Television in the Fifties

As we enter the new century, television is entering its fifth decade as a serious broadcasting medium. Prior to the fifties, television was experimental, run by people who were viewed with suspicion by colleagues in radio. (In fact staff at BBC Television's studios at Alexandra Palace in London were referred to by the rest of the corporation as 'The Fools on the Hill'.).

But it was in the fifties that the medium that was to change the world we live in came of age. At the start of the decade, the number of sets was tiny (Britain's population of more than 50 million had merely 350,000 sets between them). TV sets themselves were the size of a cocktail cabinet, though the screens were rarely more than 14 inches across. To experience the full glory of British television in the fifties, check out http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/ which features pictures, RealVideo and plenty of nostalgia from a largely forgotten era.

By the middle of the decade, the first NTSC colour television system had been developed and began to be used in the USA. Britain and America were the prime movers in the television industry in the 1950s - Europe was still recovering from the devastation of World War 2, and many other countries simply hadn't bothered. (And some didn't bother for decades to come!).

It has to be said, at least in the first half of the fifties, many TV programmes would not have been out of place at an educational evening in the local library; gardening hints from the TV gardener... cookery lessons from the TV chef... or an exhibition of juggling by a czech circus act. Many performers' agents were understandably wary of the new medium - their clients could find themselves using up a lifetime's material in one evening.

Television wears a Crown

Ironically, it was a ceremony that's more than a thousand years old that opened the door for the new medium. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second of England was the first major event to be televised around the world (or at least around the parts of the world that had TV sets!). It was the Queen herself who decided to let BBC cameras into Westminster Abbey to show her Coronation (against the advice of her Prime Minister of the time, Winston Churchill). The BBC technicians behaved impeccably, and the spectacle drew a TV audience in Britain alone of 20 million people (some of them standing ten deep around the TV sets). A telerecording (which in those days consisted of a 16 mm film taken from the TV screen) was flown to the US, where it was screened to an equally large audience. Radio was relegated to a supporting act - a role it has had to put up with ever since.

Presenting the world to the world

TV News became a force to be reckoned with. At the beginning of the decade it consisted largely of 'newsreel' type footage, featuring 'light' news. On BBC TV, Television was only allowed to do serious news if it was read by an invisible announcer with a simple picture. Radio protected its patch fiercely. In the US, TV news was further advanced - though the problems of getting pictures from anywhere more than a few miles from the studio was always a problem. Technology moved on, and by the end of the decade it was commonplace to be able to show pictures of news events within hours of them happening.

The World's A Stage

Drama was not an easy thing to do on TV in the fifties. Because there was no videorecording, much of it was done live. While a lot of it was pretty dire, there were series and serials that became required viewing. Many series were made by Hollywood studios, such as Dragnet from Warner Brothers. These were shot on film, using well-established movie techniques. They made true multi-camera TV drama difficult to achieve, though there were notable successes.

The BBC glued a nation to its screens with its series of science fiction serials about Professor Quatermass ... US TV gave many major stars their first break at a big role... including Paul Newman, Steve MacQueen, and Clint Eastwood. One-off plays such as "Marty" gave critics something to think about - they could no longer dismiss the medium as 'a tuppeny Punch and Judy show' (as Churchill so eloquently put it) because it was capable of serious, thought-provoking, exciting drama.

Gateway to the Future

It was in the fifties that the foundation for Television as we know it today was laid. It was often boring, predictable and safe... but managed to reach important milestones. It was television that paved the way for the flowering of British pop music through series like "Juke Box Jury" and "6-5 special". The first TV adaptation of Shakespeare, the first Children's TV programmes, the first situation comedy... the decade was full of firsts.

Many series and/or stars established in the fifties continued into later decades to entertain us. ("I Love Lucy" survived in various forms through three decades - and the urban legend goes that somewhere in the world at any one moment, there's an episode of Lucy screening). Television had been weighed in the balance in the fifties - and come out on top. By the 1960s, the medium had become the message, and Television was to change the way of the western world.