The people at NBC and parent company RCA realised the technology that put Felix on home screens was cumbersome and had to go. It involved activating a disc with holes to scan pictures then transmit them to home sets that had a matching scanning disc. So W2XBS ceased regular programming in the early ‘30s while technicians developed a workable system using a cathode ray tube.
W2XBS sprung to life off and on during the Depression. Michael Ritchie’s book “Please Stand By” goes into a bit of detail about a variety show scheduled by RCA head David Sarnoff on July 7, 1936 and a play that aired on September 21, 1936.
Will Baltin of the New Brunswick Times was convinced TV was here. His paper instituted a weekly television column in December 1936, several years after the New York City newspapers abandoned theirs. It reported on December 26, 1937 that RCA had already decided to “introduce television on a lavish scale” at the World’s Fair in 1939.
That article also stated that the paper was awaiting “a resumption of experimental programs by RCA” and, in a separate story, published a picture of NBC’s new mobile units and the following roundup:
End of 1937 Finds Television Still an ‘Unfinished Product’
O.B. Hanson, NBC Chief Engineers, Tells of Progress Made in Scientific Realm; Outdoor Tests to Begin in 1938
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Television made great strides in 1937, but is “still an unfinished product.” That is the opinion of O. B. Hanson, chief engineer of the National Broadcasting Company, leading experimenters in this new scientific realm.
In his annual report on the accomplishments of RCA and NBC, Mr. Hanson points out that “radio has grown up after nearly two decades of astounding development” and adds that “a large corps of NBC engineers has begun to unravel the mysteries of electronic television.”
His comment on television follows:
“Maintaining its sustained efforts to lift American television to the standards of home entertainment, NBC continued its schedule of transmissions from the only high power television station in New York City, W2XBS, atop the Empire State tower. These field tests, begun in June, 1936, involved production of shows in Radio City studios, transmission from station W2XBS and reception on about one hundred RCA receivers scattered throughout the Metropolitan Area.
Broadened Scope of Tests
“The most significant development of the year in television was the broadened scope of NBCs experiments. Definition standards were increased from a scanned image of 343 lines to one of 441 lines, and the image reproduced in the receiver was enlarged from approximately 5 Inches by 8 inches to 7 1/2 Inches by 10 inches, almost doubling the area. The color of the image was changed from green to black-and-white, by the use of a new experimental kinescope developed by RCA.
All other additions to NBC’s television facilities were over-shadowed in importance by the delivery early in December of a complete mobile television unit, soon to be used in outdoor pick-ups of sports and other news events. The motorized station, contained in two large motor vans, was designed by NBC engineers and built by the RCA Manufacturing Company at its Camden, N. J., plant. NBC announced that its purpose in beginning outdoor television was to train a group of engineers in the handling of special events. The “telemobile unit” is to be operated as a relay station in connection with NBCs Empire State transmitter. Progress in Studio
“Inside the television studios at Radio City engineers and program directors made significant progress in the development of programs, studio lighting, make-up for performing artist, sound effects, scenic design and studio architecture. In manipulating and co-ordinating iconoscope cameras, they found many possibilities for improvement of equipment. None was of great importance, but together they were responsible for a marked improvement in the image transmitted over the twelve-month period.
“NBC also gave numerous demonstrations of television to specialized groups of the press and other persons with ether a direct contingent interest in the progress of television. At one of these it gave the first radio demonstration of the newly developed RCA projection tube that projects an image 3 feet by 4 feet on a screen some distance away.
“At the end of the year television is still an unfinished product. A full year of the closest cooperation between the engineering departments of the National Broadcasting Company and the Radio Corporation of America has brought it appreciably closer to the American home, however.”
Finally all appeared in readiness to give something to the small number of set owners that were out there. For a brief period. The Hollywood Reporter was among the media outlets that Sarnoff’s PR department alerted. Its story from April 19, 1938:
FIVE HOURS OF TELEVISION WEEKLY LAUNCHED BY RCA
Live Talent, Films Initial on W2XBS
New York.—RCA and NBC will inaugurate a regular series of telecasts beginning today over station W2XBS in the Empire State Tower. Five full-hour programs a week will be released under a four-week experimental transmission program.Live talent and films will be used in the telecasts which will originate in NBCs Radio City studios. Among them will be one musical show, a variety of educational features and several dramatic productions staged with particular emphasis on television technique. The shows are scheduled in two series, one for afternoon and the other for evening hours.
Announcement of the series follows extensive experiments and re-design of W2XBS transmitter equipment. These are expected to be furthered materially as a result of the new series of regular telecasts. One salient purpose of the four week program is to define technical standards which are expected to bring about the formulation of basic standards in television in the U.S.
Reaction to new program technique and entertainment devices developed in studies during recent months will be closely weighed likewise. Television, it is pointed out, has shown definite indications of varying widely from films and radio in program requirements.
A normal service range of 50 miles is expected to be attained from the transmitter eventually. In the current series, transmission will be directed northward and NBC observers will be stationed in that direction.
Because of high-building interference to ultra-short waves to the southward, poor results are anticipated in that sector.
The RCA-NBC transmitter has been off the air for several months to permit engineering changes.
C.E. Butterfield’s radio column for the Associated Press of that day mentioned the last NBC TV transmission had been in November and described the broadcasts as “semi-public.”
The new schedule was Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons from 3 to 4, which only included test patterns and still pictures for set adjustment, and Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 8 to 9. What was on that first “regular” broadcast? The New York Herald Tribune description the following day:
The evening program consisted of a play “The Noble Lord,” enacted by members of the N.B.C. staff, two March of Time films, a newsreel and a motion picture comedy short. . . . After a transmission difficulty which caused slight blurring of some images in the early part of the program had been corrected, all [i.e., RCA/NBC engineers] expressed satisfaction with the program.After about a month, the P.R. people reached out to the media to witness another show from 30 Rock. Here’s what the Herald Tribune published on May 18:
R. C. A. Demonstrates Improved Television
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Images Are Steadier Than Before and Clear
Five performances of a twenty-five-minute drama, “The Mysterious Mummy Case,” were given yesterday. Fifteen television sets were used to allow every observer to examine the seven and a half by eleven inch black and white images closely. The images, although not as sharp as motion pictures, were quite clear, especially in the center.
Yesterday’s program was produced In N. B. C. studios on lower floors of the building, transmitted to the Empire State Building by cable and broadcast from the Empire State Tower by Station W2XBS. The pictures were broadcast on a frequency of 46.5 megacycles and associated sound on 4975 megacycles.
Three studios were required to produce the program. The main action developed in a “live-talent” studio, but auxiliary media such as slides, motion pictures and special effects were introduced from two other studios. The pictures and associated sound were co-ordinated in a control room adjoining the “live talent” studio.
C. W. Farrier, N. B. C. television co-ordinator, arranged the demonstration. Station W2XBS has been broadcasting five full-hour programs a week for a month and will continue to do so for the remainder of May.
W2XBS continued with its series of telecasts until June 9th. Broadcasting magazine reported the mobile units had been at work, but didn’t reveal where, and Newsday advised that on June 7 at 4 p.m. the station would be for “the first time in television history” broadcasting scenes “from a current Broadway hit with its original cast”—namely Gertrude Lawrence in “Susan and God.” After some tweaks, telecasts resumed again on August 23, with Lily Cahill appearing in an hour-long play called “Good Medicine.”
Someone else besides reporters, TV set owners and NBC/RCA staff was watching what was happening. They were ensconced at 485 Madison Avenue. That was the headquarters of CBS, which had ceased TV broadcasts—ones on a far greater scale than NBC’s—in 1933. Newsweek blurbed in a May 23 story about television that Bill Paley’s company would probably open a TV studio at Grand Central Station in the fall. It was a televisual competition that would take many turns over the years.
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