Filling the hours
A television transmitter in the 1930s had a problem that radio stations also faced: after the technical work, someone had to decide what to put on the air. Early stations had tiny budgets, one or two studios and few trained performers. The first schedules were short, often only an hour or two on certain evenings, and the programs were adapted from the stage, radio, cinema and music hall.
Broadcast programs were mostly live. Recording was difficult. Film could be shot and developed, and some programs and news items were shown on film, but the only way to preserve a studio performance for later was to photograph a monitor screen with a film camera, a process called kinescope in the United States. The poor quality meant that most early broadcasts were seen once, and many have not survived.
The first program types
Early programs fell into a few families.
- Variety and music: Radio had already shaped a popular music sound that television borrowed. Singers, dancers, comedians and bands were practical because they were easy to stage in a small studio and were familiar from radio and theater.
- Short plays and drama: In Britain the BBC broadcast a play from the 1930s, and live drama became a staple. In the United States, anthology series staged original and adapted plays live in the late 1940s and 1950s, and the period is often called a golden age of television drama.
- Demonstrations and talks: Cooking, gardening and craft programs suited a medium that could show how things are done. Presenters showed real objects to the camera.
- News and current events: Early news was often a film package or a spoken bulletin with a few pictures. Network evening newscasts in the United States were 15 minutes long in the late 1940s and 1950s, and they were expanded to 30 minutes in the early 1960s.
- Sport: Boxing, wrestling, baseball and football were broadcast early, because they took place in fixed places and had built-in drama. Outside broadcasts needed trucks, cables and several cameras.
- Children’s programs: Puppet shows and storytelling filled the afternoon schedule once enough children’s sets existed.
- Quiz and game shows: Low-cost to produce and easy to follow, they became popular, though scandals in the late 1950s, when some American quiz shows were found to have given contestants help, damaged trust.
Postwar growth and the situation comedy
After 1945, television in the United States expanded and the hours of broadcasting increased. Many comedians and variety hosts moved from radio and vaudeville to television, and some programs became national events. The sitcom was among the genres that suited the medium: a few sets, a regular cast, and a story that could be resolved in half an hour. Some series were filmed in front of an audience with several cameras, which gave a polished result that could be repeated, and this helped programs enter syndication and reruns.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the BBC held a monopoly until the start of commercial television in 1955. The BBC’s tradition of public service meant a mix of information, education and entertainment. The commercial channels then added advertising and a competing set of programs, and the audiences shifted toward lighter fare for a time.
Shaping the schedule
The idea of a daily schedule developed gradually. Early on, stations broadcast whenever they had material. As viewers grew in number, it became important to give them a pattern: children’s programs in the late afternoon, news in the early evening, family entertainment in the prime evening hours, and late-night talk or films.
Sponsorship influenced American schedules. In the early years, a single company often paid for an entire program and put its name on it. Later, networks sold shorter advertising slots to many advertisers, which gave the networks control of what ran when. The structure of the evening, with half-hour and hour blocks, settled into place, and it still shapes how programs are made. In Britain and other countries funded by a license fee, schedules were designed around public-service goals, although competition with commercial channels pushed them toward similar patterns.
In the early years, there were also gaps. Many stations closed down in the afternoon, and a “test card” with a pattern of lines and shapes ran when no program was on, so that engineers and shop customers could adjust sets. Closing the day with a short sign-off, or an anthem in some countries, was normal.
Film and tape change production
The invention of practical videotape, which records on magnetic tape, in the mid-1950s allowed shows to be recorded and edited. Videotape recorders, introduced commercially by Ampex in 1956, let programs be made in one time zone and shown in another without the quality loss of kinescopes. Filmed series, made by Hollywood studios from the mid-1950s, brought bigger budgets, location shooting and a library that could be sold abroad.
Color, which gradually took over from black and white over the 1960s, changed the look. Widespread sets also brought choices: viewers could pick among channels, and programmers had to compete. What was shown in the first decades of the medium, from variety hours to westerns, is a reminder that television began as a mix of borrowed forms from radio, cinema and the stage, before developing its own.