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.

2D AGO

E34: #73 – Whirlwind (1950): The Computer That Merged with TV

In 1950, MIT’s Whirlwind computer quietly changed the future of television, computing, and every screen that followed. Originally designed for U.S. Navy flight simulation, Whirlwind became the first real-time digital computer — and the first to display data on a cathode-ray tube. This milestone marks the moment when computing met video, launching the technological lineage that leads from radar displays and early computers to video games, personal computers, smartphones, and modern streaming television. But the story reaches much further back — from the Antikythera Mechanism and Pascal’s calculator to punch cards, Alan Turing’s code-breaking machines, and ENIAC — all culminating in the breakthrough at MIT that made interactive computing possible. And at the center of this turning point is an unexpected figure: Philo Farnsworth. The same CRT technology refined for television — beginning with Farnsworth’s 1927 electronic breakthrough — made graphical computing possible. Without television, the modern computer display might never have existed. From ancient calculating boards to today’s digital screens, this is the story of how television helped create the modern computer — and why every screen on Earth traces back to a chalkboard sketch in 1922. Countdown to the Centennial: The Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Video. Chapters (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison(00:00:21) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to the 100th(00:01:31) - The History of Computation(00:06:03) - The CRT: Video and Computing(00:09:02) - 100 Years of Television

10 min
APR 5

E33: Countdown #74: Money Isn't Everything...

...but it did build Disneyland. ____________ 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 1950, Walt Disney regarded television with the same suspicion as most of Hollywood colleagues: as a threat to their box office, giving away for free what people should be buying tickets for. But as his studio geared up for the release of its most expensive ever animated feature – Alice In Wonderland – Disney decided it was time to put a cautious toe in the electronic waters of television. What he discovered was less a threat than a megaphone. And when he started to focus on his biggest idea of all, he turned again to television, making a deal with ABC to finance his Disneyland theme park in exchange for a weekly television show – that he used to promote his theme park. _________ 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: The Story of Mickey Mouse(00:04:22) - Disney's Disneyland, the TV Show(00:13:04) - 100 Years of Television

14 min
MAR 29

E32: Countdown #75: Before Squirrel, There Was Rabbit

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. ____________ When a serious injury put aspiring real estate mogul Jay Ward in bed for several months, he made the obvious career pivot – to producing cartoons for television. First he teamed up with childhood friend Alex Anderson to create the first made-for-TV serialized cartoon, Crusader Rabbit and his sidekick, Rags The Tiger, which began airing in syndication in 1950. When they lost control of the characters for financial reasons, Ward and Anderson used the same cartoon DNA to create two of TV's most enduring characters: Rocky and Bullwinkle. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison's Claims(00:00:21) - 100 Years of Television: The Crusader Rabbit(00:11:39) - 100 Years of Television

13 min
MAR 22

E31: Countdown #76: Holy Writ

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. ____________ By the time Americans stopped staring at their radios and started gazing at glowing cathode ray tubes, the A.C. Nielsen Company had a near monopoly on the audience ratings business. The networks turned to Nielsen to justify the premium ad rates they wanted to charge radio advertisers for television. Nielsen had the infrastructure, so when the networks, sponsors, and Madison Avenue needed him, A.C. Nielsen was already in the catbird seat. In the spring of 1950, Nielsen retrofitted its Audimeter technology to detect which channel a TV set was tuned to. Nielsen added another audience-tracking innovation when they asked their registered households to keep a daily diary of viewer numbers and demographics. The result was a hybrid system that delivered the most reliable television audience data available at the time. The networks didn’t just adopt A.C. Nielsen – they anointed him. His numbers became holy writ, marking a pivotal moment in the ascent of American television. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: The Ratings(00:09:29) - 100 Years of Television

11 min
MAR 15

E30: Countdown #77: Gibberish

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. ____________ As a youngster, Isaac Sydney Caesar spent many hours behind the counter at his parents kosher restaurant in Yonkers, New York, carefully observing the patrons multilingual speech patterns. It wasn't long before he began mimicking their Polish, Russian, Italian, and other European accents and developing the double-talk routines that eventually became central to the act that made Sid Caesar famous. That act came to television starting in 1949 with the Admiral Broadway Review – a sketch comedy show designed to sell more televisions for the Admiral Corporation. The Review combined Sid Caesar's linguistic acrobatics and explosive energy with Imogene Coca’s rubbery facial comedy, singing, and razor-sharp timing and demonstrated that television comedy could be something more than vaudeville in a box. The program was so successful that it went off the air after just 19 weeks so that Admiral could divert its ad budget to more manufacturing. Less than a year later, NBC began airing Your Show of Shows, the pioneering sketch comedy program that launched dozens of careers and spawned countless imitators. _________ 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: Sid Caesar(00:10:44) - 100 Years of Television

12 min
MAR 8

E29: Countdown #78: "Yoo-hoo! Is Anybody There?"

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. ____________ When CBS broadcast the premiere of The Goldbergs On February 7, 1949, one of the comedy's's most enduring formats found its way to television The Goldbergs was created by Gertrude Berg, who had cut her teeth on the Borsch Belt stages in the Catskills in the 1920s. Although she had no background in broadcasting, NBC began airing a radio series based on her formative years in the immigrant communities of New York's East Harlem in 1929. By 1931 the program was a hit from coast to coast. When NBC was reluctant to bring her concept to television she joined forces with CBS. The Goldbergs was the first program on television centered on a Jewish-American family. Gertrude Berg not only starred as Molly, she also wrote and produced every episode, becoming a trailblazing role model for generations of women to come. With The Goldbergs, Gertrude Berg created the family-based situation comedy or "sitcom." She helped define the format that shows like I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and All in the Family would refine and expand in the decades that followed. _________ 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: Countdown 78(00:01:37) - The Rise of the Goldbergs: A Jewish Family

14 min
MAR 1

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

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

35
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2025
Show Website

Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV