Media Timeline: 1951-1975
1951
1.5 million television sets in US
Sponsored links
launch of commercial radio in Japan
Cinerama
Wang Laboratories founded
still cameras get built-in flash units
coaxial cable reaches coast to coast in the US
André Deutsch founded
Peter Owen founded
Australian Financial Review
Treaty of Paris establishes European Coal & Steel Community
1952
Bing Crosby's company tests video recording
Nixdorf Computer founded
US government sues IBM for monopolizing punched-card machine industry
Sony produces first transistor radios
Univac projects the winner of the presidential election on CBS
Zenith proposes pay-TV system using punched cards
est. 22m television sets in US homes
1954
Hubert Beuve-Mery founds Le Monde diplomatique
1955
first issue of TV Guide
Axel Springer buys Die Welt
launch of commercial TV in Japan
Fairfax grabs Associated Newspapers
National Cash Register enters computer market through purchase of Computer Research Corporation
1954
Village Roadshow media group founded
Television Act establishes UK Independent Television Authority (ITA)
FORTRAN created by John Backus
IBM markets 650 computer, using drum storage
USSR launches Sputnik
regular colour TV broadcasts begin in the US
TV ad revenue exceeds radio revenue in US for first time
Robert Borkenstein patents breathalyser
1955
NBC president David Sarnoff says "Television will never be a medium of entertainment"
Disneyland opened
Howard Hughes splits RKO into RKO Theatres and RKO Pictures (sold to General Teleradio for US$25m)
EMI buys Capitol Records in US
launch of L'Espresso
Remington-Rand & Sperry Gyroscope merge as Sperry-Rand
rebranding sees start of Marlboro Man campaign
first fluoride toothpaste, Crest
music recorded on tape in stereo
US record sales reach US$277m pa
1956
television broadcasting in Australia
Granada TV starts broadcasting in UK
first transatlantic telephone cable
television in 71% of US households
first hard disk drive at IBM
IBM settles punch card dispute through DOJ consent decree
Australia's SILLIAC and UTECOM computers go live
Ampex builds practical videotape recorder
Bell Labs tests picture phone
first transatlantic telephone calls by cable
term 'artificial intelligence' devised
first use of "Elvis has left the building"
Burroughs Adding Machine Company enters computer market through purchase of Electrodata
1957
Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community
Control Data Corporation formed
Digital Equipment (DEC) formed
National Opinion Polls (NOP) founded in UK
Soviet Union's Sputnik sends signals from space
Taft buys Hanna-Barbera Productions
first Japanese car sold in US
FORTRAN becomes first high-level computer language
UNIVAC II marketed
Sony TR63 is first pocket transistor radio
surgical operation is televised
Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders
Chomsky's Syntactic Structures
first book to be entirely phototypeset is offset printed
1958
US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency founded
Minsky founds AI Lab at MIT
Warner Bros records formed
UNIMATE is first industrial robot
colour videotape recording
laser invented at Bell Labs
integrated circuit
cable carries FM radio stations
Galbraith's The Affluent Society
Bank of America launches first US credit card
AT&T markets first modems
1959
local ads go on cable TV in the US
Xerox's first automatic paper copier
"A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play"
French SECAM and German PAL television systems
first packaged program sold by Computer Science Corporation
Advance buys Conde Nast magazine group
Axel Springer buys majority of Ullstein AG
Grundy Productions founded in Australia
Tisch brothers buy Loews cinema chain from MGM
US record sales reach US$600m pa
1960
computer industry has first billion dollar year
IBM markets 1401 computer
UNIVAC III marketed
6,000 computers in operation in US
est. 60m television sets in US homes
Echo I, US balloon in orbit, reflects radio signals to Earth
Zenith tests subscription TV in the US
David & Charles founded
Murdoch buys Sydney Daily Mirror
Sullivan v New York Times in US
1961
Wiley buys Interscience Publishers
Cisneros Venevision tv network founded
black box flight recorder invented
first electronic game - Spacewars - from MIT
US boxing match test shows potential of pay-TV
FCC approves FM stereo broadcasting
Kleinrock's Information Flow in Large Communications Nets packet switching paper
Washington Post buys Newsweek magazine
Studio Vista founded
IBM introduces "golf ball" typewriter
time-sharing computer developed
Haloid Xerox becomes Xerox Corporation
1962
MEDLARS online bibliographical database
minicomputer
Ross Perot founds EDS
Telstar satellite transmits TV image across Atlantic
first Visa credit card
McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy
Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Carson's Silent Spring
1963
audio tape cassette
Colin Valdar launches UK Press Gazette
Beytouts buy Les Echos group from Servan-Schreibers
Zip codes started in US
Minsky's Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence
CBS and NBC TV newscasts expand to 30 minutes in colour
Polaroid instant colour photographys
communications satellite is placed in geo-synchronous orbit
est. 80.97m phones in US; world total est 159m
1964
Dr Strangelove
Murdoch starts The Australian
Baran's On Distributed Communications Networks paper
Moore's Law about processing power
IBM markets system 360 computer
Olympic Games in Tokyo telecast live globally by satellite
Touch Tone telephones and Picturephone service
first domestic videotape recorder
Intelsat established
Oz censorship trial in Australia
IDC founded
Data Corporation (becomes Lexis Corporation) established
1965
Quebecor founded
cigarette ads banned on UK television
Simon predicts by 1985 "machines will be capable of doing any work a man can do"
Intelsat I (Early Bird satellite)
Ted Nelson coins the term 'hypertext'
establishment of South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN)
McLuhan's Understanding Media
Kodak's Super 8 film for home movies
cartridge audio tapes
1966
Bertelsmann takes 25% stake in Gruner & Jahr
Xerox markets Telecopier, first US fax machine
JCDecaux founded
first direct TV pictures from Moon
Dolby eliminates audio hiss
first exchange via satellite of tv signals between Australia and UK
1967
Sony introduces Trinitron colour tv
light pen for computers
prerecorded movies on videotape sold for home use
cordless telephones
est. 200m telephones in world - half in US
Marshall Cavendish founded
US Public Broadcasting Act
1968
Pearson buys Longman publishing
Thames TV founded, later acquired by Pearson
Time buys Little Brown
Intel founded
eight inch floppy diskette
200 million TV sets in the world - 78 million in US
RAM chip reaches market
Watson's The Double Helix
ARPANet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN)
Paul Desmarais gains control of Power Corporation of Canada
1969
Bonnier buys 49% stake in A/S Forlaget Børsen
Comcast formed
Chatto & Windus merges with Jonathan Cape
Dialog online database launched by Lockheed
first ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network Measurement Center
astronauts send live video from moon
Sony's U-Matic puts videotape on a cassette
Seiko produces first quartz wristwatch
est. 97% of US households have tv
US government lawsuit claims IBM guilty of "illegal monopolisation of computing industry"
Honeywell releases H316 'Kitchen Computer'
Xerox takes control of minicomputer group Scientific Data Systems (SDS)
Murdoch buys News of the World
1970
prototype videodisk
The Female Eunuch
first ATM and Jumbo Jet service
US 'Talk Radio' begins in Boston with telephone calls to fill dead spots
1971
Pearson buys Penguin Books
200 Motels by Frank Zappa is first feature film shot entirely on colour videotape and transferred to film
Intel builds the microprocessor, "a computer on a chip"
Wang 1200 is world's first word processor
first complete synthesis of a gene
1972
email invented by BBN's Ray Tomlinson
first desktop electronic calculator by Hewlett-Packard
first CAT scan
Time's HBO starts first cable pay-TV service in US
5UV in Adelaide is Australia's first community radio broadcaster
BBC offers Ceefax two-way cable information system
Landsat I, 'eye-in-the-sky' satellite, launched
first handheld calculator, from Texas Instruments
Sony's Portapak, a portable video recorder
Pong is first electronic video game for TV as an add-on
Seymour Cray establishes own supercomputer company
Polygram founded by Siemens and Philips to replace GPG joint venture
Sing Tao Holdings goes public
1973
Dolan establishes Cablevision
Virago publishing house founded
first non-US connections to ARPANET
Hasegawa & Tappert propose use of optical fibre
Bell's The Coming of Post-Industrial Society
US record sales reach US$2bn pa
JP Sartre & Serge July found Libération
1974
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
first products with barcodes
Philips markets first domestic video cassette recorder
A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection by Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn details the design of TCP
paper by Vint Cerf introduces term "internet"
Berlusconi media group founded
Lenfest Communications formed
Dorling Kindersley founded
1975
Microsoft founded
first handheld mobile phone
first major ISP - CompuServe
Asper establishes first station of CanWest Global group
Xerox sells SDS to Honeywell, withdraws from computer industry
Silvi0 Berlusconi establishes Fininvest