Saturday, 26 April 2025

January 1937

The picture quality of television began improving at the start of 1937 as NBC continued occasional tests of W2XBS in New York. But TV still wasn’t for the home viewer. RCA distributed sets to engineers to pass a verdict of the quality of transmissions.

NBC had assigned an announcer/hostess for its broadcasts and she outlined the difficulties in getting one on and off the air in a feature story that first appeared in newspapers in January that year.

Also that month, W6XAO in Hollywood began simulcasting with KHJ radio for 15 minutes every Saturday night. Unfortunately, local newspapers didn’t reveal what specific programming was offered. And on January 11, 1937, KMTR radio aired a half hour “television exhibit.” There’s nothing to suggest what the show was, but as the station didn’t have a TV outlet, it was likely audio only.

In Philadelphia, Philo T. Farnsworth continued inventing, and announced tests of W3XPF’s new transmitter were on the horizon.

As for CBS, one of its board directors (related to Bill Paley by marriage) predicted television wouldn’t be feasible for a long time. Evidently, he didn’t know the company was about to reactivate its TV operations and barely got on the air in time for the start of commercial television on July 1, 1941.

Below are some newspaper stories about the industry from the first month of 1937. We’ve skipped a lot of speculation and long situational articles.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1937
FARRIER MERGING NBC'S TELEVISION
THE POST of "television coordinator" has been created by NBC with the appointment of C. W. Farrier, an executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority, to NBC effective Jan. 18. NBC President Lenox R. Lohr asserted Jan. 6 that Mr. Farrier, a well-known engineer, would coordinate various television activities within the organization. He probably will be assigned for brief periods to various departments, such as programming, engineering, sales and operations to become accustomed to the manner in which they function, with the objective of eventually applying this type of operation to television.
NBC, Mr. Lohr declared, is not shooting at any particular dead-line with respect to introduction of practical television. However, he pointed out, the development now going forward should be recorded and coordinated. Mr. Farrier will be responsible for this coordination effort in all departments.
Practical television tests are being conducted by NBC and its parent organization RCA, with a television transmitter atop the Empire State Bldg. It is understood that. 441-line scanning is being experimented with and that the results have been encouraging. "Looking-in" centers are contemplated in the New York area. At present a number of sets have been placed in the homes of engineers and other NBC and RCA employes for experimental reception of the Empire State transmissions. (Broadcasting, Jan. 15)

FARNSWORTH PLANS FIELD EXPERIMENTS
FARNSWORTH Television Inc., 127 E. Mermaid Lane, Philadelphia, will begin field tests of its experimental television transmitting station on or before Feb. 1, according to a statement by A. H. Brolly, chief engineer [made Jan. 6, according to the Associated Press]. The company recently was authorized by the FCC to operate a 1,000-watt transmitter in the high-frequency bands between 42,000 and 56,000 kc. and 60,000 and 86,000 kc. under the call letters W3XPF.
With RCA's transmitters at Camden and atop the Empire State Bldg. in New York and Philco's transmitter atop its Philadelphia plant already in operation for secret field tests, the Farnsworth tests will likewise be designed to show its engineers what field results can be obtained with its system. It is understood it will broadcast 441-line images, whereas both RCA and Philco heretofore have used 343 lines and are now rebuilding to 441.
Mr. Brolly explained that Farnsworth Television Inc. is not a manufacturing organization and that the beginning of its field tests "does not necessarily indicate the immediate production of receivers for popular use." The company has granted licenses under its patents to various firms in this country, England and Germany, and, according to Mr. Brolly, anticipates that when television is commercialized its development will be widely used by manufacturers. (Broadcasting, Jan. 15)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1937
Radio Movies Are Becoming More Practicable
By C. E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Jan. 9.—(AP)—This, the new year, may not take television entirely out of its laboratory status, but it is expected to do a lot in pointing the way.
In other words, engineers at work on the task of making radio movies practicable are of the opinion that by the end of the summer they should be in a position to give a pretty clear indication of the prospects.
They feel they will be well along with a big share of the technical problems, although program production puzzles, and financial questions such as paying the way of television no doubt will be present for some time to come.
♦ ♦ ♦
For the most part, however, 1937, as far as can be determined right now, is to be another twelve-month of continued field test experimentation and demonstration, on something of a more advanced scale than in 1936.
The experiments under way in New York are predicated on that thesis. One of the present jobs is a change over of the transmitter and experimental receivers to accommodate greater detail in the images that is provided by 441 lines. This is the generally recommended standard and is quite a boost over the previous 343 lines.
When the task is completed, field test experiments will be resumed for further exploration of reception and other conditions.
♦ ♦ ♦
ANOTHER IMMEDIATE PROBLEM has to do with receivers. It deals with enlargement of the picture from its approximate five by seven-inch dimensions to one probably twice as large or larger. There are two present means of doing this. One is a larger receiving tube having a viewing-end diameter of fifteen inches.
The other, peculiarly enough, is by making the tube much smaller but with an intensely brilliant image. Enlargement is then possible by projection on an external screen through a suitable lens system.
While both have been partly worked out in the laboratory, neither has gotten as far as the field test receivers.
Also, the receiver itself is undergoing simplification, including both tube elimination and circuit consolidation. The present sets are crowded with from thirty-three to thirty-six tubes and other equipment almost without end. Outside of the activity behind the scenes, any further public attention toward television in this country probably will be held in abeyance until the 441-line images are ready for the next expected demonstration. That will be in the spring or late spring.
All this activity naturally is forwarding television toward its ultimate public arrival—still without date or birth.

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1937
HOPE OF TELEVISION MINIMIZED BY LEVY
Miami Beach, Fla., Jan. 11. —"We'll all be wearing long grey beards before television is developed to the point where it is feasible for general broadcast use!"
So did one of radio's leading executives dispose here today of the question which has been a major matter of interest to the world of entertainment since the first crude televisor made its appearance. Isaac D. Levy, a director of the Columbia Broadcasting system and chairman of the board of radio station WCAU, Philadelphia, sees little hope that television will become a popular reality in less than ten years. Mr Levy, with Mrs. Levy, is a guest at the Atlantis Hotel.
"England has gone wild over television," he commented, explaining he has recently returned from a tour of Europe, "but I didn't see any demonstration over there that would by any means satisfy the American public, except as a novelty. Right now the British Broadcasting company is televising current events, but since there are only a very few receiving sets in the country, the value of the program is doubtful.
"Such television receivers as are available to the public today cost about $800," the radio executive pointed out, "and broadcasting stations are limited in range to about 25 miles. Thus in order to obtain coverage of the nation, several thousand complete television broadcasting stations would have to be set up, sending the cost of production to an insurmountable level.
"Instead of television, the American public should look to radio for great improvement in audible broadcasts. A general cleansing of the air through elimination of undesirable programs and the development of finer talent among the young singers, musicians and actors of today is needed.
Mr. Levy thinks great strides will be made in future years in the beauty and efficiency of American broadcasting studios.
"Right now, Holland—oddly—has the finest radio studios," he said, "Though the U.S. is not far behind in that respect." (Staunton News-Leader, Jan. 12)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1937
Television Man faces Charges
Lee De Forest, reputed "father of television," was named in an action on file in Superior Court today charging him and others with falsely representing stock in the De Forest Television Corp., Ltd.
The suit, brought by Walter C. and Louise S. Arensberg, alleges that De Forest, in company with Pearl Braid and Ralph D. Lemert, induced the plaintiffs to purchase stock in the corporation "under false representations."
The Arensbergs seek to recover $10,000—the sum they say they expended and ask that the agreement to purchase be rescinded.
They asserted they had been persuaded to invest in the stock "on alleged representations that the corporation held five basic patents on television and other devices, that the foreign rights to these patents had been sold for $70,000 and that the proceeds from the sale were to be invested in the corporation."
The Arensbergs hold there is no truth in these asserted statements.
De Forest recently filed a petition of voluntary bankruptcy in Federal Court. (Hollywood Citizen-News)

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 1937
TELEVISION INVENTION
Former S. S. F. Man Makes New Discovery
Special to The Times
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14.—A new invention by Philo Farnsworth, who conducted his early experiments here, was hailed today as one of the outstanding developments in television.
According to announcement from the Farnsworth television laboratory of Philadelphia, Pa., the new invention involves use of an X-ray beam with a television transmission to produce an image of unlimited size on the reception screen.
Previously the small screen, usually eight to ten inches square, on which images were received, had been one of the limitations of television, as this required grouping viewers around a screen for observation purposes.
Use of larger tubes was impossible because of the danger of collapse. The alternative method was use of a projector with expensive enlarging lenses, which made receiving instruments too costly for public use.
Already internationally famous for his development of the cold cathode tube, Farnsworth began experimenting with the problem of a larger image several months ago, and his discoveries are said to open an entirely new field for television projection.
His invention involves use of a tiny, pencil-thin X-ray beam which is scanned by incoming signals within the tube. Because of its peculiar penetrating quality, the X-ray goes through the glass of its prison and projects, cone-shaped, without the use of lenses, on the reception screen. Thus the television images reach the screen vastly magnified.
The invention opens the way for throwing received television images of any size on a reception screen and eliminates the small night-inch screen now in general use. (San Mateo Times)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 1937
Television, whose practicability was demonstrated in interesting form by means of special broadcasts in Radio City for the New York press, probably will not be made available to the general public for from three to five years.
So believes Don E. Gilman, vice president in charge of the Western Division of the National Broadcasting Company, who has just returned from New York where he witnessed the latest development in this new medium.
"Television is so far advanced at present and the images it projects so nearly perfect that most of the foreign broadcasters who witnessed the Radio City demonstrations agreed we were far ahead of the European developments," Gilman said. "The natural question therefore is, 'Why not give television to the public in its present form?' RCA and NBC executives have decided not to do so because every day brings new developments, new changes, new discoveries about television.
"One of the factors in their decision to withhold television until it reaches a stable form is the vast difference between sound broadcasting and sight broadcasting. In the early days of radio it was possible for enthusiasts to build their own crystal sets, inexpensive affairs whose parts could be purchased at a dime store. No matter how much radio improved, those sets could always pick up broadcasts; the principle of transmitting and receiving sound remained the same.
"This is not the case in television. Every new development is a change so complete as to render receiving sets not merely obsolete but useless.
"The 100 loan sets which NBC has distributed in the New York vicinity will be recalled shortly because they will be unable to function as soon the next stage, expected soon, begins. It will include a 441 line image, much more distinct, therefore, than the one seen through a televisor at present."
Television receiving sets, Gilman explained, cost from $200 to $1,000 at present, and RCA and NBC heads believe it would be a short-sighted policy to permit such sets to be built and sold to the public, knowing that within six months they would be worthless to the purchasers.
"There will be no amateur sets built," Gilman pointed out. "Television sets are so difficult to make that an experienced radio engineer, given blue-prints, could not possibly make one without assistance from someone who had actually been engaged in such work. A television transmitter costs a quarter of a million to build—so there will be no television ‘hams’ operating their own amateur stations."
Another problem to be solved before television can become general property is that of network broadcasts, Gilman said. NBC engineers now are engaged in experiments to decide whether a system of relay transmitters, each costing a small fortune, would be better than a cross-continent network of coaxial cable, the only kind which can carry pictures transformed into electrical impulses. The cable costs $5,000 a mile at present.
"And any day,” concluded the head of NBCs Western Division, "some entirely new principle may be discovered which will revolutionize the entire process. That is why my guess is that three to five years will intervene before we have television broadcasts for the public. (Honolulu Advertiser)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1937
ANOTHER IMPROVEMENT MADE IN TELEVISION
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Jan. 20 (AP)—Television of high definition under field test in New York City [19] has reached another objective—much clearer reproduction of electrical images sent into the air on the ultra short waves.
This has been accomplished by increasing the detail so that 441 lines per image are transmitted instead of the 343 of previous tests.
Announcement that the New York testing, being conducted jointly by engineers of RCA and NBC, would hereafter be operated with the higher definition, the standard recommended by the radio industry, carried with it the indication that this was just another step in the "orderly development" of television.
To make possible the increase in lines, engineers have been at work for some time changing over the transmitter in the Empire State building and the limited number of experimental receivers. The experimental television studio is located in Radio City.
How soon the improved pictures will be ready for demonstrations similar to those held last Summer and Fall, has not been indicated but this is not expected before Spring. At present not all of the field test receivers have been changed over.
In announcing the improvement, Lenox R. Lohr, president of NBC, explained that "television receiving sets cannot precede a television program service of satisfactory fluidity, which will be available at the beginning only in sharply restricted metropolitan areas following the eventful evolution of technical, economic and program problems."
He gave no hint of a date for the "eventful solution."
Mr. Lohr, in explaining that "pictures of 441-line definition are much clearer than those of 343 lines," added that this was "another significant advance in our work of television development."
He went on: "As we proceed in this fascinating adventure of bringing radio sight to distant eyes, it is encouraging to be able to report this substantial progress.
"The development of television services promises to be orderly and evolutionary in character."
This statement is along lines of previous comment to the effect that public introduction of television will depend entirely upon the progress in the laboratory. Among the needs are more easily operated equipment for the public and more practical means of handling the new art from studio to viewing semen. However, there is no one who doubts that these problems ultimately will be wired.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1937
Delivers His Farewell Address by Television
PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 21. (INS)—After a practical demonstration, members of the Franklin Institute today expressed themselves as greatly impressed by the advancement made in television. Following an address on television, 600 members of the institute discovered their retiring president, Nathan Hayward, had disappeared. A frantic search was being organized when the lights went out, a small screen glowed, and Hayward's image appeared on a television screen.
From a point five miles away, Hayward apologized for slipping out of the meeting and delivered his scheduled farewell speech. He also told his wife, who was in the audience, that he'd send his car back for her.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1937
W6XAO Hollywood
8:45-9:00—Television (sound on KHJ, KGB, KDB and other Mutual-Don Lee stations).

Synchronized Television Broadcasts
First of a new series of television broadcasts in which sight-and-sound are sychronized [sic] will be inaugurated over the combined facilities of W6XAO, the experimental television station owned and operated by the Don Lee Broadcasting System, and KHJ and other stations of the Mutual-Don Lee network, from 8.45 to 9:00 p. m. PST, Saturday, January 23.
The "sight", or images will go out from W6XAO . . . the "sound", including voices, music and accompanying sound-effects, from KHJ. At present, the broadcast material consists of news-reels.
And, while most of the audience, dialers of one Mutual-Don Lee station or another, will receive only the "sound", a group of persons seated before the television receiver located 3 ¾ miles from the Don Lee Building at 7th and Bixel streets. Los Angeles, where the transmitters of both W6XAO and KHJ are situated, will witness the perfectly synchronized sight-and-sound broadcast. (California Eagle, Jan. 21)

RCA Achieves Clearer Television Images
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Jan. 23 (AP) — When engineers get 441-line television working to their full satisfaction, that will mean, they feel, the hurdling of a big obstacle to practicable movies via radio.
Some go so far as to indicate that this is one of the last important technical steps to be taken in the present field development work going on in New York City and in other centers such as Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
The 441 lines, recommended as the standard to be used when public pictures arrive, are believed to be about the ultimate number of lines possible. While more could be used, physical and other problems tend to counteract any advantages.
The New York City field tests, started last June with 343 lines per image, now are being conducted with 441. Three important improvements are immediately apparent:
1—The 30 per cent lineage increase is easily noticeable to the eye in the clearer pictures that unfold themselves on the viewing screen.
2—The line-pattern in the received image tends to disappear. Thus, if the looker is no closer to the reproducer than three feet, the eye does not take cognizance of the minute lines by which the picture is put together electrically.
3—Along with the clearer pictures, detail that seemed to be missing in 343 lines is distinctly noticeable. For instance on 343, closeups were considered strikingly good. More distant views blended out in certain aspects. It is the hope that with 441 lines it will be possible to follow the progress of an image as small as a football in motion.
Give Ultimate Detail
While 441 lines give just about the ultimate in vertical detail, engineers say development work in definition can proceed in other directions. Possibilities of adding to the detail of each line horizontally haven't been exhausted. The engineers may even find ways in improving horizontal definition as much if not more than has been done by adding to the number of lines.
Another means of improvement lies in the receiver. There, like it has been with sound sets, the amplifier—in television it is called video rather than audio—offers numerous opportunities for better handiwork. Naturally, ideal amplifiers mean better reproduction. With pictures, that has the effect of increasing detail.
Though more lines may help out the eye at the receiver, they complicate transmission. For 343, the space required in the ether is measured as 3,000,000 cycles; with 441 it is 5,000,000. Thus the lines increase only 30 per cent but the transmission requirements jump 66 2-3 per cent.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1937
W6XAO Hollywood
8:45-9:00—Television (sound on KHJ, KGB, KDB and other Mutual-Don Lee stations).

Head of Big Broadcasting Firm Expects Television to Be Commonplace in 3 Years
By HENRY WOOD
United Press Staff Correspondent.
SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Feb. 1 (UPI)—Television within the next two or three years will become the greatest competitor of the radio broadcast, the movie, the automobile and the theatre for America's entertainment according to Major Lenox R. Lohr, president of the National Broadcasting company, who arrived at San Francisco Saturday for a Pacific coastwide study of the field for the extension of television to the west.
Within the current year, Lohr declared that television will he continuously on the air within the New York radius. The extension to the rest of the nation will be made as fast as technical progress permits.
Television, he admitted, will be expensive but nevertheless he expressed his firm conviction that it would be brought within the reach of all families able to maintain automobiles.
Present plans, he declared, are for the construction of transmitting centers only in cities of 100,000 population or more of which there are about 100 in the United States. As concerns the Pacific coast, Lohr declared that while Hollywood would probably be the center for finding talent, for the simple reason that talent of all kinds is centering there, regardless of whether it is employed in the radio and movies or not, but that San Francisco would be the center for the extension of television on the Pacific coast.
Lohr predicted that this latest form of American entertainment would inevitably cut in on every other form of entertainment from magazine reading to radio, movies, the automobile and the theatre, but without necessarily harming them to any great extent.
As regards the theatre, he expressed the belief that while television will cut down immediately the number of road shows and stock companies it will not kill the theatre entirely as the most serious productions of New York and other larger centers will constitute precisely the kind of entertainment that will be brought within the reach of everyone who can afford a television set.
Television, he predicted, is also destined to have profound social effects on the entire life of the nation for it will be used not only for entertainment purposes but for conducting the highest educational courses of the leading universities.
Aside from studio productions, Lohr stated that there will be movable transmitting sets that can be taken to any great event such as the world series, football games of national importance, presidential inaugurations and other national events which will be carried immediately onto the receiving set of every family that possesses one.
Lohr promised one relief to the long suffering radio fan who has to listen to commercials by declaring that the commercials in television will be able to embrace everything that is best in magazine advertising, the movies, broadcasting and theatrical presentation.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 1937
RADIO STUDIO HAS ‘GONE HOLLYWOOD’
Tests In Television Demand Makeup Like Films
By BETTY GOODWIN
National Broadcasting Company Television Announcer.
ONE NBC studio in Radio City these days is different entirely from all the rest. It has gone Hollywood. Artists who perform in it wear orange, brown and red paint on their faces. Spotlights and floodlights pour brilliance from the ceiling. The microphone is rigged up on a pulley and skims silently over people's heads.
Great black boxes with glass eyes close in on this studio's actors—actors, incidentally, who do their roles from memory.
It all comes under the head of experimental television technique, for the National Broadcasting company is quietly preparing for the day when pictures, as well as sound, will be sent through the air to your home. That day is distant, because television has a lot of growing to do before it's ready to try its wings in the outside world. And don't make the mistake, when you think of this art, of thinking of it as anything except experimental television. There are really no programs in television today. There are only demonstrations given for extremely limited audiences with RCA equipment and picked up on a handful of television receivers in New York and its suburbs The more elaborate demonstrations include both film and live talent. First thing on the television screen (and you might just as well get used to calling it by its right name, which is Kinescope) is a film trailer, flashing the insignia of both RCA and NBC against a background of Radio City skyline and announcing "a demonstration of NBC tele-pictures."
Martial music accompanies this picture and then the scene shifts to NBC's television studio on the third floor of the RCA building.
THE Instant this studio is “on the air” a small signal light flashes red on the front and back of the Iconoscope camera. Both the performers and the technical staff wait for this signal—it's their only way of knowing when privacy ceases and the studio becomes a goldfish bowl.
Once the act is started there's no turning back. Unlike the motion picture film, the television skit cannot be cut. Unlike the sound broadcaster, the television actor can't turn his head away from the microphone and sneak in a quick cough. As long as the signal light burns red the television "eye" is on him—he'd better not forget his lines and he'd better not make funny faces as he says them.
As a matter of fact, there are three television "eyes" or Iconoscopes, in the studio. One is equipped with telephoto lens for closeups; one is mounted on a moving platform or dolly, so the "Ike" and its master may be wheeled back and forth before the scene of action. The third is just an extra.
(One of television's first jokes had to do with the Iconoscope's nickname. The microphone, as you know, long has been affectionately referred to as the "mike." So, many months ago, it was observed "Mike and Ike — but they don't look alike.")
"Ike" has to be pampered quite a bit at this stage of television's development. Actors are given a small area in which to do their stuff. Tap dancers have to shrink their routine. Anyone who moves more than a foot or two to left or right is likely, literally, to be out of the picture.
Suppose, just to make everything a little more clear, that you are about to do a pianologue for television. You have been chosen not only for your ability to play but for your appearance and for your talent in pantomime. Straight musical numbers, delivered as they might be for a radio program, aren't considered good television material. Hildegarde, who not only sings but also plays the piano, who is not only talented but vivacious and beautiful, is the best example of a television soloist. For purposes of this story we'll take for granted that you're as good as Hildegarde.

THE first thing you have to do, whether you're a man or woman, is apply a television makeup. Eventually, of course, NBC will have a makeup staff. There will be professionals on hand in white smocks to do your makeup for you. At present television performers put on their own makeup according to certain basic principles which already have been discovered during demonstrations from the studio.
Eyes and lips must be accentuated. Much black and brown is used for eye-shadowing and eyebrow penciling. Lips are painted reddish-brown—the red has no effect except on the artist's state of mind. It is one of the colors that "washes out” under television's bright lights. A thick cream, similar to the panchromatic foundation used in motion pictures, is smeared on the face to give it a smooth, evenly high-lighted surface.
Once this makeup is on you must forget all about thirst and hunger. To eat a sandwich or drink hot coffee would muss your painted mouth. The best you can do toward relieving your pangs is to sip water through a straw.
But don't worry. You'll have plenty of things to think about besides eating. You already have rehearsed your act a number of times without being televised. You now are ready for a dress rehearsal.
A piano is wheeled on the television stage, lights go up and you take your position before the keyboard. Production directors probably will try you out in several spots, push your piano bench forward and back, to this side and that. Finally they'll find the one best place where you ore perfectly in focus, correctly lighted and showing your best profile to the Iconoscope lens.
"Keep that position," they'll warn you. "Don't wave your arms or throw your head around too much when you sing."
From the sidelines someone rushes out with a piece of chalk. He traces the legs of the piano bench, the outline of your toes as they rest on the floor. He also marks with a chalk X the place where the Iconoscope camera rests. That's so the pack of you can be restored to the same positions when you finally go on the air.
IF YOU'RE accustomed to radio broadcasting, where the microphone always is smack in front of your face, you're probably a little uneasy when the director says, "Now run through your song."
Where will you sing it? How loudly? Does that glassy-eyed box pick up your voice as well as your picture?
No, voice in television is picked up by microphone but the microphone has wings. It is mounted on a metal arm or boom and is moved around to be directly over the head of anyone speaking. It takes all of one man's time to control the mike. He stands on a high stool overlooking the scene and holds the television script in his hand so he can follow the action. You have to use more voice for television, whether you re speaking or singing, because the mike is two or three feet away instead of two or three inches.
If you have any awkward mannerisms, such as opening your mouth before you begin to speak, pulling on your ear or sticking your finger between your collar and your throat you'll have to train yourself out of them. Those things are as bad as stammering from a television standpoint.
Lights will be shining in your face but you'll have to learn to keep your eyes open. Also, although your footprints are marked in chalk on the floor, you mustn't keep looking down to see if you're standing on the tight spot. You must get used to having earnest young men rush up to you with a light meter, hold its lens against your cheeks, your forehead, your chin, to test the amount of light you reflect.
And then there's the matter of clothing. Don't think, if you're a man, that you'll make any impression on the television eye by wearing a raspberry shirt with a navy blue suit. Your image on the Kinescope will seem most conservatively clothed in oxford gray and white! But if you're a woman beware of a dark dress belted in red—the red fades out to white and your image will appear sawed in half. (This was one of the first television tragedies—the actress was doing some heavy dramatic work but her costume televised distinctly on the comic side.)
WHEN you have finished your performance don't let a sigh of relief escape you or turn to ask the director, "How did I do?" Very often the Iconoscope continues to pick up your picture for a few seconds after the act is over. And be artful which way you walk when you leave the piano. Another television picture—possibly of the announcer—may be act up only a few inches away from you. If you're not careful you'll step into it.
Just to add to the complexity of the thing, the iconoscope used for closeups, is always farther away from the subject than the one used for long shots. Announcers, for instance, are always shown in closeups and are televised by the "Ike." with telephoto lens which may be twice as far away as your own iconoscope. So, just because you don't see an "Ike" in front of a performer's face it doesn't mean his picture is tot on the air. He may be focused from clear across the room!
One of the television tricks which undoubtedly will be used increasingly often as program technique is further developed is the use of two iconoscopes for ore subject. First he may be shown at full length, then his picture will be brought gradually closer as the iconoscope on wheels is pushed toward him. And then, as it's done in moving pictures, the camera angle may be switched from full face to profile. Switching from one iconoscope to another is not done by the men in the studio but by the video (which means picture) engineer, siting high above the studio in a glass-enclosed balcony control room. He presses one button to put iconoscope No. 1 on the air, a second or third button to switch the pick-up to either of the other "Ikes."
A TELEVISION studio is perfectly silent when the program goes on the air. Because it's a small room equipped with a wandering microphone, no one in any part of it can afford to make a side remark.
How, then, does the television director direct?
He sits in the control room, a microphone beside him. This is connected directly with earphones which are worn at all times by the iconoscope cameramen.
"Get closer to John Doe. We're not getting his facial expression," the director may say to his mike. No matter how loudly he speaks he is heard only by one person who matters—the man who's actually taking the television picture. This man may relay orders to the artist, He gets them verbally from the program director then translates them into the pantomime that already has been established for radio broadcasting. Certain simple and well-known gestures convey such directions as speed up, slow down, get closer to the microphone, not so loud and many others.
Actual time spent in program demonstration is very small compared to the endless hours of testing—testing for lights, testing for iconoscope focus, testing for a thousand and one things that only a television engineer would understand. Engineers themselves frequently serve as subjects for this sort of televising. Then, when they’re tired, the “television "sweetheart" is brought out. She's cardboard and never gets tired. She is a life-size photograph of a beautiful bride. To date her face is better known over the ultra short waves than any other.
Of course there are many celebrities who take a turn at being televised just for a lark. Among the recent guest artists in NBC's television studio have been Cole Porter, who played some of his own compositions; E. T. Cunningham, president of RCA Manufacturing company; Dorothy Page of radio and the movies; Ed Wynn, Graham McNamee, Honeyboy and Sassafras. The Ink Spots, are, with Hildegarde, the nearest approach to television veterans. They have all apeared [sic] on several demonstrations.
No one can tell you when television will be a reality in the homes of America, but everyone at NBC can assure you of this—the new art will make great progress during this year of 1937. (Birmingham News)
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