Television in the 1940's and 1950's

The 1940's-1950's were quite eventful for the still relatively new invention called television.

Technical Advances

In 1943, RCA demonstrated a new TV Camera that gave the public its first glimpse of an image that was far above the images that had been possible in early television. The format of early TV news had been borrowed from radio and was usually read from a visible script, by an announcer in a small announce booth. A single camera was aimed through the window of the booth. In 1949, the format had not changed much. Newsreel companies usually supplied the shots of news events. But viewers were still mesmerized and by 1955 half of all homes in the United States had purchased a television set. Color broadcasting finally arrived in the United States in 1953 when the FCC approved a modified version of one that RCA had created. The first color commercial was televised, and in 1954, television became the leading source for national advertising.

There were many technical advances during these two decades of television. During the years previous to 1940, the technology was very primitive. A single camera that forced actors to work in almost impossible conditions captured all of the action that was televised. The cameras did not work well with the color white. The lights had to be extremely hot and the actors were required to wear black lipstick and green make-up. During the years from 1939-1945 because of World War II, progress on the development of television technology stopped. All efforts in technology were focused on winning the war. In 1947, a company named Corning invented the process to mass-produce glass TV picture tubes. In 1948, one million television sets are sold in the United States. In 1949, Corning produced the first lead-free glass for TV tubes and also invented a new method for centrifugal casting of television funnels.