Electronic Media – Television

Introduction to Electronic Media?

Electronic Media is information or data that is created, distributed and accessed using a form of electronics or any equipment used in electronic communications. The common Electronic Media equipment are television, radio, computer, cell phones, fax, CD-ROMs, DVD and other devices that involves in digital encoding of information.

Development of Television as a Medium of Mass Communication

• The TV technology, is the hard work of many men and scientists
• The \’first\’ generation of television sets were not like modern TV.  The screen had a small motor with a spinning disc and a neon lamp, which combined together to give a blurry reddish-orange picture about half the size of a business card
• The period before 1935 is called the \”Mechanical Television Era“
• The early work on TV was mainly done in USA, UK, Russia, Germany & Japan
• The story of television begins in 1924, when John Baird demonstrated TV transmission
• General Electric Company of USA started TV transmission experiments in May 1928. By the end of the year 18 licenses were given to experimental stations
• BBC began transmission on 30th September 1929, but closed in 1934
• In march 1935, Germany started first regular television transmission in the world
• Initially transmission was of 180 lines picture produced with mechanical cameras. Later on electronic camera came into use
• In November 1936, regular transmission on BBC began. The important event covered were; Wimbledon, Boat Race, Cricket. However due to second World War, transmission ceased on 1939
• In USA regular TV transmission started in 1939
• The NBC (National Broadcasting Company) was first to telecast the feature film; “The heart of the New York” in July 1939. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) also started their transmission in the same year
• By 1940, there were 23 TV stations in USA
• In 1960, light weight camera and recorder for sound recording introduced in news and documentaries
• After Second World War, TV produced documentaries of the war
• During 1955-57, BBC started to produce regular news bulletin, comment, feature and entertainment based program
• The age of satellite communication began in 1962 with the launch of “Early Bird”, the first communication satellite, “Intelsat” and “Intelspetnik” began operating in 1965 and 1971