May 1937

Television’s biggest story in May 1937 came from overseas. King George VI was crowned in London and British television aired the ceremony.

There’s nothing to suggest the coronation was seen on American television, unless a station aired a newsreel with footage from the regal event. There’s very little indication what exactly was being broadcast on the small screen in the U.S.

Judging by newspaper listings, W9XAT in Minneapolis ceased broadcasts with WDGY radio and even W6XAO in Hollywood was not working as often with KHJ.

NBC continued to show off technical developments while RCA president David Sarnoff insisted there would be no commercial television in 1937 (there wasn’t). Meanwhile, CBS had pretend TV on the West Coast. The company didn’t have an affiliate in Los Angeles until 1949 and bought the former W6XAO the following year.

The highlights below also include a description of a broadcasting day in London.

SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.
W6XAO, Hollywood
8:00-8:15—Television (sound on KHJ).

SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1937
WOR is working on television though its plans are shielded by a greater air of secrecy than in other experimental laboratories. WOR, affiliated with the Don Lee broadcasting system, is cooperating in the development with the Don Lee organization. At present, Don Lee Television is transmitting daily pictures of 300 lines to the image, repeated at the rate of 24 images per second. (Will Baltin, New Brunswick Sunday Times).

MONDAY, MAY 3, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Few Technical Problems Remain for Television
Washington Bureau, RADIO DAILY
Washington — From the standpoint of technical problems, only a few minor details remain to be solved for television, says Commander T. A. M. Craven, chief engineer of the FCC. Agreeing with remarks of David Sarnoff that television to the public is now an artistic and economic rather than a technical problem. Craven said the only reason visual broadcasting is being held up is due to the allocating of frequencies. There may be more hearings on the matter, he added.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.

THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.

Fred Niblo, recently heard over the air as commentator and master of ceremonies, has joined the NBC Artists Service, coordinating the division’s talent activities with television programs. This is the first major move in the department’s extensive program to expand its activities.
Niblo has been an adventurer, traveler, lecturer, explorer, actor, author and film director. He launched his career when very young as an actor, playing every-thing from end-man in a minstrel show to the lead in Shakespeare's "Othello." He then toured all over the world, and for eight successive Summers topped the stage bill at the Palace Theater in London.
From adventures in many remote sectors of the globe, he gathered sufficient material to turn lecturer. After two years, Niblo returned to the stage. Later he spent three years in Australia. 1915 found him back in the United States starring in George M. Cohan's "Hit the Trail Halliday."
Films next claimed him, beginning in 1918 as director for the late Thomas H. Ince, made such films as "The Mirk of Zorro," “The Three Musketeers," "Camille," "The Red Lily," "The Temptress," "The Mysterious Lady," "Redemption,” "The Love Dream” and "Ben Hur." (Seymour Roman, Brooklyn Times-Union)

FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.

SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.

SUNDAY, MAY 9, 1937
Television Network Now Held Possible
Creation of a nationwide television network with assured performance is now possible as a result of reduction in cost of the coaxial cable strung by A. T. & T. between New York and Philadelphia for experimental purposes, RADIO DAILY is advised by Electrical Research Products, A. T. & T. subsidiary. Tests on the cable have completely fulfilled all laboratory calculations, it is stated.

Lohr Says Most of Country May Never Have Television
Chicago — Although television has greater possibilities for selling goods than any medium available before, it is possible that 95 per cent of the American population will never see television broadcasts because only cities over 100,000 can support the new medium unless radical changesare made. President Lenox R. Lohr of NBC declared yesterday [8] in a talk before the Chicago Federated Advertising Club.
Only centers like New York, Hollywood and Chicago have enough live talent to feed television, Lohr pointed out. Size of television scenes, previously limited to a half dozen persons in a 12-foot area, has been increased, Lohr said. Last week a ballroom scene was successfully broadcast by NBC. Several years of headaches are ahead before television is available for advertisers, he stated.
Lohr also pointed to the possibilities of facsimile ultra high frequencies. Facsimile is available in good form now, but is too expensive to be exploited for years.
Guests at the ad club luncheon included Charles G. Dawes, Rufus C. Dawes, Niles Trammell, W. E. MacFarlane, Fred Weber of Mutual, Glenn Snyder, president of Chicago Broadcasters Ass'n, Harry Smith, WBBM sales chief, and others.

MONDAY, MAY 10, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.

Television to Fore in Britain; All-Day Broadcast Wednesday
Coronation Events to Be Transmitted; Tribune Correspondent Sees Tents, Is Impressed
By BOB FORESMAN
Tribune Staff Correspondent
LONDON, England.—An event which will be remembered much longer and is of much greater importance to the world than the coronation will take place Wednesday [12] in London.
It will be an all-day television broadcast of the coronation procession, crowds and feature "shots” of the coronation by the British Broadcasting Co.
It will be the first time that portable television units will be switched from place to place and descriptions and pictures made.
London already has television on a practical basis.
As a guest of the Marconi company, I watched tests being made for the coronation.
“It was perfect," is the only way I can describe it.
1,000 Sets In London
There are now nearly 1,000 privately-owned Marconi sets in London within a 25-mile radius of the broadcasting station atop Alexander place in north London.
At present the British Broadcasting Co. is presenting two broadcasts daily, one from 3 to 4 p. m, and the other from 9 to 11 p. m.
Sitting in a demonstration room with a five-foot aerial, I saw an hour's performance as the scene shifted from one spot to another in London, with portable equipment and engineers cruising the city at random.
The set we were watching sells for 60 pounds or $300, and is available for regular broadcasts with world selectivity. It is on sale at over 25 radio dealers in London and can be purchased for a pound down and a pound a week until paid for.
Cricket Match By Air
The screen is about a foot square and the beam is reflected up from inside the set through a system of mirrors.
The first thing flashed on the screen was the words: "The Alexander Palace television station is testing."
This five-minute period gives the listeners time to tune and get in focus. Then we heard a prima donna sing from the broadcasting studios. Next we jumped to the studio of an artist and watched him paint a picture in eight minutes and explain his methods.
A cricket match suddenly appeared, then we saw memorial services at Chatham for the men who died there when a German torpedo struck a British boat in the war.
Competition for Theater Seen
Finally came what I thought was the climax. It was a full reel of Movietone News. It was perfect. You could see the cadets marching and everything in the film was just as good as could been seen at a motion picture show. "There is no doubt about it," Stanley Grandels, a Marconi engineer told me, "but that television will replace the theater to a large extent."
The London station, the only one in the British Isles, is not a powerful station, but can be heard plainly for 26 miles. A more powerful one will soon be built.
It has a huge sending tower atop Alexander palace, that is 200 feet high and 300 feet above the ground. It has prongs out from the sides near the top and resembles a Roman battle-ax.
The waves come in screen fashion, much like an engraver's plate is made. The whole system works on a system of shadows and pitches. Transmission is just as fast as radio sound and the set itself is about half the size of an upright piano, with the screen near the top in the middle. (Tulsa Tribune)

TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1937
W9XAT, Minneapolis
12:45-1:00—Television with radio station WDGY 1180 kcs.
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1937
Television Experts See New Cathode Ray Tube
Recent Development Permits Projection Of Air Pictures On Larger Screen
By C. E. BUTTERFIELD
(Associated Press Radio Editor)
New York, May 12—Television on a screen—images 18 by 24 inches square produced by a newly developed cathode ray tube—was demonstrated to the Silver Anniversary Convention of the Institute of Radio Engineers here today.
The picture has a brightness equal to that of home movies. By increasing the distance from the screen it is possible to obtain one as large as three by four feet good enough to be viewed by an audience of several hundred.
Enlargement is obtained through a simple optical system placed before the fluorescent end of the tube, where the original picture appears as the small size of 1 1-2 by 2 1-4 inches.
Details of the new tube, which is the result of several years research in the laboratories of the Radio Corporation of America, were outlined in papers written by Dr. W. H. Zworykin, W. H. Painter and Dr. R. R. Law, the men directly concerned with its design.
It is the outgrowth of the "kinescope," the television receiving tube that paints imager on its flat end but does not project them. The largest 'kinescope" to date with a viewing end 15 inches in diameter, permits pictures approximately 9 by 12 inches.
While the projection tube is regarded in scientific circles as a distinct advancement, Dr. Law said it had not yet reached the stage where it can be used outside the laboratory. Work is being continued to develop the luminescent material of the fluorescent screen, which will withstand the terrific bombardment of the electrons that build up the image.
The tube, 18 inches in length but much smaller in diameter at the largest end than the "kinescope", has as its principal feature a new type of "electron gun" developed by Dr. Law and his associates. The "gun", which focuses the flying electrons, had to be designed to produce an extremely slender beam yet have brilliancy enough for projection.
The demonstration, part of an entire afternoon devoted to a television symposium, was planned to include a showing to the visiting engineers of the field-test 441-line pictures produced by the R.C.A.-N.B.C. stations on the Empire State Building from the Radio City studios.
Illumination tests by Harley Iams, R. B. James and W. H. Hickok, also of the R. C. A. laboratories, led them to conclude in another paper that outdoor television pick-ups of football games were less likely to be satisfactory than parades and races. This, they held, was due to the time of the day and the lateness of the season that the game is played.
In the measurement and recording of the brightness of scenes typical for television they also found that present equipment was sufficiently responsive for baseball, which is played in the sunniest months of the year. Whether outdoor results were good, fair or poor, they added, depended to a large extent upon the angle of the sun at different times of the day.
Dr. Zworykin, in a paper having the collaboration of G. A. Morton and L. E. Flory, said that the "Icononcope," the electric camera of television, still was undergoing improvement looking toward greater sensitivity.

THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Television Takes Coronation to 30,000; Success Is Hailed
London, May 13 — (AP) — Television took the Coronation parade [12] to some 30,000 persons far away from the actual scene, and today the consensus was it had been markedly successful.
Even so, officials of the British Broadcasting Co. said if there had been sunshine instead of rain the pictures would have been 50 per cent better.
The "televiewers" saw the spectacle in the comfort of their homes, in offices, in motion picture theatres and in halls hired for the occasion.
It was like viewing a movie accompanied by a running commentary, but instead the watchers were witnessing what was going on at the very moonlit some distance away.
Because the television apparatus was installed at a vantage point at Hyde Park corner, near the end of the route, the "televiewers” were able to get better views of the procession than many of those on the spot, even though the rain began just before the broadcast started and continued throughout the hours of transmission.

Lee Television Broadcast
West Coast Bureau, RADIO DAILY
Los Angeles — Don Lee television department will observe National Foreign Trade Week, which starts Saturday, with an opening day broadcast of "Commerce Around the Coffee Cup" (film) , sound over KHJ and images over W6XAO, for 15 minutes, starting 8 p.m. PST. Harry R. Lubcke, television chief, will have as guests at his home receiver, Clayton Lane, acting chairman Foreign Trades Division, Washington; William H. Schroeder, general chairman of Los Angeles Foreign Trades week committee; Stanley T. Olafson, Walter Measday, A. C. Eichollz and other committee men assisting in the week's program here.

SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1937
W6XAO Hollywood
8:00-8:15—Film: “Commerce Around the Coffee Cup” (sound on KHJ).

Television On Screen Newest Development of Visual Radio
By C. E BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, May 15 (AP) — Science rays that midday under bright skies with the sun directly overhead isn't necessarily the best vision period of the 24 hours. Rather, mid-morning and mid-afternoon are much more ideal.
See what Harley Iams, R. B. Janes and W. H. Hickok of the RCA television laboratories have had to say on the subject. They based their statements on a series of measurements of the brightness of scenes made over a period of years to determine the suitability of typical outdoor activities that might be televised.
"On clear, summer days, scenes arc frequently brighter at mid-morning or mid-afternoon than when the sun is directly overhead, they concluded.
Why is this so?
It’s the angle of the sun's rays that produces the effect, or to put it in the language of the research men:
"Although illumination on a horizontal plane is maximum at noon, reflection of the sloping rays of the other hours produces better conditions for television pickup. This is true because most things of interest to human vision are disposed in vertical plane, from which sloping lays produce greater light reflection."
Colors of Sun's Rays
Their study did not stop there. They went into the subject of the colors making up the sun's rays and found that:
"When the sun is shining unobscured, there is a preponderance of red rays. When it is hidden by a cloud in an otherwise clear sky, there are more blue rays. Since the two colors lie at nearly opposite ends of the visible spectrum, the television camera must not be color blind."
Along this same line they also checked up on the light-dulling effects of city smoke in the atmosphere, Indicating that such conditions would he somewhat of a detriment to television.
The data obtained then was charted against such television possibilities as a baseball game.
The scientists expressed the belief that present pickup equipment, known as the "Iconoscope" or electric camera, would he sufficiently responsive to provide radiograph movies of the game.
They also stated that parades and races would be equally satisfactory. About football, they were not so hopeful, however, that's because the game is played in the season of the year when the day is growing shorter and when even the shouting spectators on the scene have to strain eyes to follow the plays as dusk approaches.

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

APPLICATIONS GRANTED
W6XAO, Los Angeles—CP and license add aural trans. to television station, 150w A3 emission.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 1937 NEW SERIES OF RADIO DRAMAS OPENS TONIGHT
By CARROLL NYE
“Take the Witness” titles a new series of dramas to be presented today by the Hollywood Columbia studios via KNX at 10 p.m., as a forerunner to television broadcasts of the future.
The broadcast, open to the public, will originate in the Hollywood Music Box Theater, and the actors will appear in costume, speak memorized lines and perform in specially designed stage settings.
The initial offering, “The Masquerade Murder,” is from the pen of Ashmead Scott, radio writer and producer.
Note: A second of front-row seats will be reserved for candid-camera bugs. (Los Angeles Times

THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI 910 kcs.

Television Clause
Eddie Cantor's new six-year contract under Texaco sponsorship contains a clause making Cantor available for television broadcast. Cantor also must be prepared at any time to direct, produce and star in any televised show under his present sponsorship. He also will supervise any programs used during his vacations. Cantor's contract doesn't contain the usual 13-week cancellation clauses. (Radio Daily)

FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1937
Sarnoff Sees No Tele Yet
Commercial Visual Broadcasting Is Not Planned by RCA and Others for At Least Two More Years
Chicago — There will be no commercial television this year, neither RCA nor any other manufacturer having such plans for the present season, while next year is problematical, President David Sarnoff of RCA told 500 wholesalers attending the annual RCA-Victor sales meeting here. The public can safely buy new receivers, knowing they will get full value before television receivers and programs are available, he declared.
Though television will bring greatly increased costs to advertisers, it also will bring greatly increased opportunities to justify those costs, Sarnoff pointed out. He said he expects television to utilize short movies for advertising purposes much after the fashion of present spot broadcasting in radio. He does not think television will supplant the movies.
RCA introduced 39 new models running from $24 to more than $250. It was also reported that all divisions of RCA have been operating in the black all this year, with prospects continuing bright. (Radio Daily)

Lubcke's Television Talk
West Coast Bureau. RADIO DAILY
Los Angeles — Harry R. Lubcke, Don Lee television chief, will talk to 600 delegates to the annual convention of Pacific Coast Electrical Ass'n at Hotel Huntington, Pasadena this weekend, on "Processes and Progress in Television." During the three-day session, he will broadcast (sight only) in a series of demonstrations which will be sent from the Don Lee image transmitter at Seventh and Bixel Streets, to Pasadena, more than eight miles away.

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

GONZAGA PURCHASES TELEVISION EQUIPMENT
Gonzaga university Tuesday [25] announced installation of a complete television transmitter and receiver, with an experimental transmitting range of 10 miles. The new equipment is an addition to the electrical engineering department of the engineering school.
It is expected the new apparatus will be ready for use some time in June, when it will be demonstrated to the public. First courses in television will be offered during the summer session, according to department heads. (Spokane Spokesman-Review, May 27)

THURSDAY, MAY 27, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.