Male 1: In the mid-60s, social unrest filled the streets. TV provided on the escape. Ironically making Screwball comedies in color like the Lucy Show, from 1962 to 68, the highest rated shows of the day.
Color was finally going mainstream. By 1968, colored television sets could be found in over 14,000,000 homes.
In 1969, television coverage logged another first. NASA’s Apollo 11, the first man spacecraft to land on the moon was televised live. The nation watched as Neil Armstrong made his historic descent to the moon surface.
Male 2: Of all the products available to the American consumer today, the most technologically advanced, the most precise by far, is the picture tube of a colored television set.
Male 1: By the early 1970s, colored TV sets out sold black and white for the first time. This were turbulent times. Much of which subtly was ideal for television coverage. America’s first television war or living room war, rebated America’s attention. We also witnessed the historic resignation of Richard Nixon, live on the television.
Richard Nixon: To leave office before my term is completed as of harm to every instinct in my body. But as president, I must put the interest of America first.
Male 1: In the 70s, computers became central to American television as they did to most other aspects of American life. Throughout the late 70s, colored televisions were rolling off the production lines. Screens were getting larger and America’s demand for more programming was growing.
Zenith colors century corrects automatically 30 time per second.
Pete Rose: And that makes the difference after all, I do not play for the Cincinnati Pinks.
See the difference color century makes, only from Zenith.
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Male 1: The 1980s brought exciting new technologies into the mainstream. Personal computers, video games, and video tape recorders came of age. For the first time consumers had the ability to time shift television broadcast, the usefulness of the VCR expanded as our programming options grew, thanks to cable.
Cable television became important on a national level in the late 70s and early 1980s with the launch of many new networks like ESPN, MTV, and CNN. And with cable, came 24-hour coverage of everything - pop culture, news, weather, and national disasters.
Male: Obviously the major function, we have no down link, find controllers here looking very carefully at the situation.
Male 1: January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into its flight live on the national television.
Flight shuttle. Go ahead. Fire as our reports vehicle exploded. Copy.
[Music Play]
Male 1: The first president, who is John F. Kennedy to use television effectively was Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan: Our gathering today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America. I understand that it is being seen and heard as well in the East.
Male 1: The Technology of television made only small advances during the 1980s. Still, picture tube quality increased and stereo audio is now available, for what massively change was programming. At the start of the decade, Americans had very few options. By the end of the decade, there were 79 cable channels in nearly 53 Million households. We have become a TV nation.
[Music Play]
Male 1: Throughout the early 1990s, change was the theme of today and that apply to the television industry as well.
Male 2: In the 1990s, television sets began to get bigger and we began to see screens of sizes we have imagined. Twenty one inches was for years, the standard in black and white television are not really colored. Now, you could get a screen that was 30 inches or 40 inches.
Male 1: At the same time FCC was testing, competing advanced television technologies looking to improve the quality of broadcasting. Ninety-nine percent of US households had at least one television set by the mid 90s. And in 1996, congress mandated that all television broadcasting would become digital in the near future. This pave the way for high definition television sets to begin hitting the market in 1998.
Male: Unlike TV sets are beautiful. They will occupy the museums but in terms of the mainstream, this is a digital world already and there is no going back.
Male 1: And so here we are, on February 17, 2009, the era of analog broadcasting in the United States will be over. All digital transmission is the future. This year 32,000,000 digital TVs will shift and nearly 80% of them will be high definition.
Male 2: The pioneers of television will not be surprised by what they see today. This is all a natural evolution of getting more pixels, better pictures, and better sounds. We are in the golden age of television because we are in the middle of this revolution to digital.
Male 1: Television has truly changed the way we live and the way we see and understand ourselves. It has broadened and illuminated our lives and will continue to do so digitally, for some time to come.
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