Transcribed
This section of the site contains articles which are included for their inspirational, educational, or historic value. Instructions for self-dictation are located at the bottom of this page. The material is dictated a various speeds at the bottom of the page as well.
I personally found this piece fascinating! For those who care, I do remember waiting for stations to come on the air. I also remember test patterns and awful washed-out pictures on a tiny screen which was housed in a giant cabinet. My father always insisted that television broadcasts didn't begin until after the war. I was sure they started in 1939 around the time of the World's Fair. Turns out we were both wrong: regular television broadcasts started in the United States on June 29, 1936. A little web research turned up the fact that England also started regular television broadcasts in 1936 as well. Of course, this piece was under the section on radio.
Gregg Speed Building, Gregg Publishing Company, John Robert Gregg, 1938, p 233-234
250. Television
Television is today an unfinished product. Its progress up to now, and some of the problems that still remain to be solved, are parallel in many respects to the early progress and problems of the motion-picture industry. You who remember the flickering images and the crude scenes of the early films—in contrast with the technical and artistic perfection of present-day motion pictures—can understand what we are up against in getting television in shape to perform a useful public service.
We brought television out of the laboratory and “into the open air” on June 29, 1936.
It has become apparent that the television program, while borrowing much from the stage, the screen, and sound broadcasting, must blaze many new trails in order to develop a form of presentation fitted to both the scope and the limitation of the new medium.
While the technical problems still confronting us are formidable, they are not the only obstacles that lie in the path of television’s commercial introduction to the public on a general scale. In evolving a satisfactory program technique, we have already learned that television programs will cost much more than sound broadcast programs. If television programs are to be provided through the support of commercial sponsors, advertisers must first be furnished with sufficient circulation to justify their expenditures.
Here we have the dual problem of simultaneously creating a cause and an effect: We must create large audiences in order to support costly programs, and we must build costly programs in order to attract large audiences.
As in every other pioneering development and rapidly changing art, the necessary investments cannot be made without risk. I believe, however, that the same American pioneering spirit of private enterprise which has given us great systems of transportation and communication, and has produced the great industries, will also provide us with a nation-wide system of television.
Radio and motion pictures rank at the top of the younger industries that have furnished extensive employment to both capital and labor. In television, the newest child of the radio art, we can foresee another vigorous industry that will provide many new avenues of employment, and will supply opportunities to the younger generation looking for careers in new fields.
We can, I believe, look forward to the ultimate establishment of an American television system which, like our present system of sound broadcasting, will employ many thousands of workers, will offer a unique advertising service to American businesses, and will render a free educational and entertainment service to the public.
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Instructions
for Self-Dictation Practice:
Copy and paste the above article into a word-processing
document, using double or triple spacing and 12- or 14-pitch type.
I suggest starting each work day off with a
warm-up of the self-dictation presented above. By the
close of the month, after having written the piece many times, you'll find
you can write the material with ease. As always, be sure to check your
shorthand dictionary for correct outlines before "drilling"!
Dictation
Practice:
After you've practiced the material as outlined just above,
take the material from dictation. Simply select the desired speed below
and click. Note that the material was counted and recorded for
dictation at 100; all other speeds were copied from the 100 take and
electronically adjusted and may therefore sound unusual.
PLEASE ALLOW SUFFICIENT TIME FOR THE DICTATION TO LOAD.
It may take 90 seconds or more depending upon your connection and the size of
the dictation file.
The dictation material above is copyrighted, all rights reserved.