Last week, I talked about Filo Farnsworth and his idea for TV. This week I will talk about how TV patent changed owners and the race to release TV to the public.
In the 1930’s, Philo Farnsworth just obtained the first TV patent in the USA after many court battles. A patent is like a goverment lisence that grant you exclusive rights to certain invention. Unfortunately, RCA still has their eyes set on the TV patent. RCA tried pressuring Farnsworth for it. Eventually, RCA paid full price for the TV patent. Now that RCA had Farnsworth out of the picture. They put David Sarnoff in charge to continue advancing the TV technology. Fun fact, David Sarnoff is also the inventor of radio.
However, by 1935 Sarnoff still didn’t come up with a good system to transmit TV signals through the airwaves. Now Sarnoff was also facing competition from his rival William S. Paley from CBS. On July 7, 1936, Sarnoff revealed his first broadcast to the press. Sadly, the demonstration didn’t go so well but Sarnoff didn’t give up.
By the late 1930’s, TV still had many problems. Some examples were the hot TV sets, the expensive TV sets, the lack of actors, and the TV signals weren’t that good. Unlike Sarnoff, Paley and CBS was doing better because of their wealth. CBS had no problem hiring actors but they still had some signal problems. Soon RCA caught up with CBS. Finally, at the world fair in 1939, TV was available to the public.
So, that’s the story of how electronic TV came out of its experimental stage. Next week, I will talk about the problems of manufacturing TVs and RCA’s new rival.