Watch This! America's Transition from Radio to Television
A Summary
Logline: As the world transitions from traditional television into the age of streaming online media, this six hour docuseries examines the challenges America faced when adapting the highly popular audio entertainment content of radio broadcasting to the new visual medium of television; its popular and unsung heroes; and the innovations the new format brought to a captivated audience.
One hundred years ago, the American public was formally introduced to radiophone broadcasting or “wireless telephony” as it had been known during the two decades of its rise from amateur to professional status. “Radio” described the new medium of entertainment as well as the mechanical device that delivered the transmission of human voices across vast distances without the need of telephone cables.
When station KDKA in Pittsburgh became first on the air in November of 1920, listeners could hear the news of the day, political speeches, sporting events, music and dramas by tuning their portable, battery operated receivers to the broadcast signal. In no time, hundreds of radio stations sprang up all across the country and the world as the public anxiously devoured this new form of news delivery and entertainment. People began staying home in droves, crowded around their radio cabinets being entertained as never before. All it took was a little imagination and listeners could be on the scene as police tried to solve “whodunit”, or Martians invaded the earth. By the close of the decade, the world was hooked on radio but already there was talk of something greater – pictures to accompany the sights and sounds of broadcasting.
Once the playground of radio broadcasting began to stagnate for the hardcore amateur enthusiasts that had done so much to define the capabilities and value of the science, television became their focus. By the mid-1920s, the federal government was doling out experimental licenses for those wishing to explore the possibilities this fantastic idea promised, and the industry giants of radio such as RCA began their own efforts in earnest. It would take another decade before the first professional television broadcasting station would launch, and a further ten years before there were enough dedicated stations in America to create and transport the expensive programming. A little distraction that came to be known as World War 2 had slowed the delivery of this exciting technology to the masses, but once the war concluded, the rush was on.
Since the dawn of man, humans have advanced their quality of life in marked stages of development. The taming of fire was among the first of these major changes. In the relatively short history of America, our nation reinvented itself many times over as the industrial age introduced all manner of machines to assist or replace the work of man. Oil lamps and gas lighting transitioned to electricity. Horse drawn carriages transitioned to automobiles. Fans transitioned to air conditioning. Telegraphs transitioned to telephones and then to radio. With each of these milestones, the population experienced profound change and growth as their daily lives were impacted by these technological advances. And then came the transition from radio to television.
“Watch This!” is a six hour television documentary series designed for the latest technological platform of streaming content. As the world of television redefines its boundaries to include the internet and shifts to programming on demand tailored to every possible interest and every level of attention span delivered to every corner of the world, it seems only fitting to shine a spotlight on the ancestors of this industry and the struggles they faced to invent and perfect the visual entertainment medium that has wholly taken over society in a measure much larger than radio, and is expanding its reach and influence with no end in sight.
“Watch This!” will tackle this subject in three two-hour installments (or six one-hour segments) covering the early experiments and milestones of television, the achievements of the transition period of the post-war era, and the maturity of the technology into the standardized color programming we enjoy today.
“Watch This!” plans to not only showcase early television history in a form palatable to today’s demanding viewer but, in many cases, unearth new facts that rewrite that history by accessing and sharing archives and transcripts heretofore unknown. The show’s producers are knowledgeable, dedicated historians with a gift for stitching together disjointed elements of a story and turning historic notations into fun factoids the audience will enjoy, remember and share with others. In terms of a docuseries, this will result in substantial and repeat viewership.
Program elements of the series will include a review of the early efforts to perfect television technology before settling into an exploration of how television was defined by trial and error as the growing viewer base expanded. Most of the genres that exist on television today grew out of radio but had to be refined as the new medium gave sight to many aspects previously assigned to the imagination of the listener.
“Watch This!” will chart the development of such genres as Crime Dramas, Westerns, Doctor Shows, Science Fiction, Superheroes, Cartoons, Game Shows, Variety Shows, Soap Operas, Late Night programming, and the ever-present Sit-Coms. It will examine News programming and the impact it had on society as the Vietnam War and other life-changing events were brought into the nation’s living rooms, and take a look at how program casting began to chip away at racial and societal preconceptions. The technical challenges television presented will be covered as cameras, lighting and sound, and the operating techniques of each had to be invented and reinvented to keep pace with the explosive growth, launching the modern day makeup industry in the process. The British Invasion will headline the segment showing the impact television had on the music industry and its talent pool.
“Watch This!” will seek out more than just the living icons of the early television era; including technicians, cameramen and crew in their list of first generation on-camera talent witnesses to history. Supplementing the story with a vast archive of photographic and newsprint images and budgeting for a first rate selection of relevant broadcast footage, the six-hour series will entertain from start to finish.
“Watch This!” promises to deliver first rate documentary entertainment on a subject of keen interest to the Baby Boomer generation in a way that will pique the interest of all generations that followed. The human experience is ever changing, ever evolving toward some higher existence, and we as a species are fascinated as much by where we came from as where we are going next.
“Watch This!” is the first documentary series to explore the most profound shift in human behavior and entertainment since the dawn of our great nation some two hundred plus years ago. As America, indeed the world, has at last acquired an insatiable appetite for content that educates as well as entertains, our six hour series is all-too-happy to oblige.
“Watch This!: America’s Transition from Radio to Television.” Streaming into your chosen device at your chosen hour at some point in the near future.