Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV

Paul Schatzkin

5.0 (3)
HISTORY
UPDATED WEEKLY

Over 100 weeks, we're going to countdown to the Centennial of Video on Sept 7, 2027 by recounting the 100 Top Moments in the First 100 Years of Television.

4D AGO

E28: Countdown #79: Delisted

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ There are three reasons why the name of Philo T. Farnsworth is not more familiar, despite his having invented what is arguably the most transformative technology of the 20th Century, if not the entire millennium. He was not inclined to dwell on his own past achievements, preferring instead to ponder what he could come up with next; There were plenty of pretenders to the crown, not the least among them RCA, David Sarnoff and Vladimir Zworykin in the U.S and John Logie Baird in the U.K. But mostly, he was not survived by a company that could write the history. Countdown #79 looks at the history of Farnsworth Television and Radio - the enterprise that should have preserved his legacy. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to the 100(00:01:15) - Philo Farnsworth: The Father of Television(00:10:22) - 100 Years of Television

11 min
FEB 22

E27: Countdown #80: Selling Soap

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ Irna Phillips was the youngest of ten children born into a large Jewish family in Chicago in 1901. Her girlhood dreams of becoming an actress were dashed when acting schools rejected her. Irna may have had a "face for radio," but she had a creative mind suitable for any medium she cared to work in. In 1930, Irna was freelancing at Chicago radio station WGN⁠ when she drew on her own family experience to create Painted Dreams, a 15-minute radio drama featuring an Irish-American widow and her multigenerational household. When WGN claimed all the rights to her creation, Irna retooled it for Chicago's NBC affiliate as Today's Children, which started airing in January 1937. The program found a broad audience among homemakers. When household products manufacturer Proctor and Gamble signed on as the principle sponsor, daily serials aimed at a largely female audience became known as "soap operas." When NBC started looking for daytime programming for television, the network gave Phillips the green light on an entirely new program. These Are My Children began airing daily, live, 15-minute episodes from NBC's flagship Chicago TV station WNBQ at 5PM EST on January 31, 1949. Though short-lived, These Are My Children was the first daytime serial created specifically for television, and the die was cast for one of the medium's most enduring formats. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to 100(00:01:21) - The Making of Soap Opera Irna Phillips(00:12:46) - 100 Years of Television

14 min
FEB 15

E26: Countdown #81: Immy, Meet Emmy

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ Though he is largely forgotten in the public imagination, it is genuinely intriguing how the legacy of Philo T. Farnsworth drifts in and out of the history of television. Reminders of his inventions can often be found lingering on the periphery of the industry if you know where to look. . Television's annual Emmy Awards is a good example. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: The Academy(00:11:41) - 100 Years of Television

13 min
FEB 8

E25: Countdown #82: Happy New Year!

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs moved the newspaper's headquarters into the newly constructed Times Tower at the intersection of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, which the city renamed "Times Square." To celebrate the move the Times sponsored a lavish New Year's celebration. Some 200,000 New Yorkers packed the square and surrounding streets for music and festivities that were topped off with a brilliant fireworks display. When the city banned fireworks in 1907, Ochs commissioned a 700-pound wood-and-iron ball, festooned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs. At precisely 11:59 PM on December 31, 1907, workers started to lower the ball from the top of a pole. At midnight the ball went dark and another large electrical sign reading “1908” lit up above Times Square. In the 1920s and ’30s, Times Square became synonymous with New Year’s Eve. Starting in 1948, the tradition found its way to television. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1

8 min
FEB 1

E24: Countdown #83: Candid Camera

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ Before Survivor, before The Real World, before all The Real Housewives and The Celebrity Apprentice, there was Allen Funt. Allen Funt's concept for a television show was deceptively simple: what would people do if they didn’t know they were being watched by a hidden camera? From that simple premise On August 10, 1948, Allen Funt brought an entirely new kind of program to the ABC-TV network. Candid Camera was unscripted, unrehearsed, and genuinely real. Decades later, the genre Funt pioneered would morph into the "everybody knows there are cameras" format now known as "reality" TV. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Alan Funt's Candid Camera(00:08:24) - 100 Years of Television

9 min
JAN 25

E23: Countdown #84 "Mr. Television"

When he was only 12 years old, an aspiring vaudeville performer named Mendel Berlinger decided he needed a more ethnically palatable stage name. In 1920, he changed his name to Milton Berle and continued to refine his comic persona on radio. Milton Berle was a fairly well known when NBC started migrating much of its radio programming to television. In the summer of 1948, when Texaco Star Theater began a trial run on television, audience response to Berle was so overwhelming the network made him the permanent emcee when the program started its regular run that fall. Berle’s elastic face, flamboyant costumes, and rapid-fire comedy were perfectly suited to the new medium. Television needed a breakout star, and it wasn't long before Milton Berle started calling himself "Mr. Television." Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison(00:00:21) - 100 Years of Television: Mr. Television(00:08:15) - 100 Years of Television

9 min
JAN 18

E22: Countdown #85: CATV

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ In 1947 Ed and Grace Parsons, the owners of a radio station in Astoria, Oregon, attended the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in Chicago. It was Grace who saw her first television set there, and persuaded Ed to purchase one and bring it home to Astoria. The only problem was: Astoria is 125 miles from stations in either Seattle or Portland, that were beginning to broadcast TV. The solution? Put an antenna on the highest roof in town and distribute the signal via coaxial cable. Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to 100(00:07:32) - 100 Years of Television: The Top 100 Milestones

8 min
JAN 11

E21: Countdown #86: Meet The Press

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. In this week's episode, we meet Martha Rountree, the first woman to host a news and public affairs program on television and the creator of Meet The Press – the longest running program in broadcast history. Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - We laughed at Edison(00:00:21) - Meet the Press: 100 Years of Television(00:07:27) - 100 Years of Television

8 min

TRAILER

E0: Introducing Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV

To have right idea is one thing; to have the right idea and make it work is everything. --Roger Penrose You've probably never hear of Philo T. Farnsworth. Maybe it's time you did. We take our screen-based 2st century for granted, but the long-neglected fact is that every video screen on the planet can trace its origins to a sketch that Farnsworth drew for his high school science teacher in 1922 - when he was all of 14 years old. On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth conducted the first successful experiment with an all-electronic television system based on the sketch that he'd drawn five years earlier. That nobody had come up with a similar viable idea – least of the well-financed scientists an engineers of industry who were chasing the same dream – is a testament to how far Farnsworth was "ahead of his time" (actually, Farnsworth was precisely of his time; it's just that most of his contemporaries were still stuck in the 19th century). The same year that Farnsworth conducted his first successful demonstration of electronic video, he applied for patents for his inventions. Those patents were granted in 1930, and he spent most of that decade fending off challenges to them. By the end of the decade he had compiled a portfolio of more than 100 patents, all of them essential to the new medium when it came out of hibernation after World War II. That Farnsworth's name is not more familiar is one of the great oddities of our tech-dominated culture. That oversight can be corrected by celebrating the Centennial of Television come September 7, 2027. To "countdown" to that date (and raise global awareness along the way), we'll be posting the "Top 100 Milestones from the First 100 Years of Television" here in podcast form and on the web at tvcentennial.com It's going to be fun journey and we're going to introduce a lot of other intriguing characters along the way. Won't you join us?

09/06/2025

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6 min

5

out of 5

3 Ratings

Over 100 weeks, we're going to countdown to the Centennial of Video on Sept 7, 2027 by recounting the 100 Top Moments in the First 100 Years of Television.

Creator

Paul Schatzkin
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

29
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2025
Show Website

Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV