Media Timeline: 1926-1950

1926

General Electric and Westinghouse form Radio Corporation of America (RCA)

Belo founded

Sheed & Ward founded

UK government nationalises BBC

Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) - Japan Broadcasting Corporation founded

first radio jingle: Wheaties

Paul Block acquires Toledo Blade for US$4.5m

commercial picture facsimile radio service across Atlantic

Baird demonstrates electro-mechanical TV system

first 16mm movie is shot in the US

NBC radio network

Bell Labs transmit film by television

Aniline printing developed

Ridder buys Journal of Commerce

Manchester Boddy launches Los Angeles Daily News

Book-of-the-Month Club founded by Harry Scherman

1927

NBC begins two radio networks

Jolson's The Jazz Singer is the first popular "talkie"

Lang's Metropolis

Movietone offers sound newsreels

US Radio Act declares public ownership of the airwaves and establishes federal Radio Commission

Ziff-Davis founded

Technicolor

JVC formed

Remington Rand formed

Gollancz founded

1928

US broadcasters agree to ban radio ads during 'family hour'

Baird demonstrates colour TV on electro-mechanical system

first Mickey Mouse cartoon

Bernays' Propaganda

teletype machine

Baird beams TV image from UK to US

first scheduled television broadcasts in US

IBM adopts 80-column punched card

United Independent Broadcasters restructured as Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

1929

Associated Newspapers formed in Australia through merger of Samuel Bennett with Denison's Sun Newspapers

Bonython's Adelaide Advertiser group sold for for £1.25m

Cisneros founded

Decca records founded in UK

RKO founded

Nyquist Theorem

telegraph ticker sends 500 characters per minute

ship passengers can phone relatives ashore

brokers watch stock prices on an automated electric board

Sydney-Melbourne picturegram service launched

car radio invented

first magnetic sound recording on plastic tape

first television studio built in London

Variety reports that 'Wall Street Lays An Egg'

Bell Labs transmits stills in colour by mechanical scanning

Zworykin's cathode-ray tube "kinescope" receiver, 60 scan lines

Baird's tv transmissions using BBC radio towers during off hours

est. 57 million miles flown on scheduled routes (with 434,00 passengers)

Aw Boon Haw launches Sin Chew Jit Poh in Singapore

1930

Sidney & Cecil Bernstein open Granada Cinema

Experimental 30-line TV transmissions in the UK

photo flashbulbs replace flash powder

IG Farben buys 75% of Frankfurter Nachtrichten

first use of TV for advertising via closed circuit in UK and US

Lowell Thomas comperes first regular US network newscast

Bush's differential analyzer

AT&T trials picture telephone

Melbourne to Perth telephone trunk line

London to Melbourne telephone service

Curtis buys Philadelphia Inquirer

1931

commercial teletype service

electronic TV broadcasts in Los Angeles and Moscow

exposure meters on sale to photographers

Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften

EMI formed in UK

incorporation of Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion (CLR)

Crossley system for rating size of radio program audiences

1932

General Electric divests RCA

first colour photo in a British newspaper, The Times

Times uses Morrison's new Times Roman typeface

Kodak introduces 8 mm film for home movies

stereophonic sound in a motion picture, Gance's Napoleon

zoom lens invented

NBC and CBS allow prices to be mentioned in radio commercials

International Telecommunications Union

Berle & Means' The Modern Corporation & Private Property

1933

first Mars bar

Edwin Armstrong invents FM

singing telegrams

Homer Capehart sells Simplex record changer to Wurlitzer Co as basis for jukebox

Ullstein and Mosse families ousted from media groups in Germany

Dreft, first household detergent

stereo phonograph records

Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) established

1934

US Communications Act of 1934 creates Federal Communications Commission

drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey

Associated Press starts wirephoto service

first overseas radiophoto published in Australian newspapers

first mobile television truck captures Nazi rally

3-colour Technicolor used in live action film

half US homes have radios

Muzak founded

Mutual Broadcasting System founded in US

1935

audio tape recorders on sale in Germany

IBM markets electric typewriter

IBM markets 601 tabulator

first Kit Kat in UK

first Penguin paperback

Zalman Schocken acquires Ha'aretz

Michael Joseph founded

all-electronic VHF television

Eastman-Kodak develops Kodachrome colour film

1936

Berlin Olympics are televised closed circuit

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)

coaxial cable connects New York to Philadelphia

Turing describes a general purpose computer

Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Life launched

Packers buy Sydney Daily Telegraph from Associated Newspapers

Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money

1937

Turing's On Computable Numbers introduces Turing machine

NBC sends mobile TV truck onto New York streets

Hindenburg crash broadcast coast to coast in US

Greater Union Theatres (GU) group in Australia

photocopier invented by Carlson

Snow White is first feature-length cartoon

1938

Baird demonstrates live TV in colour

Biro brothers invent ballpoint pen

CBS World News Roundup ushers in modern newscasting

radio surpasses magazines as a source of ad revenue in US

U Penn plays first publicly televised game of US football

War of the Worlds broadcast frightens chattering classes

Hulton Picture Library founded as archive for Picture Post magazine

Sing Tao founded in Hong Kong

1939

Cox buys The Atlanta Journal

Atanasoff-Berry Computer, first electronic digital computer

300,000 jukeboxes in US

New York World's Fair shows television to public

first regular TV ads

radio in 75% of German households

Hewlett-Packard

1940

Disney's Fantasia introduces stereo sound

CBS demonstrates color television in New York

80% of US homes have radio

Wilson's To the Finland Station

1941

Citizen Kane

stereo installed in Moscow movie theater

FCC sets US TV standards

first colour TV commercial, for Bulova watches

microwave transmission

Zuse's Z3 computer

Marshall Field III founds Chicago Sun

1942

Academic Press founded

Lamarr & Antheil patent for secure "spread spectrum" communications

Kodacolour process produces the colour print

1943

closure of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)

1944

Harvard's Mark I, first digital computer

IBM offers typewriter with proportional spacing

first high-fidelity recordings

von Neumann & Morgenstern's Theory of Games & Economic Behavior

Marshall Field III buys Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books

Hubert Beuve-Mery founds Le Monde

1945

Clarke describes geosynchronous communication satellites

Bush's 'Memex' article

est. 10,000 television sets in US

establishment of Ecole Nationale d'Administration

1946

6,500 television receivers sold in US

Lanham Act in US

term 'bit' used for first time by John Tukey

first network tv soap opera

jukeboxes go into mass production

ENIAC makes 5,000 additions in one second

automobile radio telephones connect to US phone network

Love Me Sailor censorship trial in Australia

Axel Springer founds Nordwestdeutsche Hefte and Hör Zu magazine

Rupert Hart-Davis founded

1946 Goodson-Todman Productions founded

over 200 new mass-oriented magazines launched in US

IBM markets 603 electronic tabulator

Universal Pictures merges with International Pictures as Universal International

1947

invention of transistor

zoom lens used in US baseball world series TV

holography

'Loi Bichet' in France

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) becomes UN agency

1948

Claude Shannon's A Mathematical Theory of Communication

Wiener's Cybernetics

invention of LP record and Polaroid camera

News of the World sells 8 million copies in UK

amalgamation of Chicago Daily Times and Sun as Sun-Times

Holtzbrinck founded

Brost buys licence for Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ)

establishment of Australian Broadcasting Control Board

US weekly cinema population peaks at 90 million

IBM markets 604 tabulator

1949

birth of US network TV

disposable syringe invented in Australia

RCA introduces 45 rpm record

regional use of cable television in US

first commercial computer

magnetic core computer memory

Australian CSIRAC computer perform its first controlled program

The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy initiate tv Western genre

Weidenfeld & Nicolson founded

Thames & Hudson founded

launch of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)

1950

Turing's Computing Machinery & Intelligence

Remington-Rand acquires Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp

NBC launches Today show and The Adventures of Superman (faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings etc)

Phonevision, first pay-per-view service

AC Nielsen's Audimeters start to track TV viewing

changeable typewriter typefaces in use

first credit card - Diners Club

first Bertelsmann book club formed

Victor Civita forms Editora Abril

Paul Hamlyn founded

RC Hoiles founds Freedom Newspapers

European Broadcasting Union formed

Tindle founded