by Larry D. Christiansen
The history of television is long, involved, multi-faceted and technical; however, this article will attempt a brief survey sketch of the non-technical aspects of its development and how it came to the State of Utah. The word “Television” was first used around 1900, and the experimentation became more focused in the late 1920s wherein technical difficulties had to be overcome, new theories explored, developing corporate interest and money, and the advent of World War II post poned its presentation to the general public until after the war in 1946. This early work was occurring in many places throughout the world and came in a series of stages. For example, the first television sets were not entirely electronic. The display (receiver screens) had a small motor with a spinning disc and a neon lamp, which worked 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” (electromechanical period) in which the television receiver or sets were sold from 1928 to 1934 primarily in the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States. These electro-mechanical units were not compatible with today’s fully-electronic television systems. In a short time came the earliest electronic television sets using cathode ray tubes such as those made by Telefunken in Germany in 1934, and subsequently followed by fabrications in France (1936), Britain (1936) and the United States (1938). They were small and expensive, for example the least expensive 1938 model with a 3-inch screen cost $125 (the equivalent of over $1,800 by U.S. dollars in 2007), while a 12-inch screen model was priced at $445 (at $6,633 in 2007 dollars). The first all-electronic system to be demonstrated in the U.S., transmitted pictures by radio relay between New York City and Camden, New Jersey in the late 1930s. Still, before World War II an estimated 19,000 electronic television sets were made in Great Britain, about 1,600 in Germany, and around 7,000 to 8,000 sets were manufactured in the U.S. before the War Production Board halted manufacture in April of 1942. The production resumed in August of 1945.
At the same time there was a close connection with the radio business, which bust upon the scene in the early 1920s in a very chaotic manner because there was no institutional framework upon which it could pattern itself. In large part, the radio industry itself provided the resources and organizational structure for the new medium of communication. In addition radio was an important preceding technology without which television stations would not have a way to distribute their content, and when joined together, they helped produce a technological revolution around the world. Radio provided much of the money in directing the talents and energies of scientists and inventors toward a common goal. A leading party was the Radio Corporation of American (RCA), the company that dominated the radio business in the United States with its two NBC networks, which invested $50 million in the development of electronic television. Besides the capital, it secured the rights to patents and hired leading scientists such as the Russian-born scientist Vladimir Kosma and allowed him to focus on promising experiments, and to further the work toward a common objective. By 1939 RCA was able to televise the opening of the New York World’s Fair which included a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later that year RCA secured the license to use Farnsworth’s television patents. In 1927 Philo Farnsworth finished the first working electronic television, free from many of the mechanical moving parts of previous televisions. RCA began selling television sets with a five-inch by twelve-inch picture tube. In addition, the company began broadcasting regular programs which included scenes captured by a mobile unit. The New York Times summarized the development with an article on April 19, 1939, reporting:
TELEVISION ON PROGRAM
NBC Schedules Broadcasts of Five Hours Weekly.
A regular television schedule of five hours a week, for at least a month, begins today
under the auspices of the National Broadcasting Company. Programs from Radio City
will be telecast from aerials atop the Empire State Building, and are expected to cover a
radius of about fifty miles.
Still pictures and charts, not designed for entertainment value, but to enable the engineers
to study the transmission will be on the air Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays from 3
to 4 o'clock.
Evening programs of live talent and films, on Tuesday and Thursday will be telecast from
8 to 9 P.M. The 441-line pictures will travel on the 46.5 megacycle channel and the
associated sound on 49.75 megacycles.
Engineers and officials of the organization will see the images through about100 receivers
distributed throughout the metropolitan area.
After several years of experimental development and testing, on May 2, 1941, the Federal Communication
Commission (FCC) announced that “recent developments demonstrate the industry is entirely within agreement with television broadcasting and is ready for standardization,” which would be accomplished through rules and regulation. The FCC set July 1, 1941, as the start of “full commercialization” of television. Stations wishing to operate commercially would have to broadcast at least fifteen hours per week. Problematic for all from broadcasters, manufactures and users was the issue of defense production which could curtail the number of sets available for the public just when a new industry was being initiated. Still, commercial broadcasting was officially on the way. Leading the way with the first license from the FCC was the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), although that same year the FCC ruled NBC had to sell one of its two huge radio networks. Two years later in 1943 the Supreme Court upheld this ruling which resulted in another network coming into creation as the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) which would enter the television business in the next decade. But in 1941 NBC’s main competitor was the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), both in radio and turning more attention to television. The latter at this stage remained still working to develop the technology and programming to be financially viable. In the United States at this time there were three television stations in New York City and one each in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles. In May of 1941 the National Association of Broadcasters estimated there were only about 7,000 television sets in operation in the country, with 5,000 of them in the metropolitan area of New York City; by contrast Chicago had only 50. Thus, the potential television audience was small and basically centered in New York City. The New York Times reported that by July 1, 1941, there could be three television stations operating within the city. Two currently broadcasting on an experimental basis, NBC (W2XBS) station (atop the Empire State Building) and CBS (W2XAB) station (atop the Chrysler Building), and a third DuMont station (atop a building on Madison Avenue at Fifty-Third Street) which would be ready by the time commercial broadcasting began.
On Tuesday, July 1, 1941, both NBC and CBS stations moved from their experimental status to commercial licenses—NBC’s (W2XBS) became WNBT and CBS’s (W2XAB) became WCBW. However, only NBC was prepared to accept advertisements and sponsors on the first day of operation. The initial rate card issued by NBC
showed the cost for an hour of television on WNBT cost $120 an hour in the evening, $60 in the daytime, and $90 on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. That first day, NBC’s schedule for July 1, 1941 was:
1:30 PM - Test Pattern
2:30 PM - Baseball at Ebbets Field, Dodgers vs. Phillies
6:45 PM - Lowell Thomas
8:00 PM - Text Pattern
9:00 PM - U.S.O. Program with Thomas E. Dewey, Mrs. Winthrop Aldrich and Others; Uncle Jim's
Question Bee; Musical Revue with the Bottlenecks of 1941; Truth or Consequences.
The CBS (WCBW) schedule on July 1 was:
2:00 PM - Test Pattern
2:30 PM - Dancing Lesson
3:15 PM - Children Story (to 3:30 PM)
7:30 PM - Test Pattern
8:00 PM - News
8:15 PM - Joan Edwards Songs
8:30 PM - Metropolitan Museum of Art, with host Francis Henry Taylor
9:00 PM - Bob Edge interviews with Yankee pitcher Paul Schreiber and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bloomingdale (to
9:30)
Most noticeable were the test patterns (often lasting from half an hour to an hour), limited hours on air (an early rule of thumb two hours in afternoon and two hours in the evening), news condensed to fifteen minutes delivered by commenters (Lowell Thomas and others) from the studio without picture coverage of the news item. In general NBC programming was filled with many text patterns, films, sporting events and irregular scheduled studio shows. They followed up the first day’s baseball game by covering the Eastern Clay Court Tennis Championship at Jackson Heights with two and a half to three hours each on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Other time slots were filled with a “Streamlined Spelling Bee” and variety shows and films. CBS offered a more stable schedule that came to include several weekly programs and a few daily broadcasts that included two short 15-minute news telecasts a day to a small audience in its New York television studio. However, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor almost all work on television came to a halt. Six television stations were allowed to remain in operation during the war, one each in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Schenectady, N.Y. and the two in New York City. During these early days there were several technologies and systems being pursued by the competing television interests, but finally some deals were made and standards agreed upon in 1941 that focused attention on specific difficulties and brought significant progress. As a prime example, RCA used only Iconoscopes (first practical video camera tube to be used in early television) in the New York area but used Farnsworth Image Dissector at Philadelphia and San Francisco. In the fall of 1939, RCA agreed to pay the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation royalties for access to its patents. This allowed RCA to integrate much of the best of Farnsworth’s discoveries into their systems, which placed them in the vanguard of television advancement in the United States.
After World War II with the lifting of the manufacturing ban, technological advances, some of which were war related, the expansion of television systems groups (NBC, CBS, DuMont and Mutual) into becoming networks, along with the public’s desire for more entertainment, produced a climate for the blooming of commercial television broadcasting. Aiding this was the reality of additional disposable income along with the cost of television sets deceasing substantially due to development to technology and mass production. The best calculations suggest that only 0.5% (one-half of one percent) of U.S. household had television sets in 1946, and that number progressively increased to 55.7% by 1954 and 90%1962. Full-scale commercial television was beginning by 1947 when 44,000 U.S. households had television sets with probably 30,000 being in the greater New York area. The number of television sets in the U. S. increased by 1949 to 940,000 households having a TV and by 1953 that number rocketed to 20,000,000. This rapid increase found the FCC flooded with requests for television station licenses when the number of applications exceeded the available television channels. Thus, in 1948 the FCC placed a freeze on processing new station applications that remained in effect until April of 1952. The TV networks in operation by 1949 stretched from the East Coast to the Mississippi River in scattered bands, and by 1951 to the West Coast with large areas of the country not covered, especially in the least populated rural areas.
The rapid development of television into American life coincided with the explosive rise of a consumer culture after the war. Pent-up demand fueled by the privations of the depression and the war, coupled with prosperity, was exploited by advertisers who turned to television to sell their products. Advertisers' desires to appeal to the broadest possible audience, guided programmers to take cautious steps forward in the shows that were aired. From hindsight it would be easy to stress the conformity atmosphere of early television which produced shows oriented to the lowest common denominator and least offensive to the largest class of viewers. The rapid acceptance of television accentuated its consumerism and commercialization. There was a learning curve for both advertiser and programmer. The first shows up to the early 1950s were often produced and sponsored by corporations for the whole program, and their ads were usually at least one minute in length. But by a combination of programming becoming more expensive and a studying of the situation, it was learned the advertisements of thirty-second commercials were as effective as the longer ones, thereby shows were sponsored by several corporations or products which significantly increased the number of commercials. As commercial TV began in 1947 there were in the United States only around 44,000 television sets compared with over 40 million radios (or 909 radios for every TV).
A brief survey of the early programming on TV went as follows: For 1947 some of the highlights were—May 7th the Kraft Corporation sponsored the Kraft Television Theater on NBC, becoming the first commercial television dramatic series; Sept. 30 the first telecast of the World Series baseball game between New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers; Oct. 5th President Truman became the first president to make an address on TV from the White House wherein he discussed the international food crisis and proposed a meatless Tuesday each week; Nov. 6th the local NBC station in Washington, D.C. premiered a “Meet the Press” show which two weeks later went on the NBC network; and on Dec. 29th NBC first broadcast Howdy Doody Time. In the following year of 1948, television began its rapid rise and by July it was estimated that there were 350,000 TV sets in operation in the U.S. with three-quarters of them in the eastern network cities (and one-half in New York City). While only one in ten Americans had seen a television set up to this point, still there were twenty-seven TV stations in eighteen different cities. It cost one million dollars to construct and place into operation a television station. The manufacturing of TV sets was being done by about two dozen companies, and ranged from Pilot’s 3” set for $100 to DuMont’s 20” model costing $2,495 (over $28,000 in today’s money). Gillette paid $100,000 (equivalent to $1.1 million today) for the right to televise the Joe Louis-Jersey Joe Walcott heavyweight boxing match. Television rights for baseball games in New York City cost $700,000 ($7.7 million today). In 1948 NBC brought Texaco Star Theater to TV with Milton Berle rotating hosting duties with three other comedians and by October he became permanent host.
During 1949 TV sales increased by 600% over 1948 to where by August there were two million TV sets in the country with 720,000 in New York City. DuMont, a leading company in the development of television both in the devices and network, stepped up its development of an all-electric color system and also reduced the price of its 20-inch model to $999. Howdy Doody merchandising topped $11 million for the year, proving that the old radio sales’ techniques worked well and often in television. By April of 1950 there were 5,343,000 TV sets in American homes served by 103 TV stations in sixty cities and by October there were around 8 million TV sets. The demand for television exceeded the supply even though the industry produced around 3,000,000 sets. This set in motion an amazing number of television manufacturers and name brands, perhaps comparable to the early years of automobile makers in the county. CBS aired the panel game show “What’s My Line” which lasted for seventeen years and won several awards. Television was on a fast-paced roll numerically and technologically .
However, there was a more serious and perplexing problem developing that a newspaper article pointed out as printed throughout the nation in large papers to small weeklies along with a proposed solution. It appeared in the Utah papers in May of 1950 under the title “Though It May Not be Love at First Sight, Television and the Movies Must Get Married.” The article went on to say:
You night not think it to look at them, but the two big branches of show business are in
heavy trouble—movies and television broadcasting.
The movies, a business with plenty of product, is up against a rapidly shrinking audience,
and though some of the companies are still in the black, it's a cinch they won't be when there
are 10 million TV set in 10 million parlors. Judging by the financial pages, the people who
own the companies agree with me because most of the movie stocks are selling for less than
half of their 1946 quotations.
The television business, on the other hand, has a rapidly expanding audience but darned
little product worth looking at. And, as I see it, it isn't the fault of the TV tycoons—there
just isn't enough theatrical talent around to provide good live entertainment for the 800
half-hour shows which the networks must present each week.
In other words, unless something is done about it and pronto, one business will grow
more insolvent and the other more insipid.
Is there a solution? Of course, and like all good solutions it's a simple one: Television
must marry the movies, or vice versa . . . .i
To make the programming matter worse, the leading entertainment industries were in strong competition, watching out for their particular vested interest. The small screen TV had opponents who detested their presence and competition in the struggle for audience, and waged a contest against each other with such tactics as having contracts and agreements wherein that proscribe performer or productions made for the stage theater or movies from being part of televisions. There existed such a bias that notable stage performers or movie stars thought it degraded their position to stoop to lowly TV which many believed was a mere will-of-the-wisp that would never be more than a novelty. However, audience size and money were capable of changing minds and ways. By June of 1951 there were 13 million TV sets in the U.S. and the amount of money involved was enormous. The DuMont network aired a situation comedy (sitcom) “The Honeymooners” with Jackie Gleason, filmed before a live audience and received high ratings. It was picked up by CBS when DuMont folded. The genre sitcom was also shown in the “I Love Lucy” show that lasted through 1957. In early September there was the first coast-to-coast telecast. Also premiering were Amos & Andy, The Roy Rogers Show and Dragnet. Milton Berle, whose hosting of Texaco Star Theater dominated Tuesday night television from 1948, once topped the Nielsen rating with 80% share, had become “Mr. Television” (or “Uncle Miltie”) wherein he modeled the show structure and skits directly from his old vaudeville shows. In 1951 he received a large contract to do many shows that turned the heads of many in the anti-TV category or those primarily interested in the dollar. By the numbers (sets, viewers, money), television was growing fast and was here to stay. In 1952 NBC premiered the Today Show with Dave Garroway. In April the “I Love Lucy” show was cited as seen in 10.6 million homes, setting a record. On April 14th the FCC opened more UHF channels (14 through 83). In July the first international television hookup took place, and CBS first telecast the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Guiding Light premiered on CBS, this soap opera had began on radio in 1937, and became the longest-running regularly scheduled drama program in television history when it ended in 2009. Among a host of other shows that commenced were Adventures of Superman and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet on ABC.
The first political advertisements appeared on U.S. television when the Democratic Party bought a 30 minute time segment for their candidate, Adlai Stevenson in 1952. The Democrats, including candidate Stevenson, received unfavorable mail for interfering with a scheduled broadcast of I Love Lucy. Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower bought a 20 second commercial and won the election, and whether good, bad or in-between, politics had found television. By 1953 it was estimated that nearly half of the American homes had a television set (25,233,000 homes). On November 22nd the first program broadcast in RCA electronic compatible color with the showing of The Colgate Comedy Hour. The following year on January 1, 1954, the first national coast-to-coast colorcast took place with the broadcast of the “Tournament of Roses Parade” from Pasadena, California to twenty-one network stations. There were only 200 RCA electronic color television sets (Model 5 – experimental) able to view the show. In April RCA introduced its COLOR Television, with the sale of the CT-100, at $1,000 a set. Less than 5,000 sold the first year.
The technology was in place and improving, thereby, creating a growing audience, and hesitantly the programming stepped up and improved as well. In the early years the programming that dominated the two major networks was borrowed heavily from another entertainment medium—the theater. Both NBC and CBS presented some noteworthy and critically acclaimed dramatic anthologies such as Kraft Television Theater (1947), Studio One (1948), Playhouse 90 (1956) and The U.S. Steel Hour (1953) with most of them broadcast live. By the 1955-56 television season, fourteen of these live-drama anthology series were being broadcast, however by 1960 only one of these remained on the air. The old taboo or prejudices against television broke down as television rose to prominence in the field of entertainment, and there was a marriage arrangement between the movies and television. It would appear that viewers’ preferences favored productions that were possibly less literary, choosing situation comedies or lighter dramas with a familiar set of characters week after week. There still were some rocky and sorted times for the television industry, just to mention one—the widespread fixing of games shows.
At this point we will close the United States segment of the brief summary of the growth of television by citing some television numbers, statics not compiled prior to 1950, that show that the progress in the various states of the country were not even. The Commerce Department tracked the shipment of television sets shipped to dealers from manufacturing companies.
Shipment of TVs to Dealers by states. 1950-1953 :
1950 1951 1952 1953 *only ten months
Arizona 9,129 12,561 25,141 32,436
California 685,389 437,172 577,186 424,515
Colorado 6 64 98,216 59,979
Idaho 53 52 1,452 15,489
New York 1,235,763 776,419 736,956 500,054
Nevada 106 122 111 8,614
Utah 23,149 22,673 38,554 31,095
Wyoming 28 77 2,507 2,882
TOTAL 7,068,000 5,095,56 6,174,505 N/A [Totals were for all states.]ii
TELEVISION COMES TO UTAH
In regard to television set sales in the Intermountain West, this area was just awaking to the novelty of television as the 1950s started, and surprisingly Utah was in the lead over Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming and remained ahead of these states except Colorado through the statistical period covered by the chart. The efforts of countless amateurs in telegraphy gave rise to local radio clubs, and that in Utah, the Radio Club of Salt Lake started in September of 1909, was the first wireless club in the United States. The membership was primarily teenage boys, and they were among the first experimental broadcasters in the country to transmit voice and music over the air as the developing technology made such transmissions possible. All of these proved key stepping-stones during the fledging period, providing the economical and promotional backing, and in the long run provided the focus when it came to taking broadcasting to an even higher stage.
Television was an outgrowth of the techniques developed in (1) the transmission by wire of graphic materials;
(2) the utilization of the cathode-ray tube; (3) the perfection of the motion picture with its synchronized sound track; (4) radio broadcasting. There were many trials with improvements of devices, along with subsequent refinements.
As part of the story in Utah, after much preliminary work the first Utah radio station went on the air with a call and greeting in early May of 1922: “Hello, Hello, Hello. This is KZN, KZN, the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, KZN calling. Greetings. The Deseret News sends greeting to all of you far and wide! By means of this radio station, the Deseret News proposes to serve you daily with news bulletins, music, weather reports and other data of interest. Because of the opportunity of rendering further service, the Deseret News has constructed this big station. . . .”
Another Salt Lake newspaper, The Salt Lake Telegram, started the second radio station in Utah with call letters KDYL just two days later on May 8, 1922. Within two months a couple of more stations went on the air and by 1925 there were eleven in operation. But by 1930, the great depression had reduced the number of stations to
three— KZN (changed to KSL in 1925), KDYL and KFUR (now KLO)--and these three were backed by newspapers. In the beginning before the commercial feasibility of the radio, three newspapers, The Deseret News, Salt Lake Telegraph and the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, got interested in the radio as a promotional device to market their primary interest, their newspapers, by plenty of self-advertisement along with soliciting subscriptions,
give-aways, contests, etc. In time the radio proved profitable in and of itself. Until that point was reached the newspaper support in the early period was crucial in providing the economic and promotional backing, and in the long run provided the focus when it came to taking broadcasting to an even higher stage.iii
In the course of Utah's radio development an individual and a church corporation played significant roles which will be related in part. Sidney S. Fox, a rough, venturesome dreamer and flamboyant person with high aspirations, made his way to Salt Lake City from St. Louis and Denver. Fox was a colorful character with a wide range of interests and activities which could take a good sized book to cover, but encapsulated he wanted to be in show business some way and he was a promoter. In 1926 or 1927 he gained control of the radio station KDYL and sought to make the station a successful commercial enterprise with energy and daring. The other effort was by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) by way of some of its corporate organizations. The initial move was by the Church newspaper, the Deseret News, that started the first radio station in Salt Lake City (KZL changed to KSL), and shortly KSL was operated by another Church company the Radio Service Corporation of Utah wherein public service, Church promotion (news, sermons, conferences) along with financial investment and good old business sense. These two forces led the way for television coming to the area.
With Fox’s role it might be well to dip a bit into his story. He arrived at Denver at age seventeen for health reasons and found employment with a printing business where he sold business cards to prostitutes, and moved to working with a film distributor for two American motion pictures studios (Pathé and Selig Essenay) to secure theater contracts for their films. Later he set up an office in Denver for his film distribution business which had him in Salt Lake City frequently. In 1919 at the age of thirty Fox married a widow with five children and transferred his film distribution office to Salt Lake City In 1922 Fox and his wife moved to Los Angeles, California, bought a house and Fox became involved in real estate. When business slowed, his wife returned to Salt Lake City, while Fox went to Florida, hoping to profit from the real estate boom there. In 1925 he rejoined his wife in Salt Lake City and the following year he secured the capital to found the Miracle Diamond, Incorporated, a company which produced and marketed a laxative made from dried salt crystals from the Great Salt Lake. In addition he came up with the idea of producing a series of radio programs about actual real and famous diamonds to help market his Miracle Diamond laxative. He hired writers to research and write the radio scripts which resulted in twenty-six radio shows at a cost of $35,000. The complicated scheme involved the laxative, advertisement and even jewelers was a bit much for the Postal Department who shortly sent a notice to Fox concerning the advertisement and packaging of the miracle product. At this juncture Fox withdrew from the laxative business taking with him the 26 diamond programs which he marketed to some 700 radio stations across the country, not only recovering his investment but reaping a $7,000 profit.
At this point, in either 1926 or 1927, Fox was approached by Fred Proval, his stepson, who had a problem with
a struggling radio station. Proval was president and a large stockholder in the Intermountain Broadcasting
Corporation, which had taken over KDYL from the newspaper company that started the station. The new owners and operators had not been able to make the station profitable and were at a loss as to what to do. Fox agreed to
reorganize the broadcast corporation that operated the KDYL station and also used his ingenuity in the station's
advertising methods which brought profitability to the station. By the end of 1930 Fox and his wife owned
almost all of the outstanding stock in the corporation with the financial records showing a profit of $14,000 for the year and Fox responsible for the financial records of the radio station. Fox's salary and expenditures were frequently questioned by the Internal Revenue Service and necessitated much explaining, and this continued for several years. Fox’s ways and means of promoting were sometimes out of the normal but the companies paying for radio advertisement thought they worked and KDYL was one of Salt Lake’s more successful stations. While Sidney S. Fox had other business interests, ranging from the Oceanview Oil Corporation, Dufo Uranium Mining Company and gambling, the focus of this article will narrow to cover only the radio aspects as they led to television.iv
A glimpse of the situation in Utah during the period leading up to interest in the new medium of television
can be seen in some published articles in the newspapers to some degree as shown below:
March 2, 1928 - p. 8 under "TELEVISION."
For about $10,000 a television unit can be purchased. But those in the talking picture business
are not inclined to believe that television will become commonplace. Thelephone [sic- telephone]
officials say that there is no probibility [sic-probability] that it will become an adjunct for the
telephone. So the chances are, according to the authorities, that the world will get its television
instruction and entertainment at the movie houses at so much per seat.
--Manti Messenger (Manti, Ut.), Mar. 2, 1928.
June 29, 1928 - p. 5 under "Radio to be Good This Fall."
The radio fans of this section will be glad to note that . . . Salt Lake City is to have one of
the best radio stations in the U.S. . . .and K.S.L. will soon be hooked up bigger and better than
ever . . . . John N. Cope, Technical director of KSL, upon his return . . . from a visit to the
General Electric company's plant at Schenectady, N.Y. . . . Mr. Cope witnessed a demonstra-
tion of the television which was most astonishing and predicted it would be a matter of only
a very few years before this equipment comes into general use.
--The Garfield County News, June 29, 1928.
September 28, 1928 - p. 7 under “‘Going to the Movies’ While Sitting at Home.”
Going to the movies while sitting at home! Doesn't sound possible, does it? It not only
is possible but judging from a demonstration made in . . . Pittsburgh, Pa., recently, that
seeming miracle may soon become one of the commonplaces of our daily life.
Recently there gathered in the television laboratory of the Westinghouse Electric and
Manufacturing company a group of radio leaders among them representatives of the Radio
Corporation of American, the National Broadcast company, the General Electric Company
and the Westinghouse company, who saw motion pictures which broadcasted from a station
nearby and transmitted on radio waves were picked up on a receiver in the laboratory and
reproduced before their eyes. It has the world's first demonstration of radio movies and
possibly the most astounding of the many advances in the science of radio announced during
the past year.
While radio movies are still in the laboratory stage, Westinghouse officials, under whose
auspices the demonstration was made, declare that the event heralds the day when the radio
listener will sit at home and have that most popular form of entertainment motion pictures
projected by his individual radio receiving set. . . .
But the developments to radio during the past year, and especially this latest develop-
ment indicates that the word “impossible” is rapidly being written out of the vocabulary
of American electrical engineering genius and that radio movies for all who care to enjoy
them are am assured fact.
--The Davis County Clipper (Bountiful, UT.), Sept. 28, 1928.
November 3, 1933 - p. 7 under "TELEVISION'S STATUS."
Frankly, television as an industry is not near. Those engineers who have laid their cards
boldly upon the table by making public demonstrations of their sets have only succeeded in
showing us that television has not passed the experimental stage in their laboratories.
Others have contented themselves with the statement that television is not yet ready for
the public and have gone on steadily, with the patience of their kind, perfecting their appar-
atus without inviting the public's plaudits. Their stage of accomplishment exceeds anything
which has yet been revealed in public demonstration.
--The Davis County Clipper, Nov. 3, 1933.
Then the New York World's Fair commenced with a grand opening on April 30, 1939, and included promotions for television. RCA, the large radio corporation and a strong advocate for television, displayed a TV for the public to see along with an informative brochure for their dealers, explaining the concept of television and other exhibits displaying many of the technological innovations shown at the fair. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's welcoming speech was broadcast by the several radio nets, as well as televised along with other portions of the opening ceremony at the fair. The televised events were seen on black and white television sets with five-inch tubes as NBC used the fair opening to inaugurate regularly scheduled broadcast to New York City where it was estimated that around 1,000 people viewed the Roosevelt telecast on about 200 sets scattered throughout the New York area. As part of the exhibits at the fair and to convince the reality of it all to the skeptical visitors that no tricks were involved in the telecast, one of the TV sets was made with a transparent case so the internal components could be seen. Another exhibit showed the visitors where they could view themselves on television. At the same time on the other side of the country, the “Golden Gate International Exposition” was held in the San Francisco - Oakland area in California. Frequently called the 1939 World Fair as well, it also included television among its exhibits. With these formal and demonstrated introductions of television, the interest in the new medium greatly increased. According to a May 31, 1949 article in the Salt Lake Telegram under the title—“TELEVISION PIONEER: KDYL-TV Laid Plans For Video in ’39” and went on to say:
A concept for making Salt Lake City one of the pioneer cities in the nation for television
grew in the mind of S. S. Fox, president and general manager of the Intermountain Broad-
casting and Television Corp., 10 years ago--in 1939 when he first witnessed television
demonstrations at the New York and San Francisco world fairs.
Seeing television demonstrated for the first time, Mr. Fox and John M. Baldwin, vice
President and technical director for KDYL were so enthusiastic [sic] and saw such posse-
abilities for the new medium, that they immediately ordered a “jeep” television outfit, consist-
ing of equipment capable of demonstration but not telecasting, television.v
The “jeep” TV outfit (basically a television demonstration unit) acquired by KDYL consisted of one camera, a control unit, six receivers and a small closed circuit transmitter. The article went on to describe what took place with this equipment. In September of 1939, Fox had the equipment set up in the Paris Department store in Salt Lake City where for three days a closed circuit television experiment was held wherein 45,000 people watched the in-store demonstration. In the meantime the Utah State Fair had invited the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) and Fox’s radio station to give a grander television demonstration at the fair during September 14 through 21, 1939, providing more people the opportunity to see the exhibition and the latest in scientific achievement. Salt Lake City became the fourth city in the United States to have a public demonstration of television. This was repeated again for the 1940 Utah State Fair.vi By this time Sidney S. Fox and others were thoroughly convinced that there was a market for television. Fox, through his KDYL radio station, applied to the Federal Communication commission for a license to broadcast television in his area, and the FCC granted KDYL an experimental television license in 1941. The Salt Lake station made plans to modify or acquire the needed equipment for over the air use. However, the Japanese attacks in Pearl Harbor and the advent of World War II brought a halt to such plans. The War Production Board would not permit the manufacture or sale of television broadcasting equipment by regular manufacturers during the war; and there was also an acute shortage of manpower and materials. The work on KDYL’s television resumed after the war, and KDYL in November of 1946 was the first Utah television station to sign on under the experimental call sign W6XIS and began sending out from its transmitter the first test pattern televised by an independent station. The above cited newspaper article concluded its story saying:
This even caused a flurry of excitement in the television industry and focused national
industry attention on Salt Lake City. KDYL pushed ahead with the big job of building
studios, installing equipment and on April 19, 1948, KDYL's television officially went on
the air—the first television station between St. Louis and the Pacific coast. . . .
Commercial operation began July 9, 1948 as the station went on a five-night a week
Schedule and later in July the station's mobile unit was delivered, which made possible the
telecasting of events away from the studio. Salt Lake City television set owners then began
seeing a steady stream of athletic and news events televised from all over the city.
The first spectacle televised with KDYL-TV's new remote equipment was the Pioneer
parade last July 24. Boxing and wrestling matches, all home football and basketball games
of the University of Utah, baseball, the inauguration of a new governor—all have been
brought to KDYL-TV viewers during the past nine months and this policy of presenting all
possible remote events continues as a fundamental part of KDYL-TV's programming policy.vii
The “first regularly scheduled Television broadcast ever seen in Salt Lake City” was also the first commercial telecast in Utah. Both before and afterward it received much publicity in the newspapers and over the radio covering the details and claims such as “Only twelve other states have Television . . . only 19 other stations broadcast Television.” The grand opening broadcast on Monday evening April 19, 1948, at 8 p.m. from the “Television Playhouse” at 68 Regent Street in Salt Lake City, with the governor of the state, mayor of the city, president of the university and the president of the chamber of commerce giving addresses. With KDYL officials publicly announcing the station would have telecasts regularly at 8 p.m. each Monday, Wednesday and Friday with test programs daily Monday through Friday from 3 to 4 p.m. It hasn’t been ascertained what the “test programs” entailed beyond test patterns. The station stated that in the coming days the evening shows three days a week would contain “every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night at eight you'll see news events, sports events, civic events . . . you'll see and hear music, variety shows . . . you'll see TELEVISION . . . the miracle of this generation.” For the general public it was announced that - “Television can be seen at many local radio dealers.” The LDS Church’s large department store, ZCMI, had an advertisement in the form of an invitation that included the grand opening program and KDYL’s telecast schedule with the following note: “SEE TELEVISION broadcast tonight in our South Temple window. 8 to 8:45 p.m. COME IN And see the newest, finest developments in television instruments in our television department, Street Floor, east of Tea Room.” In addition, the public could see the test program at the Lyric Theater and several other businesses.viii
The television station, still officially designated as KDYL-W6XIS, maintained the limited programming for two and a half months until early July of 1948 when it expanded it telecasting to a five-day week schedule and the Monday through Friday operations would commence at 7:30 p.m. with the test pattern in the afternoon at 3:30 p.m.
The small incremental increases in telecast hours should be viewed from the prospectus of a new station finding its way in a situation where its viewing audience was still small. In addition the amount of readily available programming was limited and the sponsors buying air time had to see some value for their advertisement dollars. To help publicize the local KDYL station, owner Sidney S. Fox made arrangements with UpTown Theater in downtown Salt Lake City and Mountain States Distributors (the local agency for Packard-Bell radio and television sets) for a special talent quest would be televised from the theater’s stage on Tuesday evenings between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. for thirteen weeks beginning in early February of 1949. The half-hour talent show would also be shown to the theater audience along with the regular screen attraction at the regular price. Other aspects of this promotional package included TV sets at strategic places at the theater showing the telecasted talent show along with viewing the interworking of a televised production; and the various dealers of the sponsor kept their businesses open late with their TV sets on for those wanting to see the show, and hopefully interested in purchasing a TV set. For Fox and KDYL it was probably a win-win situation as they had created thirteen weeks of televised entertainment with the sponsor paying for the air time and provided opportunity for more TV sets to be sold. The dealers of television had learned early that the more exposure to the television viewing the public had, the better for their business; thus, the TV sets were on inside and if possible some facing the business’s front to collect the curious and interested to see what was available.ix
Meanwhile there were movements in behalf of another television station in Salt Lake City. Starting later than Fox’s television activities this group, when joined with the Fox television competition, allowed the boast: “Salt Lake Takes Lead in Television.” This competitor was the Mormon Church headed by men such as John C. Cope, Earl J. Glade and Ivor Sharp through several LDS named companies. The Church newspaper led the way by starting the first radio station in Salt Lake City in 1922 and renamed KSL. In radio KDYL and KSL were the two top competitors in the state and with KDYL moving into commercial television in mid-April of 1948, the Church owned KSL was determined to not be left behind. Previously KSL had taken small steps which somewhat mirrored Sidney S. Fox’s first moves toward television. The LDS Church acquired the needed equipment to use closed circuit television, and the Church’s general conference sessions of April 1948, October 1948 and April of 1949 televised the proceedings in their tabernacle and carried by coaxial cable to the nearby assembly hall and shown on a number of receivers. Initially the desire to provide more seating space for the semi and annual conferences of the Church may have been a prime concern of the Church purchasing the TV equipment. In February of 1949, the same closed circuit equipment was used to televise some surgical operations at the LDS Hospital with the procedure piped to two conference rooms where local medical personnel viewed the operations on video screens. This telecasting was regarded as very successful from an academic and instructional standpoint. Later in 1949 the KSL television equipment was set up in the large ZCMI department store where for four months intra-store telecasts were made to seven video screens located throughout the store. By this practice and outside training several of the KSL staff had considerable experience with television. Because of the advent of commercial television, the various demonstrations and advertisement of TV sets sales began increasing significantly, whereby, according to television distributors, there were “approximately 4200 receivers in the Salt Lake valley on May 6” of 1949.x
Earlier KSL had applied to the FCC for a license to establish a TV station, and in June of 1948 they were granted their permit and were assigned channel 5. KSL effected a network affiliation agreement with the Columbia Broadcasting System along with the provision that they could carry programs of the new American Broadcasting Company and the DuMont network. For Salt Lake’s second television station, KSL bought some $250,000 worth of new equipment with a target date of June 1, 1949, to go on the air with an evening program of more than two hours. The transmitter and antenna for KSL-TV were placed on top of the Union Pacific Railroad building in Salt Lake City. The equipment and studio were housed on the seventh floor of the building, which necessitated much remodeling. Because of the great size of some of the equipment, a hole had to be cut in the roof of the building to get it into the building after being hoisted to the top of the structure and lowered into place. Engineers from General Electric and DuMont worked in conjunction with the station’s engineers to set up the new station which the local newspaper called “one of the finest in the country.” This had KSL-TV radiate 18,300 watts of power, which it was thought would provide television coverage throughout the whole Salt Lake valley along with some points north and south depending upon the terrain. Although KDYL-TV had been airing television for almost a year, the new KSL station was a welcomed addition. With channel 4 and 5 assigned, three other radio stations wanted to join the boom of television and applied for channels 2, 7 and 9. These applications had to wait as the FCC had more applications for channels than were available, necessitating a thorough study by the FCC. A third Utah station came in 1954 with KUTV on channel 2.xi
Beginning on May 31, 1949, a printed program schedule was published in some of the local newspapers with the first as follows:
KSL-TV PROGRAM SCHEDULE – Salt Lake City - Channel 5
SUN. 7:45 P.M. - Test Pattern--News Summary - Program Resumes
8:00 P.M. - "Fifty-fourth Street Little Show" - Variety review direct from Broadway - CBS Film
9:00 P.M. - "Fred Waring Show" - General Electric - CBS Film
10:00 P.M. - Weather Forecast and News Summary
10:05 P.M. - SIGN OFF
MON. 7:30 P.M. - Test Pattern - News Summary - Program Resumes
7:45 P.M. - "Lucky Pup" - Popsicle - Bunin Puppet - CBS Film.
8:00 P.M. - "Tele News" - Up-to-the-minute newsreel of latest happenings around the world
8:10 P.M. - "Little Circus"
8:15 P.M. - "Ukulele Ike" - CBS Film
8:30 P.M. - "Growing Paynes" - Family situation comedy - DuMont Film
9:00 P.M. - Education-Vocation Film
9:30 P.M. - Weather Forecast and News Summary
9:35 P.M. - SIGN OFF
TUE. 7:30 P.M. - Test Pattern - News Summary - Program Resumes
7:45 P.M. - "Lucky Pup" - Bunin Puppets - CBS Film.
8:00 P.M. - "Hollywood Screen Test" - ABC Film
8:30 P.M. - "Swing Into Sports" - Johnny Farrel - National Golf Professional
9:00 P.M. - "Boxing Match" - direct from New York -outstanding sports feature - DuMont Film
10:00 P.M. - Weather Forecast and News Summary
10:05 P.M. - SIGN OFF
WED. 7:30 P.M. - Test Pattern - News Summary - Program Resume
7:45 P.M. - "Lucky Pup" - CBS Film
8:00 P.M. - "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" - Chesterfield - Musical Variety - CBS Film.
9:00 P.M. - "Television Today"
9:30 P.M. - Weather Forecast and News Summary
9:45 P.M. - SIGN OFF
THURS. 7:30 P.M. - Text Pattern - News Summary - Program Resume
7:45 P.M. - "Lucky Pup" - Bunin Puppets - CBS Film
8:00 P.M. - "Tele News" - Up-to-the-minute newsreel of latest happenings around the world
8:15 P.M. - "Ukelele Ike" - CBS Film
8:30 P.M. - "Hollywood Screen Test" - ABC Film
9:00 P.M. - Address, Pres. J. Reuben Clark
9:10 P.M. - "Film Variety"
9:30 P.M. - Weather Forecast and News Summary
9:35 P.M. - SIGN OFF
FRIDAY -- OFF THE AIR
SAT. 7:45 P.M. - Test Pattern - News Summary - Program Resume
8:00 P.M. - Western Film, featuring John Wayne
9:00 P.M. - "Tele News" - Up-to-the-minute newsreel of latest happenings around the world
9:20 P.M. - "Film Variety"
9:30 P.M. - Weather Forecast and News Summary
9:35 P.M. - SIGN OFF
All of the offered programming was in the evening for around two hours, starting with a test pattern that included a news summary which was likely spoken while the test pattern was being shown after which in the station’s
vernacular, the “Program Resume” or more understandable they began the day’s telecasting of programs. A close look at the shows sometimes reveals the primary sponsor and the source by which the Salt Lake station obtained the material—such as CBS via film which was shipped to Utah because their connection with the network was not yet established by wire or radio-television waves over the air. The local station also had agreements with the American Broadcast Company and the DuMont network, and used material from those sources. In KDYL-TV’s early broadcasting, they had no telecasting on Saturday and Sunday, but by June of 1949, those two weekend days had television. KSL-TV had programming on each day of the week except for Friday, when they were “off the air” all day. Much of the programing was of short duration with the weather forecast and news getting little time by today’s standards. The local stations also had live telecasts from their studio or the place where some event was televised, such as the Thursday 9:00 p.m. address of Pres. J. Reuben Clark of the LDS Church First Presidency. Basically the television station signed on the air with its test pattern and at the close they formally signed off, often before 10 P.M. and rarely later than 10:05 P.M.xii
With two stations in Utah, a larger audience with more TV sets and more programming available by the two supporting networks (NBC and CBS) there would be further expansion of available television viewing both in days and hours during each day. Assuredly, the 4200 TV sets in the Salt Lake valley in early May of 1949 saw a significant increase. The westward extension of the networks had reached Chicago and was expected to move on to Des Moines, Iowa, by late 1950 with plans to go on to Denver, Salt Lake City and then the Pacific coast by 1953. Saturday and then Sunday came into the viewing schedule and earmarked for specific consideration according to the viewing audience. The initially two to two and one-half hours of evening television was tied to when the family would be available to sit down after work and the evening meal. With a larger audience, more shows and more money for air time, the old evening viewing concept went away and the times for TV viewing extended. The newer television sets had built in aerials, allowing 80% of the viewers in the Salt Lake Valley up through 1949 to receive the TV signal form the television stations without external antennas, as least so claimed the advertisements in the Salt Lake newspapers. The others within transmission range would have to use the “rabbit ears” antenna place on top of the TV set or install an outside antenna. The vast number of television sets along with the number of manufacturers brought the price of TV sets down, and most of the dealers had easy-to-pay installment plans for customers. Before long rooftop antennas became common on Utah homes.xiii
Another key factor was the performers who would appear on the small screen. With the advent of commercial TV, there developed two sides in strict competition with each other that often involved contracts wherein a performer on the big screen couldn’t participate on the small screen, and vice versa. This rivalry waged for a few years even though critics on both sides warned that the two performing groups had to find some accommodation. One of the important criticism came in May of 1951, as cited earlier in the article— “Though it May Not be Love at First Sight, Television and the Movies Must Get Married.” But, it took time to bring this about and it involved money and the number of viewers in each medium to help turn the tide. On May 31, 1949, an article entitled “Big Time TV Just ‘Round The Corner,’” appeared in the newspapers (including many in Utah) under a dateline of Hollywood projecting the future outlook for TV, including the possibility that by the coming fall season some big time names would join “Milton Berle, Arthur Godfrey, Perry Como and other air stars who have already leaped into the field” of television. It was guessed that the top television talent would come “from the industry’s older brother, radio.” It listed a quick summary of those who might jump to TV as follows: Those ready to jump to TV—Eddie Cantor, Amos 'n' Andy, Burns and Allen, Jack Benny (happy with his debut on a local TV show), Bing Crosby (plans a TV show but might wait a year), Bob Hope, Red Skelton (his M-G-M contract keeps him off until Dec. 1952), Screen Guild Players contract prevented or hindered others such as Jimmy Durante (tied to a M-G-M contract), Edgar Bergan (who plans a few shows in 1949 and a regular in fall of 1950), while Al Jolson, Ozzie & Harriet, Dennis Day, Judy Canova were all watching the situation and may start in the fall. The article mentioned two radio shows by name that were assessing their situation, Duffy's Tavern was interested but might wait until the fall of 1950, while Truth or Consequences, which had done one show on TV, would wait until Kinescoping (the process of filming a TV show) was better or coast-to-coast televising was possible.xiv
Many of the television watchers, the wish-we-had and critics, developed a dialogue and jokes in a sort of love-hate relationship for the new television that went on for several years. An editorial in a county newspaper in Utah had this 1949 observation: “Asked about his television set, a local man said the set works better than the program. It is going to take the program artists some time to catch up with television.”xv Certainly the TV programming was severely criticized as to quality and the performers were often has-been vaudevillians, trying to rehash their old acts. A more optimistic view came from a man in Davis County expressing his view: “Television, a local man says, reminds me of the first movie I saw back in 1893. It had a lot of ‘rain’ and flicker in it but the movies have been wonderfully improved since. If television makes as much improvement in the next sixty years as did the movies it will become a great medium of entertainment.”xvi His sixty year projection would have carried to 2009. Another 1949 scrutiny regarding the issue as to “Good or Bad Television” stated: “LIVING-ROOM SQUAT--Television is developing a race of sitters--a vast, immovable population of living-room squatters, as it were. In all areas of the county where video has come into play, great masses of people are ‘settin’ glued around the set, ascribed and silent, neglecting small talk, books, papers and even the racing results. The decline in conversation at house parties in television belts had become alarming. Guests hardly speak to one another or to the hostess. Whole evenings are spent in which ‘come in’ and ‘good night’ sum up the total exchange of words.”xvii It hardly took a prophet, soothsayer or wise man to predict that it could get worse before it would get any better. Finally, another 1949 opinion by Walter Kierman, an American author, radio, television, and print journalist, stated:
There are some complaints that television is getting a little raw, but Miss Gypsy Rose
Lee was on the other night and didn't even take off her hat.
Television is not getting raw so much as it's getting dull . . . Even Berle is going away
for two weeks to escape his own program.
And if TV doesn’t improve, the 70 per cent of the country that doesn't have it may
find it dead on arrival if it ever gets there.
But it has done what no one ever thought was possible . . . Lost more money in less
time than grand opera.”xviii
Perhaps all true, but lest we forget or ignore the fact that starting back near the beginning when television was merely a concept in the minds and roughly sketched on papers, it moved through 1946 when in the U.S. only one-half of one percent of households had a television set and then fast forward eight years to 1954 when over 55.7% of households in the U.S. had a television set, and today when the average American home has between two and three TV sets, something remarkable took place, and along the way someone had to pay the price. In addition, all from viewers, performers and critics were too close to the trees to see the forest or how much and deep TV’s effect on our culture and way of life.
For television in Utah at this time, the next logical move for the television stations was to increase the geographical area of their telecasts. This was a problem that had been under study for many years by the television pioneers, individuals and companies. One of the ideas made the Utah newspapers several times. In the Salt Lake Telegram issue of April 15, 1948, an article predicted that television and, with a probable assist from “stratovision,” would develop and exceed the large radio industry now in place. Quoting an officer from the Westinghouse Electric Supply Company of New York the article stated: “We expect great developments in television . . . . We also are experimenting with stratovision—the broadcast of televised programs from air liners hovering high in the sky—and are optimistic about this development.” This soaring “stratovision” concept would need time, much refinement and more technological advancements but eventually came as satellite TV. However, the two television stations in Salt Lake City were also looking for ways and means to expand their coverage in a closer to earth approach of mountaintop telecasting. KDYL-TV’s original transmitting tower was placed on top of the Walker Bank Building and KSL-TV transmitting facility was on top of the Union Pacific Building in Salt Lake City. These elevated transmitters were adequate to begin with for coverage in the Salt Lake Valley; even the lofty antenna on New York’s Empire State Building worked well within a radius of 55 miles and under the best of conditions could be received upwards of a hundred miles or more.xix
Both TV stations decided to place their transmitters on a high mountain and began a search of
the best location. More details are known of KSL's efforts so what is known will be briefly traced. While one
report had KSL as early as 1946 having a crew in the Oquirrh (pronounced O-Ker) Mountains at the west edge of the Salt Lake Valley checking out the best mountain in the range. In theory the high mountains west of the city appeared to be the choicest site, and later the station erected temporary transmitters to test the coverage potential of the surveyors' selected locations. The site chosen was a 9,054 foot summit named Coon Peak, later named Farnsworth Peak, where, at the time the nation's highest TV transmitter would be constructed. If the claimed 1946 date was correct, the survey may have been more closely tied to radio than to television. By 1949 the high mountain top was officially selected and the first order of business was to make a road to the peak. Making the road was extremely difficult and slowly achieved due to limited funding wherein the station's surveyor and his crew doubled as road builders, using some rented equipment and war surplus. This first road came to the peak from the western side by a northern approach and contained grades as much as 25 to 30 percent. When progress on the road moved so slowly, other ways were considered such as a mine shaft or tunnel and even a tramway. Finally in 1952 KSL bought an abandoned tramway from a mining company in Ketchum, Idaho, for $50,000, tore it down and had a Salt Lake construction company install the tramway using seven towers on the western slope. KSL claimed it expended another $300,000 to finish the steep roadway making it ready for use. The sand and gravel for the cement had to be mixed at the high site and cost five times the amount of cement in the valley. It was a big and difficult job to get all the materials up to the peak. A special insulated steel building was constructed to house the equipment and workers. The steel for the transmitter had to be specially made in Seattle, Washington, because it had to withstand temperatures down to 40 degrees below zero without becoming brittle and breaking. It took the entire summer construction season of 1952 to erect the building and transmitter.
In regard to KDYL-TV, its original transmitting tower was placed on the top of the Walker Bank Building in
downtown Salt Lake City. To upgrade their coverage they selected a peak of over 8,900 foot west of the city in the Oquirrh Mountains with the peak later called Mount Vision. The construction work was completed and the television equipment ready for service by the fall of 1952. Their facility was just over three miles from KSL’s trans-mitter. A weekly Utah newspaper noted that the Utah Power and Light Company construction crews were rushing completion of two power lines to serve new television transmitters atop the Oquirrh Mountains in early October of 1952 so the two television transmitters could be put into service that fall. Both KDYL-TV and KSL-TV stated they would be able to provide service to an expanded area by their mountain top equipment in mid-November of 1952.xx In a November 7, 1952, issue of a Manti newspaper it was reported:
The new transmitter will bring seven Utah counties into a "Class A" coverage, which means
they will receive a television picture as good as the one now being received in Salt Lake City.
These Class A counties include, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Wasatch, Tooele, Morgan and Utah.
Residents of Sanpete, Box Elder, Cache, Rich, Duchesne, Summit, Juab and Carbon counties
will fall in a "Class B" coverage area. This means that they should have what the television men
describe as a "Good" picture.
Television reception in the counties of Millard, Sevier, Emery, Grand and Uintah will be
possible with the installation of higher aerials, according to reports. These will be in what is
usually called a "fringe" area.xxi
The results of the early tests of the new transmitters were clouded, perhaps by the reluctance of the two television stations to acknowledge failures or successes short of their optimistic projections. Enough information or rumors leaked out that in some areas of the state that something special in way of a test would take place on Election Day, November 4, 1952. On that day the expectation at Manti had the TV dealers and others huddled around TV sets all day into the might. No transmitted pictures were received that the local newspaper had heard about, thus the local newspaper could only publish the following statement: “The good, bad or indifferent reception in this area should soon be known . . . as regular broadcast begin within a couple of weeks.” There seemed to be a frenzy of competition to be the first, especially among businesses involving television sets, by placing up to 60 foot antennas in hope of getting a good picture signal. The competitive spirit finally boiled down to what constituted a good acceptable picture. At Manti, about ten days after the no signal on election day test, they received a picture where none had been seen previously that was described as somewhat “snowy.” Apparently there were some contenting discussions as to the quality of the pictures, to some it was just poor while others saw it as acceptable in which some interference created the snowy picture, which might be cured by adjusting the antenna or delicate tuning of the set. In some areas wherein television had been received prior to the mountaintop broadcasting, the discussion centered on whether the new signals were better or “not noticeable improved,” or “practically the same as on the old signal.”xxii While the argument over quality of picture continued, it was beyond question that many areas now received the television signal for the first time. On November 28, 1952, The Manti Messenger proclaimed:
Television is getting better in Manti. The local sets mostly brought in a rather sorry
picture when the new towers were first starting to beam television out this way, but they all
seem to be improving. In fact, there are sets in Manti bringing a good picture with few dim-
outs or such troubles. If the reception keeps improving, or if it can be kept constant with the
quality received here at intervals, there will no doubt be a lot of Television sets given as
Christmas gifts.xxiii
Furthermore, the same newspaper issue gave an account of asking a man from Richfield in adjacent Sevier County (less than fifty miles away) how television was being received in his area and in response the man gave a “top answer.” “He said it's like looking at a movie while bouncing on a pogo stick and looking through a venetian blind.” Sanpete County (Ephraim and Manti) were placed in the Class B category with Sevier County in the fringe area, but reception areas couldn’t be confined to neat geographical lines of the boundaries of counties. Distance, while important, wasn’t always the main factor as often mountains were the more important element. This was illustrated in small Morgan County that shared a border with Salt Lake County. The local newspaper in its issue of November 21, 1952, advised its readers that this county could now get television, ending fears that its surrounding high mountains would prevent this, and the “Reception is almost unbelievable good.” A week later, the paper reported that TV had not reached the community of Devils Slide (less than 20 miles away) with neither picture nor sound, leaving “a great many disappointed people” there. Morgan County had been categorized as in a Class A where the television picture was supposed to be as good as the one received in Salt Lake City—for some yes and for others nothing. Most of the Class A and B areas were able to receive better reception as both channels 4 and 5 could be viewed, but there were exceptions. In the so called “fringe” areas, there was only spotty reception and it was poor quality in some areas with more where nothing could be viewed. With the advent of mountaintop broadcasting in the latter part of November of 1952, the available TV audience was greatly increased; however, there were a multitude disappointed that they could not have any television.xxiv
After less than three weeks of operation, the KSL-TV mountaintop transmitter on December 5th was put out of order when high winds in the mountains toppled the 370 foot transmitting tower. According to the station within twelve minutes they were back on the air using a stand-by transmitter in down town Salt Lake City, with trans-mission reverting to the coverage before the introduction of the mountain top transmitter. For sixteen days this service was available until a temporary one-bay transmitter was placed in operation. This in turn was replaced by a new three-bay RCA antenna situated atop a 65 foot mast put into service January 10. In an associated news release KSL-TV reported that on information received from viewers the new facility was “equal or better” than the signal from the higher 370 foot transmitter. Still, station officials were considering plans for a higher tower pending reaction from the present signal and, if necessary, would be accomplished once the weather permitted. The brief experience of the station’s high tower broadcasts didn’t provide enough data or protests of losing the station’s signal to determine the next steps to be taken, but there were sufficient disappointments throughout the several reception classifications A, B, and fringe areas that time and studies were needed. KSL-TV, in particular and probably KDYL-TV as well, were called to investigate why certain locations were not receiving the television signals that was hoped for and wanted. The two television stations at Salt Lake City did not have a ready solution; KSL-TV did increase the height of its new transmitting facilities, and both stations could fine tune and improve their equipment but the real problem was distance and mountains, and the solution came by a combination of improved technology, regulation changes by the FCC and a series of local initiatives to get television into areas receiving either no TV signal or poor qualify pictures.xxv To expand the range or to improve the pictures of the signals from the Salt Lake City stations it was discovered that relay station or translators could be utilized to repeat or transpond the signal of television stations to expand the coverage of the originating station beyond its primary signal's coverage area and improve the service. In essence the translator station was a miniature television transmitter that repeats the original signal, thus providing coverage for areas outside the range of the home television station transmitter. These translators could be multiple or used in conjunction with a land line of coaxial cable to carry the TV signal.xxvi
Three archetypal examples will be sketched to show how television came into these fringe areas. First, Iron County with its largest community of Cedar City seemed representative of many areas of Utah. In the early months of 1952 all the discussion of an expansion of TV within Utah stirred an interest by the residents of the area, and their concerns were basically met by the message—there would be no television coverage in their area. Some residents from Cedar City directly contacted KSL-TV about this and received a little encouragement when told that possibly when the mountain top transmitter can into operation they could get the signal. Sure enough on November 27, 1952, the local newspaper The Iron County Record stated that “The Albert Geigers of Desert Mound report receiving television broadcast at their home this week.” This report was a rare exception as most of Iron County remained without television for over three more years. Late in 1955 local leaders asked for a field engineer of KSL-TV to assess their situation first hand. The engineer surveyed the location and could only suggest that piping in the signal or wait for direct signal from an improving Las Vegas station. By now the Cedar City Chamber of Commerce was taking the lead in pursuing a solution and they initially came up with two proposals. The first service was to bring three channels into the area and charge a service fee to connect to the TV, the second was to establish a local television station offering one channel affiliated with CBS. As there were details, fees and legal matters to be considered, the chamber brought the matter before the Cedar City Council for a public hearing. The two proposals were soon raised to three and possibly a fourth by November 24, 1955, as the local newspaper reported:
Three or four different proposals for bringing television to Cedar City have been brought before the City Council during recent months, and for the most part has caused only confusion in settling the numerous problems that have been created. Each proposal has involved some type of council consideration, particularly those proposals that have involved “piping” television to homes, thus creating the necessity of obtaining easements over streets and alleys.xxvii
Some of the confusion was lifted enough that in late December after a week of bitter debate and arguments between rival firms proposing to bring in television by various way and means, Cedar City signed an agreement with Trans-Community Television Network to bring “Pay-as-you-see” television service to the community. The company accepted was not one of the first two offers, but a newer offer that would bring in only one channel connected to NBC. Therefore, they did not get an exclusive agreement and the city was free to accept other offers. The work of wiring the city for the service was started December 28, 1955 and by March 1, 1956, some 90% of Cedar City were wired. The residents were pleased to get TV but were not satisfied with a single channel, so in time and in a piece-meal fashion all three television networks finally became available in the area.xxviii
Central Utah’s Emery County has a small population that ranged from 6,300 in 1950 down to 5,546 in 1960 where livestock and farming were the mainstay of the economy, notwithstanding a short boom in uranium and another in mining coal. In regards to electronic entertainment in August of 1955, besides the radio, there was a bright idea by The National Committee for Betterment of the Uranium Industry wherein a movie starlet was chosen as “Miss Geiger County” and participated in a number of radio and TV appearances and interviews with Los Angeles news- paper men and writers for national magazines. All the show and glow action was in southern California with only a small article for the local newspapers in the Emery County. The same newspaper in January of 1956 told of a newspaper philosopher, “The Old Prospector,” who contended against the experts who were predicting that in the next half century there would be more improvements and they would come faster than during the past fifty years. The old sage responded: “when I think about cars, highways, planes, movies, home appliances, air-conditioning and television, I just don’t see it would be possible to top the overall record in the next fifty years.” Meanwhile, the residents of Emery County were in their dark ages in regard to television as the intervening mountains prevented television from the Salt Lake City stations except in a few locations. A limited attempt was made in 1956 to somehow pipe in TV via cable from a reception area but it didn’t materialize. A more ambitious project was soon undertaken by a group of prominent citizens to place a TV receiver on the rim of Horn Mountain where a good signal was available and then rebroadcast the signal to the Castle Valley residents. The promoters of the idea sought funding from the public by asking that every family that wanted television contribute $30 in cash plus an equal amount of labor, and by this means the necessary equipment was purchased and mostly installed by volunteers. The FCC changed some of its regulations allowing the translating of VHF signals to UHF frequencies for rebroadcast but the licensing was slower than the actual construction. The receiving and translator site was located five miles from Orangeville but sat atop a high escarpment in which the upper third was a sheer cliff. The estimate from the Utah Power and Light Company to provide an electrical line to the site was way beyond the group's capacity to pay, but undeterred they took on the construction of the power line with volunteers planting the poles and stringing the wire across the challenging terrain. By late 1956 the power line was completed and two translator units installed but the FCC license had not been approved. At that point KSL-TV station used its broadcasting license to provide temporary TV service. The first continuous transmission took place in early February 1957, and in May the FCC testing permit was granted. Shortly, the translator was functioning under the control of the local promoters. Once the system was functioning, the county commission agreed to levy a small recreation tax for its maintenance. In April of 1958 a third translator was placed in operation to provide all three Salt Lake City network stations. To provide television to more of the county additional translators had to be installed.xxix
Another multi-translator location was at Garfield County (population in 1950 of 4,510 down to 3,577 in 1960) with its county seat and the most populated town of Panguitch (with a population of fewer than 1,500 in the mid-1950s). Due to its location television didn’t come until the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the summer of 1957 a party of concerned citizens began to investigate how they could obtain TV. They went to Marysvale in Piute County some fifty miles away and discovered that theTV was “the best ever seen in the state with three channels being brought in perfectly.” Soon the Panguitch Lions Club came to lead this effort with their representatives prowling the nearby hills until they found a “very good” TV reception location for all three channels on Five Mile Mountain, and to confirm their instruments reading, someone in the examining party climbed a tall tree and saw the town of Panguitch in view. The club appropriated an additional $250 of funds to continue the TV investigation and a local store owner promised that by the time TV arrived in town, he would have television sets available for sale. The Lions sought the help of television engineers from Cedar City (located just across the mountains about forty miles away), and learned the equipment that was needed along with the necessity of using a portable generator until electric power was available. Apparently the engineer placed an order for an aerial tower. The local newspaper, after waiting five years for some good television news, couldn’t be restrained as it announced on November 7, 1957, “that TV is nearly an accomplished fact for Panguitch.” Two weeks later came the details that the Lions Club had ordered a booster (translator) to be placed on Five Mile Mountain, and “If the unit works out favorable, the Lions Club will make a drive to place electric power to the unit on a permanent basis. If the project is successful the Lions Club will request that the City underwrite the erection of the line with the Telluride Power Co., and assume the operation of the unit.” However, the city council would not commit in advance but said they would hold a special council meeting after the system was tested before making a decision.xxx
The service club initiated a host of fund raising projects to raise money for this enterprise including a basketball tourney and a large raffle in which the local Lions Club had as the grand prize a television set with the winner to be drawn on Christmas Eve. A road was bulldozed to the Five Mile location, the antenna tower erected and the remaining equipment brought to the site to be installed by the engineer. It had been hoped that the first TV would be available by that time, and the equipment was set up in time and ready. The receiving equipment obtained good reception, but when they attempted to re-transmit the signal to Panguitch there was a “feed-back” difficulty that couldn’t be corrected. The tower was relocated closer to the town but the feedback problem persisted and required study by experts. The Christmas of 1957 passed before the problem was resolved, and then on New Year’s Day of 1958 there were reports of good reception for only channel 4, enabling those interested to enjoy the Wednesday evening fights on their TVs. The struggle for TV turned into a series of troubles which continued well into 1958, which only a few will be highlighted such as trying to bring in other channels, the gasoline generator used needed to be replaced with one more powerful and required less personal attention, and they needed to make their television reception facilities of a more permanent nature with a regular power supply. As these troubles developed it became evident that money was the biggest problem which the local newspaper announced in its leading byline: “T.V. Brought to Panguitch: Help Needed Now to Pay For It.” This was followed by many stories and explanations including this item: “Perhaps it may be well to point out that there are other communities in the State with several times our population who have paid up to $150 per family for hook-up with TV and between $3.50 up to $7.50—per month for maintenance charges.” The Lions Club was active but couldn’t provide all the needed funds even after almost all clubs and organized groups in and around the community contributed to the cause. Finally, the decision was made to ask each family in the town to contribute $25 to this community project, and a door to door campaign followed. It became evident in many cases where communities, counties or other groups undertook bringing in television that the voluntary contributions were inadequate to finance these projects and continue to maintain them. The Utah State legislature provided a law wherein the local governing unit could assess an entertainment tax to help pay for these services. In certain fringe areas of the state, television would not be free and the available pay TV could become expensive.xxxi
However, progress and technology were moving forward as a network of telecommunication began to be built across the county that included a chain of microwave radio relays towers. Science had found a way to broadcast TV signals over the new section of air waves as well as for telephone service. This was preparing an important foundation for the spread of television. The first use of the microwave system in Utah came in the Moab area of Grand County, where its geographic location in a valley that was surrounded by high cliffs made normal television reception impossible and wasn’t conducive for service via translators. In 1954 a restrictive cable system was offered customers with filmed programs but was expensive and very limited. Then a modified booster system was installed on the northeast slope of the La Sal Mountain which proved unreliable due to bad weather, impassible road and few resources made the service poor for about one hundred subscribers. On the last day of 1958 the FCC closed the service due to a technicality ruling prohibiting the operation of a radio station and a television booster by the same corporation. Two business partners purchased the assets of the former company including the wire system to one hundred customers and later they were incorporated as Town Television, Incorporated. The new business studied the possibility of forming an alliance with Midland Telephone Company of Moab to solve the television problems at Moab. A new microwave link had recently been completed at Cedar Mountain, and now the plan was to form a sub-link from this point to near Moab. Application was made with the FCC, which involved Midland Telephone Company requesting the status of a common carrier. Essential physical facilities were constructed at Cedar Mountain and at the proposed receiving point three miles from Moab, much of it before the FCC approved and issued a license for this operation. The authorization came on May 11, 1960, and the system was made operational. This
entailed a microwave signal being received at Cedar Mountain from the Salt Lake transmitters, and this signal in turn fed into the microwave transmitter of Midland Telephone whereby their dish antenna beamed the signal to the Moab station where another dish antenna receives the signal. It was them converted to a television wave which was delivered to Town Television which delivered the pictures via its cable system to its customers. By June of 1960 over 500 homes were being served “satisfactorily pictures” from the three network channels. A year later they were serving over 900 patrons, making Town Television Corporation the largest community antenna television system in the state, according to the local newspaper of June 29, 1961, and the “only CATV system to utilize microwave transmission for their signal.”xxxii
With the translators and microwave systems over 80% of Utah was able to receive television prior to the adding of another option with the launching of Telstar in 1962 and other relay satellites. It was reported that Utah had
the most expansive terrestrial-analog network in the world, encompassing some 600 analog stations. Usually by community initiative translators were employed to expand the coverage area of television, but eventually the three Salt Lake television stations became involved with this network of community-owned translator operations—KSL-TV connected or owned 115 that stretched across Utah and into five adjacent states. KDYL-TV (now KTVX) came to have connections with 100 of the community-owned translators. The third channel KUTV placed its transmitter on Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains also had arrangements or agreements with 100 translators. With the switch to digital television those numbers probably have changed. There would be some small clashes in Utah related to the state law allowing counties to impose a tax to help finance the community initiated translator operation. For example, in 1965 Duchesne County passed a television ordinance that imposed a $12 a year license fee which the local newspaper reported that about ninety per cent of the citizens paid but there were dissenters who took the county to court over the matter in early 1966. Later in 1966 the district court ruled that the ordinance imposing the TV license fee was legal and binding. Still, collecting the television license fee remained a problem, and the county used notices in the newspaper threatening further legal action if this tax was not paid.xxxiii
Bringing television to most of Utah didn’t come cheap, easy or relatively swift, but took almost two decades to bring in the fringe areas. By that time Utah had three television stations affiliated with three main networks and a four fourth channel was beginning it way for public television. There would be more changes and improvements such as the introduction of color, cable TV, satellite TV and the FCC opening up the number of channels. The last item dropped the policy of having the restricted 12 channels in the very high frequency band and expanding VHF and opening up the UHF band spectrum that would permit up to 70 channels and offer licenses to nearly 2,000 new stations that would allow private enterprises in the towns and cities to join in the great television enterprise that was spreading across the country. Television during that time moved with amazing speed from a novelty to become the main medium for molding public opinion and a huge and growing business giant. Its impact was so great that the world would never be the same after the advent of television.
Foot Notes
i The Garfield County News, May 11, 1950 and The Manti Messenger, May 12, 1950.
ii "RETMA [Radio-Electronics-Television Manufacturers Association] Estimates of (USA Black & White Sets) Shipment of TVs to Dealers by States, 1950-1953,” can be found in Television History - The First 75 Years, under "Stats-Facts" on the Internet.
iii Tim Larson and Robert K. Avery, “Utah Broadcasting History,” Utah History Encyclopedia, The University of Utah. KZN: The Birth of Radio in Utah (1922-1924) Utah Communication History Encyclopedia.
iv Biographical Note/Historical Note with the Sidney S. Fox Papers in Special Collection at University of Utah. Jason Bushnell, "KDYL Brings Local, Independent Television to Utah." Utah Communication History Encyclopedia. "The Diamond Dramas Radio Program Biographies,” available on the Internet under The Definite Diamond Dramas Radio Log with Sidney S. Fox. "Remembering When Television Came to Utah," Desert News, Dec. 26, 2010.
v “TELEVISION PIONEER: KDYL-TV Laid Plans For Video in ’39,” Salt Lake Telegram, May 31, 1949.
vi The Davis County Clipper, Sept. 15, 1939, Sept. 6, 1940.
vii Salt Lake Telegram, May 31, 1949
viii Ibid., April 19, 1948, (especially pages 13, 16, 20, 22) July 7, 1948, Feb. 1, 1949.
ix "Television: Salt Lake Takes Lead in Television," Salt Lake Telegram, May 31, 1949
x Ibid.
xi "New Television Outlet for Salt Lake Starts Evening Shows on June 1," Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 1949.
xii Ibid. program schedule on page 4.
xiii Ibid.
xiv "Big Time TV Just 'Round The Corner," Salt Lake Telegraph, May 31, 1949.
xv The Davis County Clipper, Dec. 30, 1949.
xvi Ibid, Nov. 11, 1949.
xvii The Kane County Standard, Nov. 11, 1949.
xviii Salt Lake Telegram, Dec. 8, 1949. In October of 1956 Time magazine called color TV “the most resounding industrial flop of 1956.” (Time, Oct. 22, 1956.)
xix Ibid, April 15, 1948, "Television Pioneer: KDYL-TV Laid Plans of Video in '39,' Salt Lake Telegram, May 31, 1949.
xx "TV Telecasting from Utah Transmitter will Begin Saturday,” The Herald Journal, Nov. 14, 1952.
Deseret News, Sept. 17, 2009.
xxi The Manti Messenger, Nov. 7, 1952.
xxii Ibid, Nov. 14, 1952.
xxiii Ibid, Nov. 28, 1952.
xxiv The Manti Messenger, Nov. 14, 1952. The Morgan County News, Nov. 21, 28, 1952.
xxv "KSL-TV Resumes Mountain-top Telecasts Via New 3-Bay Antenna," Davis County Clipper, Jan. 23, 1953. The Herald Journal, Dec. 7, 14 1952.
xxvi Daniel M. Faber, "Television and FM Translators: A History of Their Use and Regulation" on the Internet at www.danielfaber.com/translators.pdf
xxvii Iron County Record, Nov. 24, 1955.
xxviii Ibid, Nov. 28, 1955 and March 1, 1956.
xxix The Green River Journal (Green River, Ut.) Aug. 25, 1955 and Jan. 12, 1956. Edward A. Geary, A History of Emery County (Utah Centennial County History Series, 1976), Chapter 7 - The Graying of Emery County, 1945-1970 - Television, pp. 339-340.
xxx The Garfield County News, July 19, Oct. 10, Nov. 7, 21, 28, 1957.
xxxi Ibid, Dec. 19, 26, 1957, Jan. 30, Feb. 20, 1958.
xxxii The Times-Independent, June 15, 29, 1961.
xxxiii The Duchesne Eagle, Feb. 10, 1966, April 14, 1966. Duchesne Record, Dec. 29, 1966, Jan. 19, 1967.