Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When was the first home TV introduced?
Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but it would still be several years before the new technology would be marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US and most other developed countries. The availability of multiple types of archival storage media such as Betamax, VHS tape, local disks, DVDs, flash drives, high-definition Blu-ray Discs, and cloud digital video recorders has enabled viewers to watch pre-recorded material—such as movies—at home on their own time schedule. For many reasons, especially the convenience of remote retrieval, the storage of television and video programming now occurs on the cloud. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity. Another development was the move from standard-definition television (SDTV) (576i, with 576 interlaced lines of resolution and 480i) to high-definition television (HDTV), which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats: 1080p, 1080i and 720p. Since 2010, with the invention of smart television, Internet television has increased the availability of television programs and movies via the Internet through streaming video services such as Netflix, Amazon Video, iPlayer, Hulu, Roku and Chromecast.
The invention of the television was the work of many individuals in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Individuals and corporations competed in various parts of the world to deliver a device that superseded previous technology. Many were compelled to capitalize on the invention and make profit, while some wanted to change the world through visual and audio communication technology.
The Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) began conducting research to "unlock the fundamental mechanism of video and sound interactions with the five human senses" in 1964, after the Tokyo Olympics. NHK set out to create an HDTV system that ended up scoring much higher in subjective tests than NTSC's previously dubbed "HDTV". This new system, NHK Color, created in 1972, included 1125 lines, a 5:3 aspect ratio and 60 Hz refresh rate. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), headed by Charles Ginsburg, became the testing and study authority for HDTV technology in the international theater. SMPTE would test HDTV systems from different companies from every conceivable perspective, but the problem of combining the different formats plagued the technology for many years.
After the war, monochrome TV production began in earnest. Color TV was the next major development, and NBC once again won the battle. CBS had their electro-mechanical color television system approved by the FCC on October 10, 1950, but Sarnoff filed an unsuccessful suit in the United States district court to suspend that ruling. Subsequently, he made an appeal to the Supreme Court which eventually upheld the FCC decision. Sarnoff's tenacity and determination to win the "Color War" pushed his engineers to perfect an all-electronic color television system that used a signal that could be received on existing monochrome sets that prevailed. CBS was now unable to take advantage of the color market, due to lack of manufacturing capability and color programming, a system that could not be seen on the millions of black and white receivers and sets that were triple the cost of monochrome sets. A few days after CBS had its color premiere on June 14, 1951, RCA demonstrated a fully functional all-electronic color TV system and became the leading manufacturer of color TV sets in the US.
The earliest known use of the "Eyewitness News" name in American television was in April 1959 when KYW-TV (now WKYC-TV) – at the time, based in Cleveland and owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting – launched the nation's first 90-minute local newscast (under the title "Eyewitness"), which was combined with the then 15-minute national newscast. The name was then adopted for use by Westinghouse's other television stations – KPIX in San Francisco; WJZ-TV in Baltimore; WBZ-TV in Boston; and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh – for their local newscasts.
Japan's Sharp Corporation began manufacturing microwave ovens in 1961. Between 1964 and 1966, Sharp introduced the first microwave oven with a turntable, a feature that promotes convenient even heating of food. In 1965, Raytheon acquired Amana. In 1967, they introduced the first popular home model, the countertop Radarange, at a price of US$495 ($ in dollars).
When television broadcasts in the UK were resumed after a break due to the Second World War, it was decided to introduce a television licence fee in order to fund the service. When first introduced on 1 June 1946, the licence covering the monochrome-only single-channel BBC television service cost £2 (equivalent to £ as of ). The licence was originally issued by the General Post Office (GPO), which was then the regulator of public communications within the UK. The GPO also issued licences for home radio receivers powered by mains electricity and was mandated by laws beginning with the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904, to administer the licensing system. Households which bought a TV licence did not need to hold a separate radio licence as the TV licence covered both TV and radio reception.
On July 1, 1952, WBAP-TV became among the first six television stations in the country (along with fellow NBC stations KPRC-TV in Houston, WOAI-TV in San Antonio, WKY-TV (now KFOR-TV) in Oklahoma City, KOTV (now a CBS affiliate) in Tulsa and WDSU in New Orleans) to begin transmitting network programming over a live microwave feed, inaugurated with a message by "Today Show" host Dave Garroway welcoming the stations in commencing live network telecasts. That decade, Channel 5 also became one of the first television stations to convert its local programming to color; the station's conversion to color broadcasts on May 15, 1954 was preceded by a dedication of its new production and master control facilities—which were upgraded specifically for color telecasting—from Carter and David Sarnoff, chairman of then-NBC parent RCA, that was broadcast on the station; this was followed by a three-hour block of programs produced in color, the longest broadcast of such programs ever attempted by a television station at that time. By 1955, WBAP-TV—which had earlier ordered RCA color television equipment in the fall of 1949, and became the first television station in Texas to broadcast NBC programs in color on April 9, 1954—had greatly increased the number of programs that it broadcast in color, televising the largest amount of programming produced in the format of any U.S. television station at the time.
Using local Scripps cable franchises (since divested), the Federal Communications Commission "must carry" provisions of Scripps medium-market television stations, and other small television operators to gain cable carriage, the channel launched on December 1, 1994. The major programming themes, unchanged since the beginning, were home building and remodeling, landscaping and gardening, decorating and design, and crafts and hobbies.
During its development, the channel was originally named the Home, Lawn, and Garden Channel. The name was later shortened and a logo was developed. The logo was amended in 2010, with this version debuting on March 1 of that year. The square with the "G" in it was removed, the roof was increased in size and the "HGTV" letters are now set in Gotham Black (from the original mixture of Futura and Times New Roman), with the other Gotham fonts being used around the network. The network debuted with a skeletal staff, but with gradual acceptance by other cable operators, it now reaches 94 million households in the United States and has either partner networks, or network interests, in Canada, Japan, and elsewhere. It is now referred to simply as "HGTV"; the full name of the channel is de-emphasized.
On Friday August 24, 1962, Trinidad and Tobago Television was launched one week before the two-island state of Trinidad and Tobago became an independent nation on 31st August 1962 within the British Commonwealth. Mervyn Telfer, a former Radio Trinidad announcer, read the first broadcast, the 7PM News. The two channels to transmit the service to the new twin island state were channels 2 and 13. News shown during that first week included highlights of Independence Day preparations.
In March 1979, the government set up the Ethnic Television Review Panel, which recommended that SBS expand into television. SBS TV began test transmissions in April 1979 when it showed various foreign language programs on ABV-2 Melbourne and ABN-2 Sydney on Sunday mornings. Full-time transmission began at 6:30 pm on 24 October 1980 (United Nations Day), as Channel 0/28. The first program shown was a documentary entitled "Who Are We?", which was hosted by veteran news presenter Peter Luck. At the time, SBS was broadcasting on UHF Channel 28 and VHF Channel 0 (pronounced as "oh" and not "zero"), with a planned discontinuation of the latter at some time in the future. Bruce Gyngell, who introduced television to Australia in 1956, was given the task of introducing the first batch of programs on the new station.
Telephone Newspapers, introduced in the 1890s, transmitted news and entertainment to subscribers over telephone lines. They were the first example of electronic broadcasting, although only a few were established, most commonly in European cities. These systems predated the development, in the 1920s, of radio broadcasting. They were eventually supplanted by radio stations, because radio signals could more easily cover much wider areas with higher quality audio, without incurring the costs of a telephone line infrastructure.
The introduction of the telephone in the mid-1870s included numerous demonstrations of its use for transmitting musical concerts over various distances. In one particularly advanced example, Clément Ader prepared a listening room at the 1881 Paris Electrical Exhibition, where attendees could listen to performances, in stereo, from the Paris Grand Opera. The concept also appeared in Edward Bellamy's influential 1888 utopian novel, "Looking Backward: 2000-1887", which foresaw audio entertainment sent over telephone lines to private homes.
The first serious attempt at dedicated television news broadcasts in the United States was by CBS. Upon becoming commercial station WCBW (now WCBS-TV) in 1941, the pioneer New York CBS television station broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph.
"EastEnders" is broadcast around the world in many English-speaking countries. New Zealand became the first to broadcast "EastEnders" overseas, the first episode being shown on 27 September 1985. This was followed by the Netherlands on 8 December 1986, Australia on 5 January 1987, Norway on 27 April, and Barcelona on 30 June (dubbed into Catalan). On 9 July 1987, it was announced that the show would be aired in the United States on PBS. BBC Worldwide licensed 200 hours of "EastEnders" for broadcast in Serbia on RTS (dubbed into Serbian); it began airing the first episode in December 1997. The series was broadcast in the United States until BBC America ceased broadcasts of the serial in 2003, amidst fan protests. In June 2004, the satellite television provider Dish Network picked up "EastEnders", broadcasting episodes starting at the point where BBC America had ceased broadcasting them, offering the series as a pay-per-view item. Episodes air two months behind the UK schedule. Episodes from prior years are still shown on various PBS stations in the US. Since 7 March 2017, "EastEnders" has been available in the United States on demand, 24 hours after it has aired in the United Kingdom via BritBox, a joint venture between BBC and ITV.
In 1950, the FCC adopted a standard for color television that had been promoted by CBS, but the effort soon failed, primarily because the color broadcasts could not be received by existing black-and-white sets. As the result of a major research push, RCA engineers developed a method of "compatible" color transmissions that, through the use of interlacing, simultaneously broadcast color and black-and-white images, which could be picked up by both color and existing black-and-white sets. In 1953, RCA's all-electronic color TV technology was adopted as the standard for American television. At that time, Sarnoff predicted annual color TV sales would reach 1.78 million in 1956, but the sets were expensive and difficult to adjust, and there was initially a lack of color programming, so sales lagged badly and the actual 1956 total would only be 120,000. RCA's ownership of NBC proved to be a major benefit, as that network was instructed to promote its color programming offerings; even so, it was only in 1968 that color TV sales in the U.S. surpassed black-and-white.
On October 25, 1951, ODM even ordered a halt to the mass production of color television sets by CBS. CBS had developed a color system which was partly mechanical and partly electronic in nature. RCA had already developed a purely electronic color television system, and was engaged in a long and bitter legal battle with CBS before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over which system would be adopted. Although ODM had determined that research on color TV occupied the time of critically needed scientists and technicians, the research also had defense applications and could therefore proceed. However, production of the CBS color TV sets was not essential, and was banned. The ban on mass production of the CBS color television set led the FCC to choose the RCA system by default in 1953. That system was used in the US until June 12, 2009, when it was succeeded by the ATSC set of standards.
The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A is a home computer, released June 1981 in the United States at a price of $525 ($ adjusted for inflation). It is an enhanced version of the less successful TI-99/4 model, which was released in late 1979 at a price of $1,150 ($ adjusted for inflation). Both models include support for sprites and multi-channel sound, some of the first home computers to include such custom hardware, alongside the Atari 8-bit family also introduced in 1979.
Following the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to use an electronic display, the first true video games were created in the early 1950s. Initially created as technology demonstrations, such as the "Bertie the Brain" and Nimrod computers in 1950 and 1951, video games also became the purview of academic research. A series of games, generally simulating real-world board games, were created at various research institutions to explore programming, human–computer interaction, and computer algorithms. These include "OXO" and Christopher Strachey's draughts program in 1952, the first software-based games to incorporate a CRT display, and several chess and checkers programs. Possibly the first video game created simply for entertainment was 1958's "Tennis for Two", featuring moving graphics on an oscilloscope. As computing technology improved over time, computers became smaller and faster, and the ability to work on them was opened up to university employees and undergraduate students by the end of the 1950s. These new programmers began to create games for non-academic purposes, leading up to the 1962 release of "Spacewar!" as one of the earliest known digital computer games to be available outside a single research institute.
KHON-TV first signed on the air on December 15, 1952 as a primary NBC affiliate, KONA-TV, occupying the channel 11 position. It also had a secondary affiliation with DuMont (which it later shared with KULA-TV, now KITV, after it signed on in 1954) until its demise in 1955. The station, which is Hawaii's second-oldest television station (behind KGMB, originally on channel 9, now on channel 5), was originally owned by Herbert Richards. Two years later in 1954, the "Honolulu Advertiser" purchased the station. On October 16, 1955, KONA changed channels from 11 to 2 due to the lower VHF positions (2 to 6) having the most powerful ERPs at the time. The channel 11 frequency now belongs to PBS member station KHET. In 1956, KONA was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, the forerunner of Combined Communications. KAII signed on in 1958, with KHAW following in 1961. In 1965, the station's call letters were changed to the current KHON-TV.
Al Primo created the format, which was first used on KYW-TV in Philadelphia. In 1968, Primo brought the format to WABC-TV in New York. The "Eyewitness News" format helped to introduce different anchor combinations to local newscasts. The format quickly became popular and was imitated by stations across the country.
On 1 February 2015, HGTV launched in Australia on Australian IPTV service Fetch TV. Programming from the network also airs free-to-air on Nine Network's digital network 9Life.
"We designed the building from the inside out, not the outside in,” said Loretta H. Cockrum, Foram’s founder, chairman and CEO. “We wanted the most efficient office building ever designed, with no wasted space or wasted energy. This is a building of the future more than a building of the present. A lot of love has gone into that building, and a lot of pride."
The first broadcasts in Brazil were for the 1950 World Cup, which the country hosted. Television was formally introduced on September 18 in that same year, with the launch of the now-defunct TV Tupi in São Paulo by media mogul Assis Chateaubriand. It was the first Lusophone or Portuguese-speaking country to introduce television, even before the home country of Portugal with RTP (1955). It was also the fifth nation in the world to have a television station with daily broadcasts, behind the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Mexico. The first image to appear in TV Tupi was that of five-year-old Sônia Maria Dorce, who, dressed up as a Native Brazilian, said: "Good evening. You are in the open TV channel of Brazil". The symbol of Tupi was that of a Native Brazilian kid.
The home shopping/electronic retailing industry was created in 1977, when small market talk radio show host Bob Circosta was asked to sell avocado-green-colored can openers live on the air by station owner Bud Paxson, when an advertiser traded 112 units of product instead of paying his advertising bill. Hesitant at first, Circosta reluctantly obliged – and to both men's great surprise, all 112 can openers sold out within the hour. Paxson sensed the vast sales potential of home-based commerce, and founded the world's first shopping channel on cable television, later launching nationwide with the Home Shopping Network (rebranded as HSN). Bob Circosta was America's first ever TV home shopping host,becoming one of the most instantly recognizable salesmen in the United States. Over the next three decades, Circosta sold over 75,000 different products on HSN, netted over 20,000 hours of live, on-air TV selling, and achieved personal product sales in excess of one billion dollars. (The story is disputed; there is some record of Paxson having unsuccessfully tried a similar format in 1969 on one of his earlier TV stations, WNYP in Jamestown, New York.)
Winfield Toll Bridge, also known as the Ross Booth Memorial Bridge, is a historic three-span cantilever Warren Truss bridge located at Winfield and Red House, Putnam County, West Virginia. It was built in 1955, and spans the Kanawha River, carrying West Virginia Route 34. The cantilever through-truss consists of two anchor spans each 245 feet in length and the main span 462 feet in length between pier center lines. The main span consists of two 128 feet, 4 inch, cantilever arms and a 205 feet, 4 inch, suspended span.