Category Archives: Television History

Baseball & Live Broadcast TV

Over the years, broadcast television has played a tremendous role in expanding our access to sports. It has helped to broaden audiences and bring sports, like baseball, directly into the homes of millions of people across the country, played a role in increasing the fan base of the sport, and even affecting the game times.

How did it all begin? Let’s break down some major milestones:

The First Televised Professional Baseball Game
It happened on August 26, 1939 on the New York station then known as W2XBS, and was broadcast from  Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

More TVs, More Eyeballs, Drives More People to the Ballpark
By 1948, professional baseball game ballpark attendance reached a record high of 21 million. How did TV contribute to this? With televisions becoming more accessible and more common over time, more baseball teams began televising games. Televising games yielded new fans, sparking more interest among them to experience games in person at the ballpark.

First Instant Replay
The first instant replay may have occurred on July 17, 1959, during a broadcast of a game by a local New York station. The videotape replay came showed a hit, which ended a no-hitter.

When Day Games Became Night Games
On October 13, 1971, a baseball championship game was played for the first time at night.  League management  believed that most baseball fans were either in school or working during the afternoons, when most baseball games were played. It was a huge success, and baseball ratings shot through the roof. From then on, nearly all weekday baseball games would be played at night. The first regular season night game occurred on May 24, 1935.

Flash Forward
The game has changed even further with internet accessibility and even more TV networks airing the sport. Now, with games available on broadcast TV through technologies such as mobile internet-connected devices, how will this affect the game for the next generation?

Play Ball!

Television, Technology & Elections

The presidential debate two weeks ago drew an estimated audience of nearly 67 million viewers. Buzz on Facebook was high and the debate generated an impressive 10.3 Million tweets in 90 minutes, a new political-tweeting record on Twitter.

Television and technology play an essential role in delivering information to the public about a candidate’s platform and position on important issues. Broadcast television coverage of elections is more robust than ever and for candidates it is the medium of choice when it comes to reaching voters. In a world where radio, television and the internet are an ever-present part of our daily lives, it’s difficult to imagine a time when the debates weren’t televised.

Until the second half of the 20th century, the vast majority of people in the United States were unable to watch the debates.  Access to those important conversations was limited to the fortunate homes that had the technology to either watch on television or listen on the radio.

The first televised election


Photo Credit: National Park Service – Images of American Political History

The election of John F. Kennedy, illustrates perfectly the profound impact of television on elections.  Many of you are probably already familiar with why that particular election was such a seminal event in intersection of television and politics.  According to a survey after the first debate between Kennedy and Nixon, those who listened on the radio believed that Nixon had come out victorious. However, for those individuals who watched the debate on television and were able to contrast Nixon’s expressions and demeanor with Kennedy’s, they were more likely to believe that Kennedy had prevailed.  From that moment on, it became increasingly clear that broadcast television would play an important role in shaping elections. By providing the public with a more holistic view (literally) of the candidates, broadcast television would forever change how elections were fought and won in this country.

Televising presidential debates on broadcast television has been a political game changer and over the past 52 years, the role of television in politics has grown ten-fold.  From political advertising, to televising political conventions, to the ever-increasing number of political talk and news shows, all of these are now permanent fixtures on broadcast television.

Public access to free, over-the-air broadcast television is still critically important to ensuring that the electorate – that means me and you – have an opportunity to be a part of the political dialogue. We’ve come a long way from people having to gather around a radio or crowd in front of television shop windows to watch the news.