inventor created simplistic moving images using a filtered light viewed through a spinning disk, laying the foundations for the modern television. During the 1920s a number of scientist began experimenting with sending still images using radio waves. However, it was in 1928 that General Electric first combined the idea of a device that could show moving images with the technology to wirelessly broadcast them.

During the 30s and 40s the technology was gradually improved upon. In America the first regular broadcasts began in 1939 though it was not until after the Second World War that the television as a standard home appliance began to really take off. After 1945 television sales in America skyrocketed. The first colour broadcast was made in 1954.

Throughout the rest of the world, television came years later, and it wasn’t until the late 1960s that a television was commonplace in houses throughout the West. By the 1970s, television had become the dominant media force it is today, with 24 hour programming, mass advertising and syndicated shows.

In the 1980s satellite television shrunk the world, making live feeds from other countries and time zones possible. The new millennium brought the advent of digital television, which is the future of television.