History unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created for a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Wally podrazik is the author of this book, eight decades of american television. Mr. Podrazik who invented tv . If you want to look at the technical side the inventor is mr. Baird in europe or it could be reginald or a could be basically, whoever took it to its next technical step. The important thing about when were talking about tv is it the mechanical means of conveying information or is it the thing that is used make that the content on the tv itself. I look at that question very often when i teach tv history, which is we have come to define tv as that which we see on the instrument with traditionally we have called television. Or whatever content is created that we view on any means whatsoever but it is still thought of as primarily video, primarily television communication. So, we are still in midst inventing televisions connect begin the discovery of the instrument on which we watch television. There were two forms of television. The original experiment for Experimental Television was the mechanical system. The mechanical system that goes back to a wonderful moment in which he was showing his profit, stooky bill in a public demonstration and there was this magic of images across the screen and you could see moving images where youre not in the same room. The. About television is that it is miraculous still. That was what people to constantly search for what is the best way that we can present this medium because it is doing what generations, thousands of years ago would have thought only the gods could do, to be in one place and see whats going on in another place. Those first mechanical experiments, we laugh at them now, theres videos floating around of the very herkyjerky 24 frames a second but that was television in the most important part was it was different from what he did it. When did it start to in the us . It also has some stops and starts because of financial and world events. Basically, we had our first Experimental Television broadcast in the late 1920s but the Great Depression came by and then you started to regroup after that and world war ii comes along but one of the markers of the 1930 world fair when David Sarnoff was an executive of rca announced the beginning of a new era. He was not a modest man. He said this was so important in the history of communication. Of course David Sarnoff was right. No one knew what it would turn into. They knew what they wanted it to turn into wanted it to be a big moneymaker like radio. David sarnoff was exploiting radio but it wasnt until postworld war ii, were talked about late 40s in which it finally began to take off, Milton Burrell would be the character that introduced television to so many other people throughout the country. When we talk about what we mean by television, we mean right now, anything in the country that in the early days it was whatever station was connected to the coast to coast wax seal table. It wasnt coasttocoast yet. It was region, to region, to region. It wasnt until the 1950s that we actually had all the television stations connected and we could also the same thing at the same time. Theres television taking off, the early 1950s except there were technical issues that some markets, the sec federal indications had it wasnt until the mid50s or so that it truly starts to take off. You go from about 800 stations in the beginning of the 50s to 500 stations by hundred stations by the end of the 50s. 20 of the country was connected and capable of seeing tv to 90 of the country. Tv households. By the early 1960s, television had taken off the the federal Radio Commission in 1934 became the federal indications commission has the fcc in the early days was a promoter of television . It was. The funny thing about how the government viewed a television is that it was considered part of the radio bandwidth. When you look at it, it was radio waves devoted to images. They were a proponent of it because it was an era in which people said lets try this. We can do it. Lets try automobiles, airplanes. We can do voices to the air, pictures, no problem. It took a while for those pictures to get out there. But the fcc had some rules that they set up to govern radio. The companies behind television where the companies behind radio. So they looked at this as an opportunity for making more money and also having a different kind of communication. I keep talking about money and profit but there was still that sense of a sense of excitement. A sense of, look what we can do. That was a driving force to the early days of television into its blossoming in the 50s and its full flower with Network Television in the 1960s. We can do this. We can do this. For example, in the area of news the sense that merle famously in his first see it now program, he had a rich history as a newsperson in radio especially during the Second World War and so hes the one in athens, put the stamp of approval, shall we say, intellectually, culturally on television by saying this is an amazing tool. Im the first broadcast. He called up the camera that was set up on the west coast, alcatraz on the east coast, new york and had the two images sidebyside on monitors which he was then showing on his program. That was the first time you could do that. You can see both ends of the country at the same time, life. This is a wonderful tool that we could use. Merle in particular went from gosh wow aspect to begin to some compelling stories. One of merles early news specials was a christmas in korea. It was giving people a sense of what the korean war was like. Not on some grand scale of what is like the latest progress on the peace talks but with soldiers, with the people. What is it like to be in that country. Heres the film that were bringing back to you. This gives you a sense of what its like in another country halfway around the world. This is what were talking about when we say the korean war. This is what the soldiers are going off to do. That is legendary thats how mass restage in a fictional then you around the Fourth Season or so in which they shot in black and white, did interviews and discussions and offthecuff comments in improv with cast members. That was a nod to merle who had figured out a way to tell the bigger story in your own living room. That is still the amazing part of television. Merle didnt stop he took on issues of substance, most famously, senator mccarthy program. That gives you an illustration of how television had a sense that the network and the people behind the broadcast had a sense of commitment to presenting news, presenting Public Affairs. Merle started with the a weekend thought but it ended up in prime time slots for a couple of years. It was a weekly show. This meant like a 60 minutes, decades later, if there was an issue that he raised, wed like to respond. Fine, come next week. We can do that. We we can have this ongoing dialogue about the issues of our time through television. He was particularly effective on taking on senator mccarthy because he did the he used was the senators own words, that is, if if you will, the truth squad. He said this heres the facts. And it just laid it out, one item after the other. Merle waited until the end to draw his conclusion, to do his analysis but the fact of the matter is television could do that even more effectively than radio because television showed you the person. Theres folding in the back of her head, since im sena right in front of me, it must be true. Let me give you one more merle because i absolutely think he deserves a spot in terms of defining television as a news and Public Affairs communication vehicle. It was one of his last productions for cbs before he left the company and retired. This was thanksgiving day and it was all about migrant workers. It was all about people who picked the bounty of america and are paid a pedaling. He took his time telling that story. I watched it recently in the first five minutes, i would like what is this. At the time there was a lot of talk about exploring the nations of africa and you would have these images of the poor people but know this was here. This was here in the us and this is what were doing and then merle sat down with government officials and talk them through, the same technique, they make this grand generalization heres the reality of life for the people. You watch Something Like that and its pretty heavyduty. Its what television allowed itself to be showcased for. We have this commitment to serve the Public Interest which gets us back to the fcc. Has news that mac has it always been required on Network Broadcast . One of the things that is important to remember is that were talking about the fcc setting rules for the broadcast stations in the broadcast stations have obligations that broadly go under the Public Interest convenience and necessity, what does that mean. It means whatever is appropriate to mean. There are certain benchmarks and among those benchmarks were covering items of immune Community Interest in Public Affairs, religion, children affairs, theres a sense that were not paying for this bandwidth. That was sort of the trade off. That was the grand bargain between broadcast series and the government. We are licensing use of the airwaves to you, were not selling it. We are licensing. Will review your performance every couple of years and how will we judge you, how well did you serve the community . How well did you deliver . You can deliver entertainment, you can have great profit . But how did you perform Public Service in the broadest sense of Public Service. The. May 1961. He has said many times sense that the wrong two words were focused on. Vast wasteland. He said that only once. Instead it should have been Public Service. In fact, that was the title of the man speech. You put a couple of paragraphs of that speech in your book. He really lays it out speaking to the broadcast. That was incredibly daring of him. A departure from the only fcc commissioner in the history of the commission that anyone would even know by name. He did that for a couple of reasons. First, he went right into their own industry meeting and he said, im going going to tell you what youre doing wrong. First ill tell you what youre doing right, this is good, this is good and youre making great profit and part of his speech goes through their profits for the last couple of years and says youre not doing badly, were in an inflation, recessionary times and youre doing well on your return. Youre in fine financial shape. Now, lets talk about the commitment side, the publicservice side, Public Service side, lets talk about what youre offering the public to generate all that cash. He started to lambast them for the type of formula programs, lot of violence, but mostly mindlessness. In a strange sort of way, thats the formula for television. Weve got all this time to fill what are we trying to do, were trying to sell commercials so were selling commercials we need something on the air the most important thing is that its on the air. Not that its the best that we can possibly do and if it is, its coincidental but we need something there that proves popular with the public so that we can turn around and sell this time and pay for everything that were doing. Especially, in those days news was regarded as pretty much but they werent making their profits from news. The profits for Something Like the beverly hillbillies or the profits from the any number of action westerns is what paid for your news coverage, your Public Affairs coverage. When the fcc through a new minnow, these rules were always there. He wasnt making up anything new but im going to hold you to that. Im going to hold your feet to the fire. I want you to do better and who says you cant. Who in this room you can do better. I challenge you. They were kind of stunned by that. No one had ever talked to them that way. They were kind of in a bind because this was in may and they had artie set their schedule for the next season. Bake quickly plugged in more affairs and less whether our way through this and maybe it was coincidence maybe it was the gods but they were actually some good shows that next season. The van dyke show for some instance. There were some good medical shows. This may not seem like a big deal but putting a primetime movie in. Before the only movies was if you went to the theater or seen ancient movies and tv spots. This was we have a special showcase in prime time just to show you some of the best movies that we were able to get life and for. It was a declaration that you can do better and even the industry too. The industry did. What was the impact of the advent of people . Table introduced a new way of regarding television. Fcc has rules over the for broadcasters. Cable started as simply a way to bring over the air stations to regions that for geographical challenges couldnt receive the signal and they piped in by cable the stations. Then they started adding original to cable channels and those werent subject to the same rules as in abc, cbs, nbc stations. They had a little bit more flexibility, they could be a little more explicit and they could be have no commercials because youre charging a fee, or they could have large commercials. It didnt matter because the rules that applied to the broadcasters didnt apply to the cable channels. Why not smart because of the way they argued successfully frankly. They lobbied very successfully that were different. This is not anybody can pick us up. You have to make a conscious decision to pay for this service so its different. Were not using the Public Airways in the same way but once that was established more and more people embraced cable as the way that they would receive television both over the air in the original to cable channels. Once back in the 90s was when you had it truly taking off. It had been building for decades but it truly took off in the 90s ass and you have people saying we have so many choices and in this sense the general public was ahead of the business communicators and they made no distinction between over the air. Everything that became to their wires and included the broadcast stations. And they were all the same . Channel seven was no different than channel 77. They were all traces you can have out there. Once that was injected into the system that raised the stakes for everyone in the spectrum. Lets bring it to today mr. Podrazik. Every everything is in place today. Starting with the fcc regender in way they treat the broadcast spectrum. Without getting into the complications of the spectrum option, reverse option, essentially, the stuff that you been getting for free lets repack that lets change the allocation on the spectrum and lets collect from fees from the part of the spectrum that youre no longer using and will use that for other forms of communication. Cell phone type of communication. Then you have internet communication as well, channels that originate online or are carried online even though they originate elsewhere. What you have now in the modern Communication System is people who can pick and choose what they want to see, when they want to see it adding video recording to it, and theyre treating it less like the mass medium and more like personalized channels that can enter their lives at any time. I was thinking of cspan, being part of this recently, comparatively recently with periscope. Periscope essentially allows anyone to be your own tv channel online. There was a. At which the house of representatives turned off the cameras and someone said, we do not control this. Well, guess what, im on periscope, you want it . And a lot of cspan pick that up what was a contentious but came to a close about what was going on in the chambers. In a nutshell, that shows where we are now. That is on a business side everything that you thought that was going to be the status quo is a little bit different from the consumer side and if so many more decisions and choices that you have but heres the thing that i always look at when we look at it watching tv, look at the players, look at the ownership ass once upon a time there were three or four major networks, major corporations, there are more than that. If you look at who owns these online channels you know theres still a limited number of folks that who have that are gatekeepers to what we share and the obligation goes fullcircle back to what you would hope is a but am part of the fcc saying you do have an obligation to do the best to help the communicators, to help the audience to understand whats going on in this complex world there is so much going on and you ladies and gentlemen you the gatekeepers have the control over how we pay ourselves and how we see the world mr. Podrazik teaches in chicago. How did you get interested in all of this . I was looking at notes i took as a kid on a particular series. Its called the series partially in preparation for writing about the teary series and im looking at the notes i wrote as a kid and thought he was good. I was already making connections with program flow and script flow and for watching the tv book its all about context. Its not just about news its not just about entertainment. Its not just about the business. Its not just about some trivia its all of that woven into a fabric a favorite story. Ive been fascinated with that style of storytelling. In fact, we wonder when we wonder when we watch tv why isnt everyone ever done this. Because its hard. You have to have so Much Research on your cable to start creating one paragraph to explain something and then what youre doing to boil it down to make it understandable in an entertaining way. Ive always loved the fact that you can see the world in your living room, in your bedroom through television and that we can share exciting moments. The moon landing would be the best example of, wow look at that, more recently, the chicago cubs win the world series. Im not there but im they are because im too didnt from television. Who is Harry Castleman . We met at northwestern university. We were at the beatles expert at our College Radio station and is one of our standoffs to the station we did a 17 hour 46 minute live history of the beatles and it showed how well we can Work Together and we just had a nice giveandtake, repartee and when we write we had it been in the same city for years we just do things for carbon paper and electronics and i have this idea host richard, congratulations on your book