It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Marion Leyer’s beloved husband John. Marion was for many years a key person in the production field at both TVW Channel 7 and NEW Channel 10 in Perth.

Both came to Australia after the war and experienced great success in their respective fields.

John Leyer was born in Berlin in 1937.

The family came to Perth when John was just 16 in 1953. He spent time in a holding camp in Northam, until the family gained lodgings in West Perth. It was at this time that John first met the girl who would later be his wife, a 12 year old Marion Greiling.

After his apprenticeship, John gained employment in the steel fabrication industry.

Meanwhile, TVW’s Brian Treasure employed Marion for secretarial work in 1960. Gordon McColl fondly remembers Marion walking down Cobham Avenue on that day towards her interview, for he was going the same way and gave her a lift to the studios. Marion’s highly regarded work ethic soon launched a career in television production, where she produced and directed the live ‘Children’s Channel 7′. This involved talent quests, quizzes, hobbies, nature studies, games etc. Marion was also busy producing the weekly quiz programs ‘Post Office’ and ‘It’s Academic’.

It was during this time that John became reacquainted with Marion, and eighteen months later they married in 1971.

From 1971 to 1975 Marion directed the national half hour children’s variety program ‘Stars of the Future’, which received Logie Awards in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1976. Brian Smith helped produce the award winning show.

The inaugural Channel Seven Christmas Pageant was launched in 1972, at a time when John was well established in the steel industry. Richard Ashton points out that it was his company that built nearly all the Christmas Pageant float bases for TVW, including the large multi-trailer Father Christmas one. This event was a great credit to Marion and all those dedicated people who worked on it, particularly the special projects unit headed by Max Bostock. Max pointed out that Police figures, show that crowds increased rapidly from 100,000 in 1972 to 350,000 in 1977. He is proud that it continues today with the high standard of production maintained.

From 1976 to 1979 Marion produced the 24 hour ‘Telethon’ programs and ‘Christmas Pageants’ plus the weekly teenage program called ‘Hey Jude’ and various specials.

The TVW special projects unit was engaged in many programs and promotions, including the introduction of colour TV and produced the opening of the Perth Entertainment Centre, the 1978 American TV special ‘Bob Hope Down Under’, then a historic climax in 1979 with the 150th Anniversary of Western Australia and the ‘Miss Universe Pageant’, for which Marion played a very important role. Among other matters, Marion had responsibility for the 74 delegates and 42 chaperones (who also acted as interpreters) and arranged their itineraries, hotel bookings etc.

When TVW purchased Fernseh cameras, all the manuals came in the German language. It was Marion who translated the text to English, for the engineering department. The cameras were mostly used for single camera outside broadcasts. Marion was also the producer of ‘Celebrity Challenges’. Marion’s tremendous efforts over the years culminated in her appointment as TVW Production Manager in October 1979.

John made a number of career changes over the years, filling various management roles until settling into the wine industry, which benefitted much from his great knowledge of the subject. John and Marion were keen entertainers when it came to intimate gatherings of friends, who enjoyed stimulating conversation and a love for good food, music and wine.

Marion’s career spanned 25 years at Seven, before moving onto consultancy work with the Australian Olympic Federation, which in association with Network Ten, produced Australia’s Olympathon to raise money for the Australian team to go to the Seoul Olympics in 1988. This was then followed by her appointment as Director of Production with the newly established NEW Channel 10 in Perth.

Before, and since retiring, John and Marion were great travellers, who visited every continent, except Antarctica. Sadly, it was on their last voyage that John passed away in the arms of Marion, during a Mediterranean cruise in May. Its fitting that they enjoyed a wonderful meal and wine on that last evening.

Marion’s heartfelt words best describe their special relationship.

“My darling husband of 41 years, my soul mate, lover and best friend died in my arms on May 30, 2013.

I will forever treasure the wonderful years we spent together, the many great times we experienced and the great love we shared. Darling there will never be another one like you – you are forever in my heart. Marion”

Brian Smith has been Marion’s rock helping during this sad time… and contributed to the eulogy presentation at John’s funeral service on Tuesday afternoon June 18th, 2013.

This article will try to remain non-technical, though it is important to know what forms of knowledge were required for television to happen. The sources of these discoveries are often buried in ancient history and the many efforts of numerous people that were made over the centuries.

Part 1 deals with the sources of our early knowledge. The stepping stones needed for civilisation to make progress, which date back to the ancient Greeks, for without mathematics we would not have made advances in architecture, engineering, chemistry, electronics, optics, and hence the industrial and computer revolutions.

Part 2 shows how imagination played an important role in not only arriving at new concepts but predicting where the future may lead. The science fiction of yesteryear soon became the reality of today as the properties of light were explored and substances that reacted to it led to photography and the electric light, and as the properties of magnetism and electricity became understood, then more creative uses for these phenomena were found.

Part 3 tells how all the ingredients gradually came together for television to become a reality. The discovery of cathode rays, wireless propagation, the gadgetry and people who made it all happen.

Part 4 tells how some of the early devices were primitive, being made from bicycle parts, until overtaken by advances in the electronics field. There were many people who contributed to the development of television and it was not always fair in who benefited most from the discoveries. As isolated as Australia was in the very early days, news of these discoveries reached here and the locals began experimenting.

Part 5 explains how the competition between the mechanical method of sending images soon gave way to the superior electronic system, with practical applications gradually becoming mainstream as broadcasting organisations embraced this new field.

Part 6 tracks how television has evolved since the end of World War II with its spread through Britain, the United States and Europe until politicians in Australia started to take notice and contemplate how it should be introduced here. When it arrived in the capitol cities between 1956 and 1959, all licences were grant to newspaper publishers. The Labor party was keen for Australia to adopt a regime similar to the BBC, whilst the Liberal and Country party government introduced a hybrid of commercial and government broadcasting institutions. Australian workers at first enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a television set manufacturing industry, until the Whitlam government killed it by removing the protective tariffs.

Part 7 explores how television came to Western Australia and the battle to get enough viewers to make the industry viable. It really was the pioneering days, as the exchange of programs between other countries, with different television systems was fraught with technical problems. The industry changed greatly as governments changed rules for operating television stations and new technological developments reduced the isolation Western Australia experienced. The early isolation enabled the local stations to maintain a high level of autonomy, but this was eroded as laws were amended, telecommunications between the States improved and stations changed hands. Centralisation and networking completely altered the television landscape, with Sydney and Melbourne becoming the hubs, rather than each city running its own service. Now the industry faces new challenges of a global nature, as the Internet joins everyone together to enable a great variety of services to be delivered. The speed of change is accelerating as new innovations and business models put the old media models at risk. Those who cant keep up will get left behind as the media moguls try to grasp the new notions and control them. Not all are having a lot of success, as newspapers are in decline and new threats arrive for the advertising dollar. The delivery method for television is undergoing a dramatic transition, which is exciting for the viewer, but not necessarily so for the broadcaster who must anticipate correctly which path to take for then to survive.

Though the story told here may at first seem convoluted, it reflects how things developed. Many ideas were tried and many failed. It required people of different backgrounds and diverse disciplines to make the important discoveries, with each being stepping stones for the other. The development was an international affair that crossed many cultures from the earliest days to the present.

PART 1

Most often television is remembered for the famous performers and presenters who appeared on camera, rather than the army of scientists, experimenters, engineers and technicians, who made it all technically possible in the first place. Each early contributor had to overcome challenges to make vital discoveries. Some endured great hardship, whilst others were ridiculed. There was also opposition from other contestants trying to claim the glory. Particularly those wanting to monetize the new technology and accumulate great wealth ahead of their competitors. On sad occasions the person who made a vital discovery was robbed of the reward by forces working against them.

But before all that could happen, there needed to be an understanding of magnetism, electricity and light.

Magic and Superstition

Ancient people first discovered the property of magnetism in lodestone, one of only two minerals that is found naturally magnetised.

When suspended so it can pivot, it became the first magnetic compass. Though in the case of electricity, they relied on myth and magic to explain lightning and to ease their fears. The ancient Greeks believed that the king of all the gods, Zeus, threw lightning down from the heavens to show his anger at the people below. Greater clarity had to wait until 1752, when Benjamin Franklin (1705–1790) performed his legendary kite experiment during a thunderstorm, in which he conclude that lightning was an electrical current.

As with all the important discoveries over time, it has been a case of crawl before you can walk. Though one suspects that Benjamin Franklin was lucky he could still walk after that experiment.

Years ago our ancestors explained the unknown by superstition and religion, and many people still do. Other more inquisitive folk became philosophers and scientists.

We still marvel at the architectural and engineering achievements of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians and Romans, and wonder at the methods they used. Many of their principles have since filtered down to us today. Countless thinkers have provided the stepping stones that allowed followers to beat a path to enlightenment.

Theories about unusual happenings were refined by the wise over time into laws, that added certainty about natural phenomena. In doing so this overcame thoughts of the supernatural, as the magical tricks were understood and their properties employed to good use.

Maybe there are other forces we have not discovered yet? Forces that can unleash powers that have alluded us, and realms which the ordinary person presently cannot imagine.

For pursuers of Quantum Theory are now telling us about some very odd things which question our knowledge of reality. This is causing much 19th century physics to be re-evaluated.

Quantum mechanics (also known as quantum physics, or quantum theory) is a branch of physics which deals with physical phenomena at microscopic scales, by providing a mathematical description of the dual particle-like and wave-like behaviour and interactions of energy and matter. Quantum mechanics is essential to understanding the behaviour of systems at atomic length scales and smaller.

In the everyday world, it is natural and intuitive to think of everything that is observable as having a definite position, a definite momentum, a definite energy, and a definite time of occurrence. However, quantum mechanics turns much of this on its head when explaining the behaviour of subatomic matter.

The laws of classical Newtonian physics still remain accurate in predicting the behaviour of everyday objects in everyday circumstances. Being matter the size of large molecules or bigger, at velocities much less that the speed of light.

The original television camera and picture tubes depended on subatomic particles, as electron guns were used to paint the picture on a television screen. These streams of electrons are also called cathode rays. The flow of electrons through a conductor also defines what electricity is. Scientific inquiry into the wave nature of light and the discovery of cathode rays led to the quantum theory notions, as people increasing came up with suggestions to explain unusual phenomena.

Electricity is said to travel down a conductor at the speed of light, as electrons move from atom to atom over the length of the conductor. Though if we visualise this as a pipe full of marbles, then as a new marble is pushed in one end, another marble will pop out the other. This seems instantaneous to the eye, like it happened at the speed of light, yet the individual marbles are not travelling at that speed. Electrons head down a conductor in very much the same fashion. Other ways to visualise electricity is to compare it to water moving down pipes. The water pressure equivalent is measured in Volts in electrical terms, whilst the amount of current flow is measured in Amps (Ampere) and the resistance to that flow is measured in Ohms. These are some of the basic units used in electrical formula, along with inductance and capacitance, which will be touched on later. Drawings that map out the complex flow of electricity are referred to as circuit diagrams, with symbols representing the different components.

One of the essential tools of Electronics is Mathematics, which dates back to ancient times… hence the more recent formula below is derived from this gift passed down to us today.

The Accumulation of Knowledge

Socrates (469–399 BCE) was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher who is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is remembered through the classical writing of students such as Plato (429–347 BCE), who was also a philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. The great Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384–322 BCE), was a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He exerted a profound and pervasive influence for more than two thousand years. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theatre, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. The Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer Archimedes (287–212 BCE) is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. He is credited with designing innovative machines and was an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance (14th to the 17th century).

The Ancient Greeks were also responsible for Geometry, the branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. The Greek mathematician Euclid is often referred to as the “Father of Geometry”. Meanwhile, the roots of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonians. Then the Islamic mathematicians developed decimal fractions and considered the relationship between algebra and geometry.

Trigonometry has Greek and Indian origins, which were expanded by medieval Islamic mathematicians by the 10th century.

Interestingly, Aristotle and Euclid described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, which used a pinhole as a lens to project an image of the scene outside upside-down onto a viewing surface.

Electricity derives its name from the Ancient Greeks who knew that pieces of amber (fossilised tree resin) could attract lightweight particles after being rubbed. The amber becomes electrified by the triboelectric effect, in which certain materials become electrically charged after they come into contact with another different material through friction. Rubbing glass with fur, or a comb through the hair, can build up triboelectricity. The Greek word for amber is ηλεκτρον (“elektron”) and is thus the origin of the word ‘electricity’.

The triboelectric effect is the main cause of static electricity, whereas current electricity flows through wires or other conductors to transmit energy. In contrast, static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material.

Unfortunately, over time we have been robbed of great learning opportunities, such as the enormous loss resulting from the burning of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world, and other forms of mass destruction by the hand of man.

Despite the many intelligent people with a thirst for knowledge, it was the often hordes of vandals in history who demonstrated how barbarism and mass stupidity can prevail over common sense and the enrichment of society.

It is not always understood nowadays how noble and how widespread Greco-Roman civilization was, how it kept Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa peaceful, cultured and prosperous, and happy for centuries, and how much was lost when the savages and invaders broke upon it – Gilbert Highet – 1957

Gilbert Arthur Highet (1906-1978) was a Scottish-American classicist, academic, writer, intellectual, critic and literary historian.

Not everyone shares the same set of values and concerns. Despite this, tremendous progress has still been made… though maybe a lot slower that should have occurred in a more peaceful world… even though great technological advances were made in the name of war… from radar to the atom bomb. Many great minds will have perished during these conflicts.

Think of all we’ve forgone and the lost momentum resulting from the catastrophic collapse of various civilisations. We may already have found a cure for all conceivable ailments and diseases, or now be inhabiting other planets, such as Mars and beyond, if it were not for the plunderers and their short sighted and selfish gains.

Now theoretical physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) has suggested that the universe is a hologram, as explained in the book by American author Michael Talbot (1953-1992) called “The Holographic Universe” (1991). With so many incredible notions being put forward, we may one day find a way to eavesdrop on the past. It would certainly have advantages, as lost knowledge could be recovered and the truth discovered to many of the mysteries of history. No criminal could have a place to hide, and no crime committed that would go unsolved. Politicians and bureaucrats would be held accountable, as no secret could be kept. The media would have a field day, though those wishing to maintain power will most likely oppose such advances with as much fervour as the religious fanatics of the Middle Ages.

The Middle Ages period, known as the Dark Ages, was a time of intellectual darkness, barbarity and economic regression in Europe, which following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It generally held back advancement for five centuries, roughly between 500 and 1000 AD.

Added to the man made conflicts, which impacted learning, there were the recurring pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350, and killing between 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population, then occasionally reoccurring until the 19th century.

Religious fervour and fanaticism made scapegoats of various minority groups, as they were blamed for the crisis, and individuals with skin ailments were singled out and exterminated throughout Europe. Jews are burned alive during the Black Death in the belief they were somehow responsible.

Non conformist thinkers were often the victims of the Medieval Inquisition, being tortured or burnt at the stake as heretics. The Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who has been called the “Father of Modern Observational Astronomy” and the “Father of Modern Physics and Science” was tried by a later Inquisition in 1615, found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest for describing the solar system as it really is, with the planets revolving around the sun.

The Renaissance (14th to 17th century) was a cultural movement that began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe by the 16th century. It impacted on literature, philosophy, art, music, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry.

A great innovation that propelled learning at that time occurred when Johannes Gutenberg (1395-1468) invented the printing press around 1440, and by 1500 there were printing presses throughout Europe. This helped scientists to share their works and learn from each other.

But there was one remarkable person who went unpublished during his time by the name of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who is best known as a great painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer and botanist.

Leonardo was also aware of the camera obscura and the pin hole camera effect. The camera obscura literally means “dark chamber” in Latin. It is a box with a hole in it which allows light to go through and create an image onto a screen. This was an aid known to be used by Renaissance painters.

Earlier, a German philosopher, theologian and Catholic saint Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) experimented with photosensitive chemicals, including silver nitrate, the precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. So the knowledge base was starting to build up by the time Leonardo was born.

Leonardo- The Man Behind the Shroud [1/6]

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Some claim that he had a role in counterfeiting the death shroud of Christ (The Shroud of Turin), using early photographic techniques he developed, ages before its modern application. Apparently the cloth carbon dates back to between 1260 and 1390 (the image itself has not been carbon dated), and he would have possessed the brilliance to pull off such a stunt. (The claim is made in a National Geographic Channel documentary called “Leonardo: The Man Behind The Shroud” broadcast on the ABC on Sunday, July 1st, 2007. The theory is that an inferior “fake” shroud existed and that Leonardo was commissioned to replaced it, by the the powerful Savoy family, who owned the Shroud from the 1460s.)

Leonardo made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, with his findings left as hand written notebooks that were originally loose papers of different types and sizes, documented in his mostly mirror-image cursive writing.

According to the Turkish-American author, scientist, and artist Bulent Atalay the author of “Math and the Mona Lisa: the Art and Science of Leonardo da Vinci” and “Leonardo’s Universe: the Renaissance World of Leonardo da Vinci”:

“Leonardo had anticipated many of the developments that would be associated with the Scientific Revolution. He had created anatomical drawings superior to those of Vesalius, and made statements seemingly prefiguring Darwinian evolution. He had performed fundamental studies in optics, and left notes with compelling evidence he had even experimented with both the refracting telescope and the reflector (The Tycho Crater on the moon, invisible to the naked eye, is seen in one of his drawings. Since none of his discoveries were published in his time, and indeed since 75-80% of his papers were lost permanently within a generation or two after his death, his works would not stimulate future development in the sciences. The tragedy of the paragon Renaissance man, universal genius Leonardo, is that although he was in the business of inventing the future, he would not be influencing the future. His scientific endeavors have to be regarded as a false start to the Scientific Revolution.”

Many of the great scientific discoveries made during the Renaissance were in the area of astronomy. This was due to improvements in making lenses, which not only helped with making eyeglasses, and making it easier for people to learn from books, but also led to the invention of both the microscope and the telescope. In the future, lenses would also be an essential component of all forms of cameras.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) not only looked at the stars, but used experiments to prove, or disprove, his theories. This process was refined by scientists such as Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727), to further develop the scientific method.

Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable, to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter.

The earliest known pendulum clock design was also conceived by Galileo Galilei around 1637, but it was never completed. The pendulum clock then patented by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) was invented in 1656, being influenced by Galileo’s work.

Part 2 shows how imagination played an important role in not only arriving at new concepts but predicting where the future may lead. The science fiction of yesteryear soon became the reality of today as the properties of light were explored and substances that reacted to it led to photography and the electric light, and as the properties of magnetism and electricity became understood, then more creative uses for these phenomena were found.

PART 2

This part shows how imagination played an important role in not only arriving at new concepts but predicting where the future may lead. The science fiction of yesteryear soon became the reality of today as the properties of light were explored and substances that reacted to it led to photography and the electric light, and as the properties of magnetism and electricity became understood, then more creative uses for these phenomena were found.

During the Age of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries) scientific thought, skepticism and intellectual interchange were promoted and superstition opposed.

From a science point of view, the physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was a key figure in the ongoing scientific revolution with the emergence of modern science, and the great developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine, and chemistry that took place. John Napier (1550–1617) invented logarithms, William Oughtred (1575–1660) was credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) invented the mechanical calculator in 1642. In 1672, Otto von Guericke (1602–1686), generated electricity using a machine. In 1749, Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) demonstrated that lightning was electricity.

The many advances in all the sciences eventually led to the Industrial Revolution from about 1760 to around 1840.

The Role of Science Fiction

It was also a time when science fiction writers fired the imagination. People such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

These writings stimulated young minds to think about the future and what role they may play.

The science fiction writing of the Frenchman Jules Verne (1828–1905), whose works include “Journey to the Center of the Earth” written in 1864 and “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” published in 1870, were translated into other languages and spread around the world. He was also a writer of adventure stories such as “Around the World in Eighty Days” published in 1873.

Englishman Herbert George Wells (1866–1946), whose works include “The War of the Worlds” written in 1895–97, “The Time Machine” published in 1895, “The Island of Doctor Moreau” published in 1896 and “The Invisible Man” published in 1897, “The First Men in the Moon” published in 1901, “The New Accelerator” in 1901, “The Sleeper Awakes” published in 1910, then after rewriting “When the Sleeper Wakes”, a story that was serialised between 1898 and 1899, it was followed with “The Shape of Things to Come” published in 1933. Wells also wrote in a number of other genres including utopian, history, science and social related novels.

Both men became incredibly popular as visionaries of things likely to come.

The Origins of Photography

The first camera photography was evolving in the 1820s.

According to a Greek-English Lexicon (edited by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie, and published by the Oxford University Press) the word photography derives from the Greek φωτός (phōtos), genitive of φῶς (phōs), “light” and γραφή (graphé) “representation by means of lines” or “drawing”, together meaning “drawing with light”.

In 1816, the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833) used paper coated with silver chloride to produce a temporary photographic image. The silver chloride darkened when exposed to light, but as there was no way then to fix the image, the entire paper would gradually become black, whilst in the presence of light.

In 1836, Niépce’s partner the French artist and physicist Louis Daguerre (1787–1851) used a copper plate coated with silver, that was then sensitised to light by iodine vapor to take a photograph. The image was developed by mercury vapour and fixed using a solution of table salt (sodium chloride).

Once refined, this became known as the daguerreotype process, which was very popular, as it produced very sharp positive images. Meanwhile, the British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) was conducting similar experiments, and came up with a negative – positive process called the calotype or talbotype process. But this was not as sharp, though was convenient for printing multiple positive copies from one negative.

Over many years, a long list of people enhanced the chemical processes until modern day digital photography removed the need for the photographic darkroom. Traditional photography was to play a major role in the television industry, as the motion picture film camera was the only way of capturing news footage for broadcast, until the advent of videotape and Electronic News Gathering (ENG) cameras became small enough to be used for this purpose. Film was also the only practical way of recording content until videotape. It would also take many years before television images would achieve the high definition of the 70mm cinema product on the big screen, and a durable storage form be found, as videotape emulsions were found to be more fragile than the film equivalent. It is only in more recent times that the techniques first developed for television are now being employed in the production of Hollywood movie making, with an all electronic process from image capture to editing and projection.

Advancing from Candle Light to the Electric Light

The origins of the incandescent light bulb date back to the experiments of the English chemist and inventor Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829) in 1802, with the Scottish inventor and author James Bowman Lindsay (1799-1862) demonstrating a constant electric light in 1835.

British physicist and chemist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828–1914) gained fame for inventing an incandescent light bulb before its invention by the American Thomas Edison, which he demonstrated in 1878.

However, the lack of a good vacuum resulted in a bulb with a short lifetime.

Meanwhile, Thomas Edison (1847–1931) had been working on copies of the original light bulb patented by Swan, in an effort to make them more efficient. Though Swan had beaten Edison, Edison obtained patents in America for a copy of the Swan light.

In 1883, the two men established the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company, commonly known as Ediswan, which sold lamps made with a cellulose filament that Swan had invented in 1881.

Then in 1904, the German/Hungarian chemist and inventor Alexander Friedrich Just (1874–1937) and Croatian inventor, engineer, and chemist Franjo Hanaman (1878–1941) were granted a patent for a tungsten filament lamp that lasted longer and gave brighter light than the earlier carbon filament.

The filament that heats the cathode in a cathode ray picture tube in a television set owes its origins to this early work, but a lot of other concepts needed to be mastered before television would become a reality.

There was a vast swath of individuals who contributed to the creation of television. Many were basic discoveries on which others were built, whilst others truly revolutionised the field. Work was taking place on different continents, there was duplication of effort, with the benefits blazing a trail for a new information age and entertainment industry.

People worked as individuals and as teams, then there were cases of great competition which led to litigious fights. Worst cases pitted the brilliant small inventor against the greedy giant corporate entrepreneur, who had all the resources to bully the underdog.

But if it was not for the brilliant work of contributors who mastered the properties of magnetism, electricity and optics, none of the big media capitalists who followed, would have made their fortunes.

Another important discovery was found by the English electrical engineer Willoughby Smith (1828—1891) in 1873. He is credited with discovering the photoconductivity of the element selenium, which led to the invention of photoelectric cells, including those used in the earliest television systems. Smith’s job at the time was responsibility for the manufacture and laying of underwater telegraph cables, at which time he observed that the semi-conductor he used in continually testing the cables gave inconsistent results. He then found that the electrical resistance of the grey selenium semi-conductor varied according to the level of light it was exposed to.

Nature publishes original reports whose conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important problem and have immediate, far-reaching implications.

Many of the building blocks for wireless and television developers were provided by the Scottish theoretical physicist and accomplished mathematician, James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), who produced his “Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” in 1873.

Maxwell earlier demonstrated that white light would result from a mixture of red, green and blue light and demonstrated this by projecting three slides, from separate magic lanterns with coloured filters, where each represented the appropriate image for that colour. The composite image then represented the full range of colours of the original subject. This additive system of using Red, Green and Blue as the primary colours was adopted by colour TV. Colour film photography uses three layers of filters on the emulsion, then subtracts the colours from each other. In this case, Yellow, Cyan and Magenta are the filters used. Where colour TV white consists of R+G+B and black being an absence of all, a colour photo uses Y+C+M to produce black. White is a lack of pigmentation and is thus transparent letting the lamp light through to represent white.

After encountering the English scientist Michael Faraday (1791–1867) at the Royal Institution, whose efforts led to a practical use for electricity, Maxwell then concentrated on the fields of electricity and magnetism, and presented a simplified model of Faraday’s work to the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1855, and publishing more on the subject in 1861. Soon after he calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light, making a quantitative connection between the two. Maxwell’s work inspired Albert Einstein to formulate the theory of special relativity.

It took many people in many different fields to bring all the knowledge together and put it to practical use.

The Revelation of Wireless

A Welsh-American scientist and musician named David Edward Hughes (1831–1900), used trial and error experiments to start putting aspects of this knowledge into practice when he discovered that sparks would generate a radio signal, that could be detected by listening to a telephone receiver of his design. Following this, he developed a primitive spark-gap transmitter and receiver that had the ability to send and receive Morse code signals, which he demonstrated to representatives of the Royal Society in 1880. It was the semiconductor properties of the microphone he invented that exhibited qualities associated with Édouard Branly’s “coherer” (referred to below), that made wireless reception possible. There were a lot of scientists doing work independently that would fine tune these concepts and devices until they reached the greater sophistication found in modern equipment today.

A German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857–1894), who clarified and expanded James Clerk Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of light, also validated through more rigorous scientific techniques that which was first demonstrated by David Edward Hughes, using non-rigorous trial and error procedures.

Hertz published his results in a series of papers between 1887 and 1890, and again in book form in 1893. For the first time, electromagnetic radio waves were scientifically proven to have been transmitted by a spark-gap device, and detected over a short distance. Though interestingly, Hertz went on to say, “I do not think that the wireless waves… will have any practical application.”

The spark-gap transmitter had an uncomplicated design and because the carrier stopped when the telegraph key was released, it allowed the operator to listen for a reply.

The Leyden jar in the above diagram is a device that “stores” static electricity between two electrodes on the inside and outside of a glass jar. It was the original form of a capacitor (originally known as a “condenser”).

The induction coil or “spark coil” is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current (DC) supply. It consists of two coils of insulated copper wire wound around a common iron core. One coil is called the primary winding, with the other coil is called the secondary winding. The primary stores energy from its associated magnetic field. When the primary current is suddenly interrupted (as by a telegraph key), the magnetic field rapidly collapses, causing a high voltage pulse to be developed across the secondary terminals through electromagnetic induction. This is typically many thousands of volts and sufficient to cause an electric spark. Michael Faraday (1791–1867) discovered the principle of induction, though an Irish scientist and Catholic priest Nicholas Callan (1799–1864) invented the induction coil in 1836.

Receiving morse code by wireless needed a practical receiving instrument, to act as a telegraph relay. The first widely used detector device to do this was referred to as a coherer, This was invented around 1890 by the French physicist Édouard Branly (1844–1940). This device involved placing metal filings in a glass box or tube, and making them part of an ordinary electric circuit. The explanation was that when an electromotive force is generated in it, they bring the filings more closely together, that is, to cohere, and in doing so close a previously open circuit, much like a relay. But the filings once cohered would retained their low resistance until shaken apart, for instance, by tapping on the tube. Not very reliable for an ongoing use, as it would required constant intervention. To make it more practical, it needed a “decoherer”, developed by British radio pioneer Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851–1940), to maintain the device’s sensitivity after each morse code reception. In 1895, the Russian physicist Alexander Stepanovich Popov (1859–1906) used a coherer with an auto-tapping mechanism to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic radio waves to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.

Guglielmo Marconi used these in his early radio equipment until the availability of the superior crystal detectors were invented by Braun in 1898.

The Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer and physicist, Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), started working in the telephony and electrical fields before emigrating to the United States in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison to solving some of the company’s most difficult problems. According to Tesla, Edison remarked, “There’s fifty thousand dollars in it for you — if you can do it.” After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about payment. Edison, claiming that he was only joking, replied, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla’s US$18 per week salary; Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned. He went on to design and build a viable alternating current motor and power system that eventually succeeded over Edison’s direct current system, to become the method of electricity distribution we know today. Tesla went on to demonstrate wireless energy transmission (Tesla effect) as early as 1891. Tesla claimed in 1916 that, “By the plan I had conceived, if it was realizable, it was just as easy to telegraph or telephone across the entire globe as it is across this room.” The wireless method that Tesla planned to use depended upon an electrical current flowing through the earth between a Tesla coil transmitter and a Tesla coil receiver.

The February 1943, ‘Power Plant Engineering’ commented on Tesla saying that,

“His obituary notices in the newspapers referred to him as the ‘electrical genius who discovered the fundamental principle of modern radio.’ As a matter of fact this is not true. Poor old Tesla had very little to do with the discoveries of the fundamentals of radio, but in his early days he experimented with the production of high frequency currents and because his oscillation transformer, generally known as the Tesla coil, produced spectacular effects, he became known as a wizard. A legend developed about him which was kept alive by the imaginations of newspaper men. … In his development of the Tesla coil, Nikola Tesla produced a device which produced extremely high voltage high-frequency currents and these produced startling effects. Apparatus of this kind was seen in electrical and physics laboratories for many years, but it never served any really useful purpose.”

The Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), demonstrated publicly the use of radio waves in Calcutta in 1895, before Marconi’s wireless signalling experiment on Salisbury Plain in England in May 1897. But Bose was not interested in patenting his work and was thus criticised for making no profit from his inventions. Later he received U.S. Patent 755,840, “Detector for electrical disturbances” (1904), for a specific form of electromagnetic receiver.

Part 3 tells how all the ingredients gradually came together for television to become a reality. The discovery of cathode rays, wireless propagation, the gadgetry and people who made it all happen.

PART 3

This part tells how all the ingredients gradually came together for television to become a reality. The discovery of cathode rays, wireless propagation, the gadgetry and people who made it all happen.

The Cathode Ray Tube

In 1838, the English scientist Michael Faraday (1791–1867) discovered cathode rays. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. Diamagnetism ventures into quantum mechanical effects that explain levitation and other oddities. He also laid the foundations for electricity generation and electric motors and popularised terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion.

The experimentation of cathode rays is largely accredited to Sir Joseph John Thomson (1856–1940), a British physicist who was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases dating back to April and May 1897. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays where he found that the rays of electrons could be deflected by electric and magnetic fields, a fundamental function of the Cathode Ray Tubes used in television sets, before the modern flat screen.

The experiments of the German inventor and physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850–1918) led him to build the first cathode-ray tube (CRT) and cathode ray tube oscilloscope in 1897.

It was a cold-cathode diode, a modification of the Crookes tube (an early experimental electrical discharge tube invented by English physicist William Crookes around 1869-1875, which led to the discovery and use of X-Rays) with a phosphor-coated screen. A cold-cathode emits electrons whilst not being heated electrically by a filament.

A common cold-cathode application is in neon signs.

In 1922, Weiner Weinhart and John Bertrand Johnson (1887–1970) developed the first cathode ray tube to use a hot cathode as a commercial product.

In 1898, Braun invented a crystal diode rectifier or cat’s whisker, as used in the simple radio receivers known as crystal sets.

Prior to that the first widely used detector was the coherer, invented around 1890 by the French physicist Édouard Branly (1844–1940).

To make it more practical, it needed a “decoherer”, developed by British radio pioneer Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851–1940) to maintain the device’s sensitivity after each morse code reception. Guglielmo Marconi used these in his early radio equipment until the availability of the crystal detectors.

Braun shared with Guglielmo Marconi the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics “in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.”

Braun’s major contributions were the introduction of a closed tuned circuit in the generating part of the transmitter, and its separation from the radiating part (the antenna) by means of inductive coupling, and later on the usage of crystals for receiving purposes.

Tuned circuits enable us to separate different radio and TV stations from each other in the receiver, though obviously the transmitter will be locked into its licences carrier frequency on the broadcasting spectrum..

A famous American radio engineer in the period from the late 1910s through the mid-1950s was Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890-1954), best known for the development of the superheterodyne receiver and FM radio, among many other achievements. Here he explains Marconi’s role in the initial development of radiotelegraphy:

“Had Marconi been more of a scientist and less of a discoverer, he might have concluded that his critics were right, and stopped where he was. But like all the discoverers who have pushed forward the frontiers of human knowledge, he refused to be bound by other men’s reasoning. He went on with his experiments; and he discovered how, by attaching his transmitted waves to the surface of the earth, he could prevent them from traveling in straight lines, and make them slide over the horizon so effectively that in time they joined the continents of the world. Several years were to pass before agreement was reached on the nature of Marconi’s great discovery, though Marconi himself understood very well how to apply it and to employ it usefully; and it proved to be the foundation upon which the practical art of wireless signalling was built.

Marconi’s claim to the invention of wireless telegraphy is beyond challenge.”

– Edwin Howard Armstrong, “Wrong Roads and Missed Chances”, 1951, reprinted in “The Legacies of Edwin Howard Armstrong”, page 289.

Meanwhile, other building blocks to television were being devised that enabled amplification and later the transmitting of an image.

The Origins of Television

The first images transmitted electrically were sent by early mechanical fax machines, including the Pantelegraph invented in 1881 by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli (1815–1891).

In 1884, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, a 23-year-old university student in Germany, patented the first electromechanical television system which employed a scanning disk, a spinning disk with a series of holes spiralling toward the centre, for rasterization. Nipkow’s design would not be practical until advances in amplifier tube technology became available.

The simplest thermionic valve was invented by the English electrical engineer and physicist John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945) while working for the Marconi Company in London in 1904 and named the diode, which had two elements and was used as a radio detector and a rectifier.

The American inventor Lee De Forest (1873–1961) added a third electrode in 1906, to invent the first electronic amplifying device, the triode.

In 1906, the German Professor Max Dieckmann successfully demonstrated using a cathode ray tube (CRT) as a display device, with his experimental results published by the journal Scientific American in 1909.

In 1907 Russian scientist Boris Rosing (1869–1933) became the first inventor to use a CRT in the receiver of an experimental television system. He used mirror-drum scanning to transmit simple geometric shapes to the CRT.

In a 1908 letter to the journal ‘Nature’, a Scottish consulting electrical engineer Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton (1863-1930) envision a completely electronic television system. In 1911, Campbell-Swinton expanded on his proposal in his presidential lecture to the Röntgen Society of London. The Times of London reprinted the lecture eight days later. Earlier, Karl Ferdinand Braun had built the first cathode-ray tube (CRT) using a cold cathode in 1897. Campbell-Swinton reasoned that by scanning a CRT electron beam back and forth in rows from top to bottom while varying the intensity of the electron stream, a moving image could be drawn in the same manner as with Nipkow’s disks. Campbell-Swinton also proposed using a variation on the CRT as a camera tube as well. He suggested that this could be achieved by replacing the phosphorus screen of the CRT with some kind of photoelectric material, and that an image would then be focused on it, to produce a varying positive charge on the surface that corresponded with the intensity of light, as it represented the difference shades of the subject. By scanning the photoelectric material with the electron beam in the same way, the charges could be read and the image turned into an electrical signal that would then be sent to the “receiver”. It would take another two decades before inventors such as Kalman Tihanyi, Philo Farnsworth, and Vladimir Zworykin could make it work.

Around the time Boris Rosing was using a cathode ray picture tube, an American inventor and television pioneer, Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906–1971) was born. Farnsworth was an avid reader of science magazines and science fiction books, as well as being aware of the early discoveries with electricity. He too conceptualised a television system using electrons to paint an image when he was only fourteen. Farnsworth then built his prototype at age nineteen. He recognised the limitations of the mechanical systems, and that an all-electronic scanning system could produce a superior image for transmission to a receiving device.

Meanwhile, a man who would be his competitor, Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin (1888–1982) was studying under Boris Rosing at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. During World War I (1914-1918), Zworykin served in the Russian Signal Corps, and tested radio equipment for the Russian division of Marconi, for use by the army. When the Russian Revolution (1917–1918) erupted, Zworykin left for the United States.

Part 4 tells how some of the early devices were primitive, being made from bicycle parts, until overtaken by advances in the electronics field.

There were many people who contributed to the development of television and it was not always fair in who benefited most from the discoveries. As isolated as Australia was in the very early days, news of these discoveries reached here and the locals began experimenting.

PART 4

This part tells how some of the early devices were primitive, being made from bicycle parts, until overtaken by advances in the electronics field. There were many people who contributed to the development of television and it was not alway fair in who benefited most from the discoveries. As isolated as Australia was in the very early days, news of these discoveries reached here and the locals began experimenting.

During this bitz of electronic development in Russia, Hungry and America, a Scotsman named John Logie Baird (1888-1946) was tinkering with tin plate, cardboard and bicycle parts to demonstrate the transmission of a moving silhouette image in London in 1925, and of moving, monochromatic images in 1926, by using a Nipkow disk invented in Germany in 1884.

This low definition vision was a 30 line system at 12.5 pictures per second, so the signal was within the audible range and capable of being sent by radio or over telephone lines. This enabled a historic trans-Atlantic transmissions of television from London to New York in February, 1928.

The mechanical system proved cumbersome as a camera technology, and its limited quality was soon considered impractical when compared to alternate methods employing electronics, rather than spinning discs. Developments were taking place in many countries from Britain, Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, France and the United States. Each making useful contributions towards a more sophisticated system.

An advantage of Baird’s very low definition mechanical system was that the signal, which operated in the audio range, could be recorded on a 10-inch wax audio disc using conventional sound recording technology of the day. As a result, Baird can claim to inventing “Phonovision”, the world’s first video recording system, of which a handful of recordings survive to this day.

Baird promoted his mechanical system with great zest, and in doing so increased the public awareness of his efforts not only in Britain, but overseas. But this was happening despite the advancements taking place elsewhere.

In contrast, Farnsworth’s all-electronic image dissector camera tube transmitted its first image in 1927, and was then demonstrated to the press the following year, after improvements. He then applied for a patent later that year. Farnsworth’s patent, #1,773,980 was issued in August 1930.

Dr. Rudolf Hell (1901-2002) became one of the most important German inventors of all time. Though from 1923 to 1929 he was an assistant of Prof. Max Dieckmann when they submitted an application to the German patent office in April 1925, for which a patent was issued in October 1927. The device was described as a ‘Photoelectric Image Dissector Tube for Television’ (or TV camera tube). Their experiments were announced in the May 1928 issue of the magazine Popular Radio. Hell also claimed in 1951 that he had made a tube but could not get it to function properly, since at the time there was an insufficient knowledge of “electron optics” – the manipulation of an electron beam by electric or magnetic fields.

In Hungry, an engineer Kálmán Tihanyi (1897-1947) designed a television system with fully electronic scanning and display elements in 1926. He made significant contributions to the development of cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which were bought and further developed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and the German companies Loewe and Fernseh AG.

In 1928, Tihanyi applied for a patent for a refinement to his electronic camera tube, which was essentially an Iconoscope.

Late in 1932, one of Zworykin’s team, Sanford Essig accidentally left a silvered mica sheet in the oven too long. Upon examination with a microscope, he noticed that the silver layer had broken up into a myriad of tiny isolated silver droplets which would enhance the image resolution of the iconoscope by a quantum leap. For which RCA separately developed and submitted a patent application in November 1931, and was issued in 1935.

Also in 1926, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan, Kenjiro Takayanagi (1899–1990) demonstrated an all-electronic television receiver employing a CRT display, using a Nipkow disk camera to scan the subject with a 40-line resolution. Though Takayanagi did not apply for a patent, he is recognised as “the father of Japanese television”. He continued to play a key role in the development of television at NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and then at JVC (Victor Company of Japan).

Television in Australia began experimentally in 1929 in the same year Bruce Gyngell was born. Gyngell was the man that formally introduced television on Sydney screens in 1956.

Donald McDonald the Chief Engineer of 3AR Melbourne, which was owned by the ‘Associated Radio Company of Australia’, used the higher powered transmitters of 3UZ and 3DB late each night in 1929 for experiments with television. He and fellow experimenter Gilbert Miles called the electro-mechanical system ‘Radiovision’, which was similar to Baird’s equipment. The primitive vision was transmitted over one radio station, whilst the sound was broadcast over the other.

3UZ was owned by its founded and electrical engineer Oliver John Nilsen CBE, who was later to become a Lord Mayor of Melbourne. These test were also conducted in the same year that ‘The Herald’ newspaper bought 3DB from the Druleigh Business College.

Perth science-teacher-turned-history-author and founder of the Light and Sound Discovery Centre, Richard Rennie, has kindly provided the following information on early TV demonstrations in WA, which can be found in ‘The Encyclopedia of Western Australian Wirelesses and Gramophones’ (by Richard Rennie).

1929 Mr R.B. Caldwell.

On September 2, 1929, Mr. R.B. Caldwell from North Unley, South Australia displayed, at the Centenary Radio Exhibition in the Temple Court Cabaret (Embassy Ballroom) in Perth, the first complete television instrument shown in Western Australia.

It was reported the apparatus was capable of receiving pictures from a distance of several hundred yards. Only the receiver was displayed in Perth. Its Nipkow disc was driven at over 1000 rpm by a 7-watt variable speed sewing machine motor.

R.B. Caldwell (VK5BP) was a member of the South Australian branch of the Wireless Institute of Australia. He displayed a mechanical television receiver that he and another SA radio pioneer P.A. Kennedy had developed

1932 Mr. John Bell

At the fourth annual conversazione of the Science Society of the University of W.A. held in the Physics Department, Irwin-street Perth, a young local experimenter, Mr. John Bell demonstrated a televisor camera and receiver of his own invention. “It proved a centre of interest to all at the conversazione.”

1935 Mr. Walter E. Coxon

In 1935, a magazine article about Wally Coxon indicated (as contained in his diary scrapbook) that he was carrying out television experiments.

In 1936, the Radio and Electronics Department of Carlyle & Co. is reported to have acquired “Baird” Television sets, claiming to be the “1st in Australia with television”.

Part 5 explains how the competition between the mechanical method of sending images soon gave way to the superior electronic system, with practical applications gradually becoming mainstream as broadcasting organisations embraced this new field.

PART 5

This part explains how the competition between the mechanical method of sending images soon gave way to the superior electronic system, with practical applications gradually becoming mainstream as broadcasting organisations embraced this new field.

Cathode Ray Tube technology gains prominence

Manfred von Ardenne (1907–1997) a German research and applied physicist and inventor gave the world’s first public demonstration of a television system using a cathode ray tube (CRT) for both transmission and reception at the Berlin Radio Show in August 1931. Rather than use the CRT as a studio camera, he instead used it as a flying-spot scanner to scan slides and film.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Vladimir Zworykin, had been developing his own all-electronic television system at Westinghouse since 1923, but its performance was too unsatisfactory to demonstrate. In 1930, Zworykin visited Farnsworth’s laboratory for three days and was impressed by his Image Dissector camera tube, which his team at Westinghouse made copies of for experimentation. Then the same year, Zworykin was recruited by RCA to lead its television development department.

In 1931, David Sarnoff of RCA offered to buy Farnsworth’s patents for $100,000 (USD), with the stipulation that he become an employee of RCA, but Farnsworth refused. RCA later went on to threatened behind the scenes to put any body who did business with Farnsworth out of business.

Meanwhile a Russian born electronic engineer Sir Isaac Shoenberg (1880–1963) headed a research group that developed, from 1931 to 1935, an advanced kind of camera tube called the Emitron. Shoenberg joined the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company in London and remained with the company through the merger that became EMI in the early 1930s.

In 1934, a more ambitious Australian attempt at television broadcasting occurred, aimed at an estimated 18 receivers around Brisbane. Starting off as a 30-line system, it expanded to 180 lines in late 1934. The remnants of this equipment sits in a storage area belonging to the Queensland Museum.

These early transmissions were granted a special license, and permission to conduct experimental television from the Wickham Terrace Observatory Tower, after the apparatus was set up by Thomas M. B. Elliott and Dr Val McDowall. The programs included news headlines, still pictures and silent movies such as the temperance film “Horrors of Drink”.

Elliott built the television transmitter using a wide variety of materials including Meccano set parts. A receiving set owned by advertising man Alan Campbell had a cathode ray screen that was 11cm wide. They continued to broadcast until the license was withdrawn following the outbreak of war in 1939. The group did not resume after the war.

1936 experiments by Blake Horrocks in WA

AMMPT members Ian Stimson and Richard Rennie, assisted by Walter House, have kindly provided details of the following early television experiments in Western Australia

In 1936, an electrical engineer and radio Ham, Blake Horrocks created Western Australia’s first workable television transmitting and receiving system, based on the Baird standard 30 line mechanical system.

Horrocks fabricated a Nipkow disc with 30 very small holes arranged in a spiral. The disc revolved at 750 rpm to work at 12.5 frames per second. He recorded the signals as tones on a Phonovision record turning at 78 rpm, for later replay. The system worked, though as expected from this early equipment, the results were poor. The first images were shadows of his own fingers but later magic lantern slides were used as the subject.

This was to progress to 35 mm movie film on a telecine set-up he constructed in his shed. By 1937 he had progressed to a 45 hole Nipkow disc, followed by a 60 hole disc 18 inches in diameter. Despite having some initially difficulty with synchronisation, he progressed to a cathode ray tube receiver in 1938. Although the tube was only one inch in diameter, the image was good enough to be photographed. In 1939 he began experimenting with mirror drum scanners to produce an 88 line picture.

After the war he resumed experiments begun in 1943, but by then the mechanical systems had been superseded by electronic systems. In 1948 Horrocks’ final achievement was to give the first Public demonstration of electronic television in Western Australia. This was to the Perth Division of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Blake Horrocks later joined the Post Master General’s Department (PMG) at its radio transmitter 6WA in Wagin. His innovation and skills did not go un-noticed and he was invited to join Dr. Albert Seyler’s team at the PMG radio and television research laboratories in Melbourne. One of the projects he worked on was the development of fully functional videophone system in 1962 at a time when transistors were beginning to replace radio valves. Blake was to die a few years later.

In 2009, some of Horrocks’ original equipment was on display at the AMMPT “50 Years of WA TV exhibition” in the Fremantle Arts Centre. It was unfortunate that a considerable number of Blake’s early experimental models were discarded by him in Melbourne, telling his family that he thought no-one else would be interested in them.

Meanwhile the British were busy too and in 1932, James Dwyer McGee (1903-1987) and William Francis Tedham (1903-2003) of the British company Electric and Musical Industries Limited (EMI) built and tested their first experimental electronic camera tube in secret, for EMI was forbidden by an agreement with RCA from making electronic television camera equipment, although they were permitted to experiment with cathode-ray receivers. In 1933, the restriction on EMI was lifted, following which EMI went on to develop the Emitron tube. The first prototype Emitron camera tubes were produced in January 1934, as used in the BBC’s cameras at the Alexandra Palace studios, for the world’s first regular high-definition 405-line broadcasting service in 1936. A patent was issued in the USA in 1937.

This restriction on EMI happened around the time RCA developed the Iconoscope, which produced a much stronger signal than Farnsworth’s Image Dissector. The Iconoscope was presented to the general public in a press conference in June 1933, but a patent was not issued until 1938, bearing a 1923 application date. Even though the original 1923 application by Zworykin simply could not work. There was also scant evidence that Zworykin ever built and tested it at that time.

240 lines, 24 frames per second, without interlacing were used for RCA’s 1933 field tests. The picture had good definition, but the flicker was quite noticeable. The following year (1934) the number of lines was increased to 343, with 60 fields and 30 frames per second, with interlace adopted.

Interestingly, some of the Iconoscope’s essential components can be traced to the Hungarian inventor Kalman Tihanyi, and EMI’s similar Emitron camera tube. EMI in Britain was an RCA cross-licensee.

RCA’s attorneys then went on to assert that the Iconoscope had priority over Farnsworth’s Image Dissector, and that Farnsworth’s patents infringed on Zworykin’s application.

Farnsworth mounted a challenge before the examiners of the U.S. Patent Office and RCA’s attorneys tried to prove that Zworykin had the idea first. RCA challenged Farnsworth’s claim that he had first thought of his approach to electronic television while he was a high school freshman in Rigby, Idaho. Then in court his former teacher Justin Tolman not only recalled clearly the day that his young student drew a series of diagrams on the blackboard, but drew from memory a simple sketch of an electronic tube, which turned out to be a precise replica of an Image Dissector. RCA made no effort to produce evidence of a tube from 1923 that would substantiate Zworykin’s claim. In conclusion, the patent office 1935 decision in Interference #64,027, states quite clearly “priority of invention awarded to Farnsworth.” RCA lost all the appeals and eventually capitulated in 1939 and accepted a license from Farnsworth for the use of his patents.

RCA’s Sarnoff finally agreed to pay Farnsworth royalties.

RCA had showcased its electronic television offerings to the public at New York World’s Fair on April 20, 1939. But it was not until September 1939, that RCA conceded to a licensing agreement concerning Farnsworth’s 1927 patent totalling $1 million.

The Iconoscope, and its English equivalent the Emitron, became the prime camera tubes in use for broadcasting from 1936 until 1946, when they were replaced by the RCA developed Image Orthicon tube. Though RCA started developing the Orthicon from 1937, whose performance was similar to the Image Iconoscope. The improved Image Orthicon was a considerable advancement. Earlier the British had made improvements to the Emitron by incorporating some elements of the Image Dissector camera tube, which they called the Super-Emitron. This new development was between ten and fifteen times more sensitive than the original Emitron and Iconoscope tubes, and was patented in 1934 (British Patent No. 446661).

The Image Orthicon and the Vidicon camera tubes also drew on Farnsworth’s patent for low-velocity electron-beam scanning, along with numerous other RCA-invented aspects. “Immy” was a common term for the early Image Orthicon tubes, and was put forward as the name for the Television Academy award statuette. The name was then modified to Emmy, as more appropriate for a female symbol.

The German company Fernseh demonstrated their 90 line studio equipment at the 1932 Berlin Radio Exhibition, where they broadcast film images from a mechanical Nipkow disc telecine unit, which was sent over a Telefunken short wave transmitter. Fernseh also supplied a Nipkow disc camera that generated a 120 line image of a head and shoulders. Also that year, Fernseh showed an intermediate film scanner, that used a motion picture film camera followed by rapid processing and film scanning.

Following a trip to Europe in 1934, Farnsworth secured an agreement in 1935 with Fernseh A.G. in Germany, related to his Image Dissector cameras, so that there was an exchange television patents and technology to speed development of television transmitters and stations in their respective countries. But the Image Dissectors were only used briefly, before being replaced by more sensitive camera tubes.

At the 1936 Berlin Radio Exhibition, Fernseh demonstrated a Farnsworth concept camera using his Image Dissector, whilst Telefunken demonstrated a camera influenced by RCA’s Iconoscope and EMI’s Super-Emitron.

The world’s first electronically scanned television service then started in Berlin in 1935, culminating in the live broadcast of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games from Berlin to public places all over Germany (whereas the BBC were broadcasting at a higher definition and more widely to the public who could afford receivers). In 1934, the German radio apparatus company Telefunken bought some patent rights from RCA to built the “Superikonoskop” tube in Germany, which in many ways was identical to the Super-Emitron. The Superikonoskop camera tube was then used by Telefunken in the historical TV transmission of the Olympic Games in Berlin 1936.

This was conveyed by Christine Heimprecht, in the German language “Fernsehkamera – Dr. Walter Bruch und die Olympiakanone”, which showed a picture of the Iconoscope camera used at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

Fernseh overcame the Image Dissector’s need for very high light levels to perform adequately, by using a special van during the Berlin Games, that had a film camera on the roof which then fed the exposed film down into the vehicle for rapid processing, following which it was scanned for television just one minute later.

Apparently, only three electronic cameras were available for the games (according to ‘Television Under The Swastika’ – Unseen footage from The Third Reich – Spiegel TV 1999), so they were supplemented by the above Fernseh AG intermediate film system, in which motion picture film was fed into the van below, after it was exposed in the camera, where it was immediately developed, fixed, washed and given a preliminary dry. The film negative whilst barely dry, was scanned by a flying spot and turned into a positive for transmission over the air. The film was then given additional drying and wound on to a take-up spool, and sent to the archives where 285 rolls still survive today.

This system was not only used in Germany, but also by Baird in Britain, in his attempt to compete with the more superior EMI fully electronic system. This took place during the three months trial by the BBC of both television systems from November 1936 through January 1937.

For several years, the BBC had been broadcasting 30 line mechanical TV, using the Baird system. In 1935, the BBC assembled a committee to recommend what path it should take. The committee recommended that the BBC sponsor trial broadcasts by two systems, one by Baird, with 240 lines, and one by EMI with 405 lines. For three months, the systems were to be alternated on a weekly basis, to determine which was superior. A decision was made and regularly scheduled programs began in 1936 using the 405 line EMI system emanating from studios in Alexandra Palace, a building in North London, England, built in 1873 as a public centre of recreation, education and entertainment.

Zworykin’s rudimentary video camera tube was called the Iconoscope and a precursor to the modern television picture tube was called the Kinescope. The RCA Victor company in the United States then poured huge resources into its development.

During the 1930’s Zworykin continued to develop the cathode ray tube display, which evolved into the tubes used in RCA’s first commercial TV sets shown at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York . The National Broadcasting Company (NBC), formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), began regularly scheduled broadcasting at the same time.

The Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) was established in 1928, and entered the black and white era of television broadcasting in 1940. Then in 1941, the US government ordered NBC to divest itself of one of its two networks, which eventually gave rise to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

The 12″ mirror-in-lid TRK-12 was RCA’s first television to be sold to the public. Priced at $600.00, it was RCA’s most expensive yet most popular pre-war model.

The legal battle between Farnsworth and RCA would later become known as one of the great, tragic examples of legal and industrial force combining to crush a rightful patent owner, for even though Farnsworth won the case in 1935, he lost out in the end. Farnsworth’s basic patents expired in 1947 and World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945.

In 1939, the United Kingdom and Germany each had about 20,000 television sets when the war started.

World War Two interrupted the development of television. In the U.S. some broadcasting continued, but the manufacture and sale of sets stopped. In England, all broadcasting and TV manufacturing ceased until the end of the war. It was not until 1948-1949 that US families had accumulated enough savings and were eager to purchase homes, cars and other luxuries, that were denied them during the war. This saw the explosion of sets into the American marketplace, with the post-war sales boom in England followed a few years later.

When Europe resumed TV transmissions after WWII (i.e. in the late 1940s and early 1950s) most countries standardised on a 625-line television system. The three exceptions were the British 405-line system, which had already been introduced in 1936, the French 819-line system developed by René Barthélemy, and the American 525-line system.

Meanwhile in France, things developed differently, when the French physicist Rene Barthlemy (1889-1954) became chief of the new research laboratory of television in 1928, where he produced 30 line Nipkow disc television receivers. By the end of 1934 his work with 60 line technology allowed the first official television broadcasting by France, which took place on April 26, 1935.

On December 2, 1935, Barthelemy broadcast his first 180 line television programs, using a mechanical camera and electronic receivers. In 1937 Barthelemy developed the Emyvisor CRT televisor sold by Emyradio.

This Model 95 television receiver displayed a 180-line picture, at 25 frames per second, on a 4 inch cathode-ray (picture) tube. A magnifying lens was used to increase the size of the picture to about 8 inches. This was a “vision-only” unit, which means there was no sound, a separate radio had to be used to receive the sound. Owners were advised to tune-in the sound first, then turn on the vision unit. Mr. Barthelemy made these sets under the trademark “Emyradio”.

1936 saw the end of the mechanical era of television in France, and the birth of the electronic cameras and receivers.

In 1941-42 work was started on a high definition 1,015 line system

During the 1940s Barthélemy reached 1015-lines and even 1042-lines. On November 20, 1948, François Mitterrand, the then Secretary of State for Information, decreed a broadcast standard of 819-lines; broadcasting began at the end of 1949 in this definition.

Part 6 tracks how television has evolved since the end of World War II with its spread through Britain, the United States and Europe until politicians in Australia started to take notice and contemplate how it should be introduced here.

When it arrived in the capitol cities between 1956 and 1959, all licences were grant to newspaper publishers. The Labor party was keen for Australia to adopt a regime similar to the BBC, whilst the Liberal and Country party government introduced a hybrid of commercial and government broadcasting institutions. Australian workers at first enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a television set manufacturing industry, until the Whitlam government killed it by removing the protective tariffs.

PART 6

This part tracks how television has evolved since the end of World War II with its spread through Britain, the United States and Europe until politicians in Australia started to take notice and contemplate how it should be introduced here. When it arrived in the capitol cities between 1956 and 1959, all licences were grant to newspaper publishers. The Labor party was keen for Australia to adopt a regime similar to the BBC, whilst the Liberal and Country party government introduced a hybrid of commercial and government broadcasting institutions. Australian workers at first enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a television set manufacturing industry, until the Whitlam government killed it by removing the protective tariffs.

Black and white television exploded onto the overseas scene at the beginning of the 1950s, mid-decade saw colour television and remote controls launched in the US, and by the end of the decade there was the introduction of transistorised TV sets. All before the medium was launched in Perth, though there would be advantages in the wait as Australia benefited by the introduction of the more refined PAL 625 line system here.

Greater interest was shown in Australia during 1948 with the Chifley Labor government keen to follow the British BBC model, on the advice from the Postmaster General’s department, with government-controlled TV stations in each capital city. This did not eventuate as the Labor government was defeated in December 1949. The incoming Menzies-led Liberal-Country Party coalition was in favour of American-style commercial stations.

Meanwhile in 1948 and 1949, the Shell company sponsored a series of large-scale closed-circuit public demonstrations in the capital cities. There were performances with singing and music, magic tricks and demonstrations of cooking and sport. This was followed the next year with a tour of regional towns by the television manufacturer Astor, once again with demonstrations and the opportunity for local performers and members of the public to appear on camera (using 405-line PYE and Astor equipment)

Television in Australia 1948

Television was demonstrated at the 1948 Sydney Royal Easter Show, when PYE brought their British 405-line cameras and monitors to Australia, as recorded by this cinema newsreel of the day.

Australia had been experiencing an economic boom by the late 1940s with the demand for wool and other exports, but the recession of 1952-53 that followed was very severe. This caused the Government to defer the introduction of television until the economy improved, though it also appointed a Royal Commission on Television (1953–1954) with public sittings held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart to take evidence.

There were 68 recommendations with an emphasis on television being introduced gradually with a limit on the number of stations. Starting with Sydney and Melbourne, it was recommended that one national station and two commercial licenses be issued per city.

In the process, all successful applicants were newspaper publishers. Television was anticipated to be in direct competition with the newspaper audience and the soliciting of advertisements, therefore the powerful print barons were given the opportunity to regain from television advertising revenue that they would lose with the newspapers. There was also to possibility they may subsidise their new TV stations from their highly profitable press operations, should this be necessary.

The commercial licenses granted for the stations opening in 1956 were:

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• TCN Channel 9 in Sydney, was issued to a company named Television Corporation Ltd, headed by the owner of The Daily Telegraph, Frank Packer.
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• ATN Channel 7, was issued to a company named Amalgamated Television Services, a subsidiary of Fairfax, which owned the Sydney Morning Herald.
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• GTV Channel 9 in Melbourne was first licensed to the General Television Corporation Limited, a consortium which included two newspapers, The Argus and The Age.
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• HSV Channel 7 in Melbourne was originally owned by The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, owners of The Herald and The Sun.

Television was introduced to Australia in 1956, in time for the Melbourne Olympics.

Meanwhile, Perth was still considered a bit of a backwater as the 1954 Australian Census indicated that there were only 639,771 people living in the whole of Western Australia, with 348,647 in the metropolitan area.

In the week leading up to the 13th of October, 1958, TVW had been running television demonstrations in a hall in South Terrace, Fremantle as their contribution to Fremantle Week, when the company learnt of its success as the applicant for WA’s first television licence.

The next round of licenses issued went to the less populated states, resulting in the following commercial stations opening in 1959:

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• QTQ Channel 9 in Brisbane was licensed to Fairfax.
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• BTQ Channel 7 in Brisbane went to Queensland Press, owned by the Herald group.
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• NWS Channel 9 in Adelaide was owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owned The News newspaper.
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• ADS Channel 7 was launched by Adelaide Television Broadcasters Limited, which was owned by the Advertiser Newspapers, then controlled by The Herald and Weekly Times.
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• West Australian newspapers formed a company which was the successful applicant for the license of TVW Channel 7 in Perth, the first television station in WA.

Only one commercial license was given out initially in Perth – principally because of its market size. Perth was smaller than Brisbane and at that stage smaller than Adelaide.

Western Australia was beginning to wake in the lead up to the launch of TV in 1959. The 1950’s saw Kwinana became Western Australia’s first major industrial area, with an oil refinery, steel-rolling mill and other ventures (though smaller industrial areas such as Welshpool existed beforehand). Australia’s post World War II immigration policies also benefited the State, where in the 25 years following the war, the population doubled, to pass one million in 1969.

The embryonic television operation that was TVW was underwritten by WA Newspapers, assisted by a Bank of New South Wales loan for £300,000 and funds from share holders. The three shareholders who applied for notes in excess of £5,000 were the Roman Catholic Church, the Australian Workers’ Union through Radio 6KY in Perth, and the West Australian Broadcasters Limited, comprising the radio stations 6IX Perth, and on relay to 6WB Katanning and 6MD Merredin. At that time, 6IX was half owned by WA Newspapers and the other half by Musgroves, until the newspaper gained full control in 1963. Interestingly, TVW became the owner in 1970.

It was estimated that the television station would cost between £600,000 to £700,000 with income expectations based on the advertising income achieved by the Sydney and Melbourne TV stations, which began transmissions in 1956.

When TVW started its trade transmissions in mid 1959, there were about 5000 television sets on sale in Perth, but not all were being purchased. TV sets were relativity expensive, at an average of £200 each, when the average wage was a little over £16 per week. Insurance against TV faults cost an additional £10 a year for a service contract.

Local manufacturers of sets included Phillips, Healing, PYE, Simpson, HMV, AWA, Pope, Kriesler and Admiral.

TV Set Manufacturing in Australia

From the earliest days of broadcasting, radio followed by television receivers were manufactured in Australia.

In 1818, the Eastern Trading Co., Ltd., was registered, which in 1937 changed its name to E.T.C. Industries, Ltd. It was a manufacturer, importer, and distributors of radio and electrical goods. In 1942, E.T.C. Industries. Ltd. changed its name to Tecnico, Ltd. Then in 1955, the largest English radio and TV manufacturer Pye Limited of Cambridge, purchased 50 per cent of the company, just prior to the launch of television in Australia. The company name was changed to Pye Industries Limited in 1959. It was then taken over by Philips Industries Holdings Limited in 1977.

One of the earliest companies was A.G. Healing Pty. Ltd., a retailer and manufacturer of home appliances. Healing commenced building and selling bicycles in 1907, then went on to sell electrical appliances, such as the popular Healing Golden Voice radio.

A very influential company was AWA, an early manufacturer of transmitters for communications, broadcasting and defence purposes. The company commenced operations in 1909 as Australasian Wireless Limited (AWL), a Telefunken wireless agent. But in 1912, the English Marconi Company sued the Australian government for infringing their patent and AWL retaliated by issuing writs against firms using Marconi equipment. In July 1913, a new company Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, was formed with exclusive rights throughout Australasia to the patents, ‘present and future’, of both Marconi and Telefunken.

AWA engineers were working with Marconi in England on television systems from 1948, and in 1954 AWA mounted experimental television in Australia to demonstrate during Queen Elizabeth II’s Australian Royal Tour.

AWA manufactured TV receivers under the AWA Radiola Deep Image brand from the mid-1950s until the relaxation of import tariffs under the Whitlam Government in the early 1970s. Then in 1973, AWA joined with the UK firm Thorn Electrical Industries to sell AWA-Thorn colour televisions in Australia. They were initially the UK Thorn colour sets modified for Australia conditions, with local improvements made to these over the following years.

Philips began by making carbon-filament lamps in 1891 and, by the turn of the century, was one of the largest producers in Europe. In 1925, Philips became involved in the first experiments in television and, in 1927, began producing radios. Also in 1927, Philips Australia was founded with its headquartered in North Ryde, New South Wales.

Astor’s origins date back to 1923, when as Clark & Hagblom they made fixed condensers and radios for the Louis Cohen Wireless company, which Clark & Hagblom took over later the same year. In 1926 the company merged with two other small firms to create The Radio Corporation of Australia, which quickly became a major player in the Australasian domestic radio industry with its Astor brand. In 1939 they became Electronic Industries Limited when they merged with Eclipse Radio Pty Ltd. Astor became a major manufacturer of early monochrome television sets in Australia, commencing production in 1956. Astor established their own music recording division and distribution network, which was launched around 1960. The company was bought by Pye Electronics in the 1960s, which was later bought out by the giant Philips electronics company in 1977. With the takeover, the Astor brand name disappeared from the consumer electronics market, although Astor Records continued in business until the early 1980s.

In 1926, The Gramophone Company Limited (Australian and New Zealand branch) opened in Sydney, for the purpose of pressing ‘His Master’s Voice’ gramophone records. The company later went into radio and television set manufacturing. Their radio sets first arrived in Western Australia in 1937, when a new company was formed called Household Appliances Limited, to represent HMV.

The Kriesler Radio Company of Sydney was founded in 1928 as a registered radio manufacturer. The company was ranked third in Australia’s radio manufacturers prior to the advent of television in Australia in 1956, by which time it had been sold to the Dutch music and electronics giant Philips. The first Kriesler TV set was based on Philips circuitry, though built in Australia.

Simpson was a manufacturer of household appliances based in Adelaide, Australia. The company was established in 1909. In 1963 they merged with Pope Industries Ltd to form Simpson Pope Holdings Limited. Pope was originally established as Popes Sprinkler and Irrigation Company in 1925 and after World War II was also a manufacturer of washing machines. Pope also manufactured air conditioning systems. The company changed its name to Simpson Holdings Limited in 1979. Simpson Holdings was a listed public company. In 1986, Simpson merged with Email Limited, an industrial conglomerate specialising in refrigeration, electric meters and metals distribution. In 1999 the Email conglomerate was taken over and broken up with the appliance business being obtained by Electrolux. As of 2006 the Simpson manufacturing plant had been closed down but Electrolux was still using the Simpson brand name on some budget-priced products in their range. The Pope brand is still used for some lines of garden watering and sprinkler products.

Admiral was founded in 1934 as an American appliance brand and was one of the major television manufacturers in the early era. By 1954, Admiral had ten manufacturing plants in the United States and others countries including Australia.

Though transistorised television sets made an appearance overseas before we got the medium, the early Australian sets were of the valve variety. Valves, like the early light bulbs, often had a short life and many in the set repair industry became known as valve jockeys, for their practice of swapping valves until the set sprang back to life. If the fault appeared more complicated, the set was taken back to the workshop for a thorough going over. Viewers were encouraged to take out insurance to cover the cost of repairs, which proved to be a constant problem when sets tended to be unreliable. Of course that unreliability may have been due to dodgy repairs. Some sets went years without major problems, yet other buyers could be unlucky and buy a dud one. Transistors were generally more reliable, though printed circuit boards could suffer from dry joints where a soldering job was not up to scratch. Integrated circuits added a greater level of sophistication and reliability, to the point where most sets now continue working until they become obsolete.

The single biggest cause for the catastrophic decline of local TV set manufacturing industry was the Whitlam government’s 25% across-the-board tariff reduction in 1973. This opened the consumer market to a flood of cheap, high-quality Asian imports, against which local manufacturers were unable to compete.

Interestingly, the vintage valve radios produced by companies like Kriesler, Astor, Healing and AWA are now fetching enormous prices on the international collector’s market.

Part 7 explores how television came to Western Australia and the battle to get enough viewers to make the industry viable. It really was the pioneering days, as the exchange of programs between other countries, with different television systems was fraught with technical problems.

The industry changed greatly as governments changed rules for operating television stations and new technological developments reduced the isolation Western Australia experienced. The early isolation enabled the local stations to maintain a high level of autonomy, but this was eroded as laws were amended, telecommunications between the States improved and stations changed hands. Centralisation and networking completely altered the television landscape, with Sydney and Melbourne becoming the hubs, rather than each city running its own service. Now the industry faces new challenges of a global nature, as the Internet joins everyone together to enable a great variety of services to be delivered. The speed of change is accelerating as new innovations and business models put the old media models at risk. Those who cant keep up will get left behind as the media moguls try to grasp the new notions and control them. Not all are having a lot of success, as newspapers are in decline and new threats arrive for the advertising dollar. The delivery method for television is undergoing a dramatic transition, which is exciting for the viewer, but not necessarily so for the broadcaster who must anticipate correctly which path to take for then to survive.

PART 7 – The long and winding path that led to television

This part explores how television came to Western Australia and the battle to get enough viewers to make the industry viable. It really was the pioneering days, as the exchange of programs between other countries, with different television systems, was fraught with technical problems. The industry changed greatly as governments changed rules for operating television stations and new technological developments reduced the isolation Western Australia experienced. The early isolation enabled the local stations to maintain a high level of autonomy, but this was eroded as laws were amended, telecommunications between the States improved and stations changed hands. Centralisation and networking completely altered the television landscape, with Sydney and Melbourne becoming the hubs, rather than each city running its own service. Now the industry faces new challenges of a global nature, as the Internet joins everyone together to enable a great variety of services to be delivered. The speed of change is accelerating as new innovations and business models put the old media models at risk. Those who cant keep up will get left behind as the media moguls try to grasp the new notions and control them. Not all are having a lot of success, as newspapers are in decline and new threats arrive for the advertising dollar. The delivery method for television is undergoing a dramatic transition, which is exciting for the viewer, but not necessarily so for the broadcaster who must anticipate correctly which path to take for then to survive.

    By the time TVW opened on October 16th, 1959, there were only 3,387 licensed TV receivers in the State. However it was estimated that each household had at least 12 to 15 people watching the opening, which could amount to some 60,000 viewers.

    It was six months between TVW Channel 7 and ABW Channel 2 opening in Perth, and during that time TV retailers had overstocked on sets after being misled by manufacturers about expected demand, causing them to order more than they could sell. There was also an increased number of retailers entering the market and this led to a discount war of up to 12% to 15% reductions on certain makes of television. The pressure on stores was exacerbated when manufacturers insisted on prompt payment and started refusing to sell at a wholesale discount.

    Some of Perth’s oldest and best established electrical firms were shaken to their foundations by the television debacle, with their future hinged on the impact Channel 2 made on viewers. Following the launch of ABW2 on 7th May 1960, the stalled sale of TV sets in WA then grew to about 40,000 with many suburban cinemas needing to limit their screenings. There were clear indications that theatres would be forced to close.

    Australia had a very active radio drama output prior to television, which was decimated by the new visual medium. We did not have the economy of scale that the United States enjoyed, nor the Hollywood advantage of vast program making facilities to generate huge quantities of TV drama output for a large market. As a consequence, it was cheaper for the local commercial stations to purchase programs from the US than attempt to make them. In the case of the ABC, many programs were bought from Britain, though the BBC had a tendency to produce drama and situation comedy shows using electronic studio cameras, rather than shoot on film, as the US preferred to do. The ABC suffered by buying 405-line shows that were kine-recorded (using a film camera pointed at a high persistence TV monitor) which in turn resulted in an inferior picture compared to the Hollywood produced shows. This may have been a factor in the ABC attracting a much smaller TV audience in the early days. In addition to the fact that the British shows were missing the razzle-dazzle of American show business. The ABC tried to emulate the BBC and everything had a British sensibility. The main ABC TV programming was centralised, whereas the autonomous TVW programming had the local touch of general manager Jim Cruthers, which the viewing public responded to more in numbers. Cruthers was raised in the world of newspapers, being mentored by the West Australian’s managing editor James Macartney. The culture he knew was one of responding to the local readership, and garnering a strong distribution by providing what the public wanted… even if that was bolstered by gimmicks such as find the ball competitions and well intentioned community involvement. What he learnt in this field was successfully transposed into television. Cruthers was supported by Brian Treasure, who had a flare for drumming up deals with not only sales clients, but program suppliers, which not only gave TVW the best shows America could offer, but ensured commercial profitability.

    The film picture quality of shows coming from the leading Hollywood studios far exceeded the inferior British kine-recordings. Studios such as Warner Brothers shot everything on 35mm, which was then reduced to quality 16mm prints for TVW broadcast. The vivid black and white imagery of ‘Maverick’, ‘Cheyenne’ and ’77 Sunset Strip’ far exceeded the blurry vision WA viewers experienced watching the early episodes of ‘Dr Who’. Even though the Doctor proved popular, to now hold cult status and high production standards, the productions back then were poor compared to the slick US product. Both TVW and ABW used the same brand of PYE telecine chains with Philips projectors (which STW later used), so it was the source program material which made the difference.

    The BBC picture quality improved greatly when videotape was introduced, though the difference in broadcasting systems proved a hindrance until the UK adopted the 625-line system. Meanwhile, the commercial stations were at a disadvantage trying to broadcast US made 525-line studio programs, such as the popular American variety shows. These at first were distributed as kine-recordings until systems conversion equipment was developed of a high standard.

Bing Crosby & Perry Como on Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall

Bing Crosby and Perry Como shows came to us as kine-recordings during the 1960s. This clip is an example of the inferior quality we had to endure until quality 525-line to 625-line systems conversions became available.

    By 1964 Perth’s population had reached 510,000 and there were a total of 100,280 homes with TV. This represented nearly 70% of the total number of homes in Perth.

    The Crawford Productions’ Melbourne-based police drama Homicide premiered on 20 October 1964 on HSV-7, soon followed on 11 November by the ATN-7 satirical sketch comedy series The Mavis Bramston Show (which at its peak drew an unprecedented 59% of the audience), followed then by the rural soap opera Bellbird on the ABC in 1967. Up until that time, most attempts at television drama were championed by the ABC, with often costume dramas set back in our convict days. These too were often made in the ABC studios using electronic cameras and distributed in kine-recorded form until videotape became the norm.

    One hour of two inch wide videotape amounted to 5400 feet of magnetic tape, which was considerably heavier that the equivalent program distributed on 16mm film. The videotape was also more expensive and fragile should it be subjected to magnetic fields. The greater bulk and weight would have impacted on handling costs, whilst the magnetic recording format made videotape program duplication a time consuming process, as it needed to be done in real time compared to the higher speed optical copying of film, which then needed to be processed. It was not uncommon for the master tape of Homicide episodes to be distributed around the network. Cut videotape editing was the early practice until electronic, followed by computer editing were introduced. A master tape could contain many fragile cut edits, which were obvious on playback to the duty videotape operator, owing to the noise they made as they passed through the high speed head wheel assembly (using RCA terminology) and drum (using AMPEX terminology).

    The second commercial TV license in Perth was granted to Swan Television, following which STW Channel 9 began broadcasting on the 12th of June 1965. STW also purchased the same brand of black and white telecine equipment as Channels Seven and Two, but had the advantage of videotape facilities from day one, whereas TVW and ABW didn’t adopt this technology until 1962.

    The Golden West Network (GWN) began life as a group of smaller, independent stations when South West Telecasters won the license for Bunbury and Albany (launched on 10 March 1967 as BTW-3 in Bunbury, with a relay in Mount Barker that commenced the next year). It was the development of nine prominent Bunbury businessmen and four prominent Western Australian companies. Then Jack Bendat and Kerry Stokes came to South West Telecasters (owner of BTW/GSW) in 1978/79 to gain control and change the company’s name to Golden West Network. Following which The Golden West Network expanded to cover regional and remote Western Australia, servicing all areas except metropolitan Perth. In 1987, Bendat and Stokes sold these media interests, but they were bought back by Stokes the following year. Prime Television purchased GWN from Stokes in November 1996.

    TVW’s old parent company, West Australian newspaper, was a locally-edited and owned daily newspaper run by the publicly-listed company West Australian Newspapers Limited, until The Herald and Weekly Times Limited (H&WT) bought the company in 1969, but then sold it to Robert Holmes à Court in 1987, as part of the News Limited takeover of H&WT.

    The West’s managing director James Edward Macartney (1911-1977) left in May 1969 and was engaged by STW-9 as a consultant. Interestingly, it was Macartney who instigated the establishment of TVW Channel 7, and participated as an influential board member until he resigned in May 1968. Macartney then joined Seven’s competition.

    Western Australia became less isolated from July 1970, when the cross Nullarbor broadband micro-wave radio link improved telecommunications capacity, which enabled the exchange of television content. It was a limited resource, that needed to be booked months ahead and at great cost. This cost was a motivator for a satellite link to be established. Satellites could free the networks from the stronghold that the Postmaster-General’s Department (1901-1975), Telecom (1975-1989) and later Telstra (from 1989) held over this important conduit of communications. The satellite would make content exchange more affordable, and open the opportunity for networked programs to be broadcast in the West.

    In 1972 it was announced that all stations would move to colour television in 1975, which was officially introduced at midnight on March 1st 1975, using the European PAL standard. This was the start of the revolution as the home TV set began more and more to emulate the advances in cinema technology.

    Prior to station launch in 1959, TVW made a point of thoroughly rehearsing the station opening and program presentation. It would appear that this was more so with Seven than with Nine, for their opening night in 1965 was mostly a disaster. On the evening of STW’s launch, TVW’s Brian Treasure was slightly concerned as competing staff had made claims at the local bar that Nine would walk over Seven. Many valued Seven staff had left to make the trip down the hill to STW in the lead up to the launch, with a proportion of the key technical and operational staff coming from TVW.

    As the opening night of STW unfolded, it became all the more embarrassing as numerous film count-downs went to air, with films broadcast backwards and upside down and sound out of synchronisation. Much time was spent viewing the stations fish tank, which earlier had been introduced to the viewers with the various goldfish named. Treasure walked into the TVW program continuity studio that night to announce with a smile, “Fellows, I don’t think we have anything to worry about”.

    Fortunately, STW lifted its game considerably after that, though the viewers at first would have made an unfavourable comparison with TVW’s professional and slick operations.

    TVW 7 was in a position to outbid STW 9 for programs, if it had wished to, but instead formed a buying cartel with STW 9 to ensure that the presence of another station did not inflate the cost of program purchases from overseas and Eastern states sources. To operate this cartel a separate company called TV Facilities was set up in which the two stations were equal partners. Because all programs were purchased through this single buying authority, Perth TV paid less for its programs than it would have if Channel 7 and 9 were competing against each other for programs.

    When colour television was introduced, there were penetration levels of 1% in 1975 and 20% in 1976. It did not reach 50% until 1977. The vivid colours combined with energetic camerawork made the ABC’s ‘Countdown’ a great ambassador for this sensational new addition, regardless of this, the high cost of colour TV sets were at first a deterrent to their purchase.

    Up until 1978, neither TVW nor STW were affiliated with any particular network. In fact historically, TVW took many shows from TCN-9 in Sydney and GTV-9 in Melbourne. Brian Henderson’s ‘Bandstand’ and Bobby Limb’s ‘Sound of Music’ from TCN and Graham Kennedy’s ‘In Melbourne Tonight’ from GTV are prime examples, whilst the raunchy and highly popular ‘Number 96′ came from TEN in Sydney. Nine was the top rating network Australia wide and TVW was showing many of their best. Shows they traditionally took before STW came on the scene. Then in 1978, STW decided to affiliate with the powerful Nine Network run by Kerry Packer, which improved their rating performance considerably.

    STW’s breakaway coincided with Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, which itself broke away from traditional cricket. This was a professional competition staged between 1977 and 1979 that competed with the establishment by adding colourful uniforms and energetic use of camera angles with many different viewing perspectives. A dramatic departure from the staid BBC and ABC coverage.

    In 1979, commercial stations were mandated to provide ‘C’-classified programming targeted at children between 4-5pm, and a minimum of 30 minutes of pre-school programming prior to that. These regulations saw the establishment of a number of children’s series including Simon Townsend’s Wonder World and Shirl’s Neighbourhood.

    Also in 1979, the Federal Government decision to relax Electronic Media ownership rules lead to a flurry in takeover activity in the ownership of Australian Television Stations.

    Robert Holmes à Court and his Bell Group bought TVW 7 in 1982.

    Alan Bond’s Bond Corporation bought a major share holding in STW 9 in December 1983.

    In 1983 a two-hour experiment was conducted, in which the Seven Network televised a series of 3D films.

    On the 1st July 1983, The Australian Broadcasting Commission becomes the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

    Broadcast times were gradually increased over succeeding decades, although the ABC did not commence 24-hour broadcasting until 1993.

    Applications for a third commercial TV licence in Perth were invited by the Minister for Communications Michael Duffy in April 1984.

    Perth was now larger than Adelaide – and Adelaide had a third commercial station for the previous twenty years.

    Initially, the Tribunal received submissions from four applicants for the third commercial licence: West Coast Telecasters, Now Television, Perth Television and Western Television (Sunday Times, 7th October 1984, page 3). This was reduced to two applicants: West Coast Telecasters and Western Television. The high cost of maintaining expensive legal counsel had forced two of the initial applicants out of the race. Now Television withdrew early on and Perth Television (involving ACE Theatres) joined with the Western (Taimac, Laurie Connell, Jeans West, RAC and Darcy Farrell) application in August 1985.

    STW Channel 9 became the first station in Perth to broadcast 24 hours a day on 17 April 1984.

    Television stereo sound broadcasting started officially in Australia in 1984, though test programs were broadcast earlier with programs such as ‘Hey Hey Its Saturday’.

    1986 saw the introduction of a new, domestic satellite called AUSSAT, and by the end of 1986 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was broadcasting both television and radio to remote areas of Australia.

    In March 1987 a Senate Select Committee recommended that the ‘two station’ rule be abolished in favour of a 60% market share of the Australian viewing audience, as part of a total replacement of the old Broadcasting Act 1942. The Government also introduced rules limiting cross-media ownership between the press, TV and radio.

    In 1987, Alan Bond bought two key Nine network stations TCN9 in Sydney and GTV9 in Melbourne from Kerry Packer, then in October 1987, the stock market crashed. The financial pressure placed on Robert Holmes à Court’s Bell Group eventually led to a takeover by Bond Corporation Holdings Ltd. The takeover was completed around the end of 1988, which then gave Bond control of the West Australian newspaper.

    Also in 1988, Christopher Skase and his Qintex group bought TVW7 (Perth) and SAS (Adelaide) from Robert Holmes à Court.

    Perth’s third commercial television station NEW Channel 10 went to air on Friday May 20, 1988.

    After former TVW co-founder Brian Treasure retired from Seven Perth in December 1975, his business dealings involved working for Nine network boss Kerry Packer and establishing Perth’s first commercial FM radio station, 96FM, with funding from Kerry Stokes and Jack Bendat. This team also created West Coast Telecasters, the successful applicant for the NEW Channel 10 licence in Perth. Though the company was sold to Frank Lowy’s Northern Star Holdings before they went to air, as a result of a change in government policy.

    From 1989, Federal Government legislation amendments resulted in one of the most significant changes for regional television in Australia with the introduction of aggregation. Instead of being covered by a single commercial channel, regional license areas would combine to provide three stations in line with metropolitan areas. As a result, most regional areas went from one to three channels, although some, particularly outside eastern states New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, remained with two or even only one commercial station.

    The PRIME7 Television Network was formed in Australia as a result of the above legislation changes, that were designed to give all Australians equal access to “free-to-air” services. Since 1989, PRIME7 has added Golden West Network (Western Australia) to its television broadcast regions. In the eastern states of Australia the broadcast signal is branded as PRIME7. In Western Australia the broadcast signal is known as Golden West Network (GWN7). GWN7 is affiliated to the Seven Network, with the network’s on-air schedule closely following that of TVW-7, its Perth counterpart. The network’s transmission operations were moved from Bunbury to Prime Media Group’s digital broadcast facility in Canberra in April 2005.

    In 1989 Bond Media sold STW Channel 9 to Sunraysia Television for A$95 million. The deal also involved Bond Media purchasing the Sunraysia owned STV-8 for A$18 million. Bond Media was forced to sell due to the Federal cross-media ownership laws, which restricted the level of national reach for media owners.

    In October 1989, Qintex collapsed after an unsuccessful takeover of the Hollywood film studio MGM/UA, that was repeatedly bought and sold by Kirk Kerkorian. The Qintex collapse left TVW in the hands of receivers.

    From June 14th 1991, SBS TV was permitted by the government to broadcast five minutes of advertising per hour, as a form of additional funding.

    During the 1990s the first subscription television services were introduced to Australia. The first license was issued to Galaxy Television, which started in 1993, providing services to most metropolitan areas by 1995. Other major providers include Foxtel, Optus Television and AUSTAR, all of which were introduced in 1995.

    Community television was introduced to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide in 1994. The stations, which all broadcast on ‘Channel 31′, were allocated long-term temporary licenses until new legislation introduced in 1997 permitted permanent licenses to be granted. Access 31 in Perth followed in 1999.

    In 1995, Kerry Stokes acquired a dominant stake in the Seven Network (initially around 20% but subsequently increased to over 40% through purchases and share buy-backs).

    WIN Television was granted the rights to a second television license in regional Western Australia in 1997. Then on March 26th 1999, WOW, Western Australia’s second regional commercial television network was launched (owned by WIN).

    The DVD player was launched in 1997 and had only reached 13% penetration by 2001.

    Digital terrestrial television was introduced in 2001, with DVB-T transmission encoding and MPEG-2 compression, limited by the carrying capacity of the 7MHz channels used for television broadcasting.

    A proposal for a third regional television station – a joint venture between GWN7’s parent company Prime Media Group and WIN Corporation – was submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority in 2006, with the new channel to operate under a Section 38B license, as a Network Ten affiliate named Ten West.

    In June 2007, STW Channel 9 shareholders approved the sale of the station to 45% shareholder WIN Corporation for $163.1 million.

    Australian television has since grown to include: five national free-to-air stations, regional stations, community stations and countless Pay TV stations.

    Meanwhile, Pay TV penetration has remained fairly stable at around 24%, but with only an 11% share of nightly viewing. Therefore Pay TV with all its channels garners about the same nightly audience as the ABC with its few.

The Television Viewing Revolution

    Television started in australia with the cathode ray camera tube and television set picture tubes, but since then equipment has not only shrunk, it is also become less expensive with remarkable quality now obtainable from domestic cameras and personal computer based editing. The cameras in smart-phones keep improving so that 1080p has become the norm, with video editing Apps and the ability to upload to the Internet now common place. Digital cameras now use sensor chips, known as the charge-coupled device (CCD), whilst the home viewing experience has also seen a resolution with space saving flat screens that save in width but more than make up in screen size.

    New terminology has been added to our technology vocabulary with the Plasma Display Panel (PDP) and the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). Equipment that gives the home a viewing experience which challenges the cinema with a clarity of image thats often better than the old film projector establishments… assuming one is watching a high definition channel that is broadcasting true HD.

    A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display common to large TV displays 30 inches (76 cm) or larger. They are called “plasma” displays because the technology utilises small cells containing electrically charged ionised gases, or what are in essence chambers more commonly known as fluorescent lamps.

    Image burn-in occurs on CRTs and plasma panels when the same picture is displayed for long periods. This causes the phosphors to overheat, losing some of their luminosity and producing a “shadow” image that is visible with the power off. Burn-in is especially a problem on plasma panels because they run hotter than CRTs. Early plasma televisions were plagued by burn-in, making it impossible to use video games or anything else that displayed static images.

    In 1936, a Hungarian engineer Kálmán Tihanyi (1897-1947) described the principle of “plasma television” and conceived the first flat-panel display system. He was the same engineer who had designed a television system with fully electronic scanning and display elements in 1926. He made significant contributions to the development of cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which were bought and further developed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and the German companies Loewe and Fernseh AG.

    The monochrome plasma video display was invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois and found its way into adding machines, cash registers, calculators, pinball machines, and various instrument displays. In the late 1960’s, Larry F. Weber completed his PhD studies in this area at the same University. In the 1980s, IBM built a plant to make a 19-inch (48 cm) orange-on-black monochrome display for computer terminal use. The plant was bought from IBM by a start-up company called Plasmaco, which was co-founded by Weber.

    In 1992, Fujitsu introduced the world’s first 21-inch (53 cm) Plasma full-colour display. It was a hybrid, based upon the plasma display created at the University of Illinois, that achieved superior brightness. In 1986, Panasonic purchased Plasmaco to acquire its technology and US factory. Other manufacturers then followed.

How a Plasma TV works

    A plasma display consists of two transparent plates of glass with a thin layer of pixels sandwiched in between. Each pixel is composed of three gas-filled cells or sub-pixels (one each for red, green and blue). A grid of tiny electrodes applies an electric current to the individual cells, causing the neon and xenon gas in the cells to ionise. This ionised gas (plasma) emits high-frequency UV rays, which stimulate the cells’ phosphors, to glow the desired colour.

Plasma and LCD (liquid crystal) displays work in two very different ways.

    Liquid crystals were first discovered in 1888, by the Austrian botanist and chemist Friedrich Reinitzer (1857-1927). Reinitzer discovered these properties whilst experimenting with cholesteryl benzoate. He noticed that this substance seemed to have two melting points. At 145.5°C the solid crystal melted into a cloudy liquid which existed until 178.5°C where the cloudiness suddenly disappeared, giving way to a clear transparent liquid. This in effect became a fourth state of matter. Solid, liquid, gas and now liquid crystal. Reinitzer found three important features, the existence of two melting points, the reflection of circularly polarised light, and the ability to rotate the polarisation direction of light. These two of these features are used to advantage in an LCD.

    Later a French theoretical physicist, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (1932-2007), who had been working with magnetism and superconductivity, turned his interest to liquid crystals in 1968 and soon found fascinating analogies between liquid crystals and superconductors as well as magnetic materials. His work was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics 1991.

    The interesting thing is that not only are liquid crystals temperature sensitive, they can also be manipulated by mechanical, magnetic or electric forces. If an electric field is applied across a liquid crystal, its molecules will arrange themselves parallel to the electric field, and in doing so can strongly affect the polarisation of light passing through the crystal.

How a LCD TV works

    The liquid crystal display consists of two polarising transparent panels and a liquid crystal solution sandwiched in between. It has a mirror in the back, followed by a sheet of glass with a polarising film on the bottom side, and a negative electrode plane made of indium-tin oxide on top that covers the entire area. Next is the layer of liquid crystal, then a second plate of glass, with a positive electrode on the bottom and another polarising film on the top, at right angles to the first one.

    When there is no current applied to the electrodes, light entering through the front of the LCD will simply hit the mirror and bounce right back out. But when a current is applied to the electrodes, the liquid crystals untwist and block the light in that region from passing through. That makes the LCD show that region as a black area.

    Small and inexpensive LCDs are often reflective, which means to display anything they must reflect light from external light sources like an LCD watch. More sophisticated displays have built-in fluorescent tubes with a diffusion panel to scatter the light evenly. About half of the light is lost as it travels through the different layers. So the light in a modern LCD panel isn’t created by the liquid crystals, but by a light source behind the panel, that shines light through the display. A picture display is created by building a matrix of squares that are individually controlled to form a large number of individual picture elements (pixels).

    Passive-matrix LCDs use a simple grid to supply the charge to a particular pixel on the display, but these notably have a slow response time.

    Active-matrix LCDs use thin film transistors (TFT), which are tiny switching transistors and capacitors that are arranged in a matrix, with a capacitor assigned to each pixel. The amount of charge in the capacitor will then determine the amount of light let through, so in this was an LCD can create a grey scale. Then to display colours, an LCD must have three sub-pixels with red, green and blue colour filters to create each colour pixel.

The Future of Television

    Expect some surprises in the next decade, more than the last five, as incredible as they were. There’s so much happening in the United States with new start-up companies all vying to reinvent the television medium. All sorts of concepts are being tried, as if no one is really sure where things are heading, but they are trying everything to tap into the next big cash stream. Much of what is happening over there is not seen here owing to zone restrictions which protect local markets.

    When we take a look at the music-streaming revolution in the past year or so. Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Deezer, Pandora, iTunes Radio and others are all legal, and provide an instant music listening experience. Meanwhile with TV and movies, the United States is aiming towards the same instant gratification with high quality, on any device, with a well-designed, convenient interface. Australia still seems to be a decade behind.

    Netflix offers a lot for a mere $8 per month in the US, and is earning so much revenue that they’re now commissioning their own original shows. Such as, Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in ‘House of Cards’. An adaptation of a previous BBC miniseries of the same name which is based on the novel by Michael Dobbs.

    In the US, the series was uploaded to the Netflix website for download by members to view as they liked. They could watch one episode a week or binge and watch the lot at once. It is not tied to a schedule or interrupted by commercials. Nor is it tied to a television set as it is available on a number of devices.

    In Australia, Foxtel premiered the series on Showcase on May 7, with all 13 episodes also made available on Foxtel Go and Foxtel On Demand from that date.

The popular Foxtel Go app allows Foxtel subscribers to view live and catch up content on the iPhone, iPad and soon on Android devices.

Next, Foxtel will introduce a new internet delivered TV service in June 2013 called Foxtel Play to allow customers to subscribe with no contract from $25 per month. Users will be able to view the service through smart TVs, computers and gaming consoles. Foxtel Play will also be accessible over 3G/4G and Wi-Fi, just like the Foxtel Go iPad app.

The Foxtel ‘On Demand’ service delivers TV and movies straight to the High Definition iQ2 set-top-box via an internet connection. It includes a rental service offering New Release, recent and classic movies, as well as episodes from popular TV shows at an additional fee for Foxtel customers. ISP charges may also apply. The iQ2 is a digital video recorder that you’ll never own. Originally $200 for the install, but now $99 or $75 for an upgrade from iQ, plus $10 rent for the box per month. The new model of the iQ2 is now being marketed as an iQHD. Initially one had to pay a second $200 install to upgrade from an iQ to an iQ2, and of course hand back the iQ, thus flushing $200 down the drain. Foxtel is a little more lenient now.

    House of Cards is the second major series from Netflix to be released in a way that defies the traditional distribution model. Another Netflix drama series, Lilyhammer, proved popular on SBS ONE.

    Netflix will follow up with a sci-fi series to be created by the makers of The Matrix trilogy, Lana and Andy Wachowski, and the new series of the acclaimed sitcom Arrested Development, starring Jason Bateman.

    The most illegally downloaded TV show in Australia, ‘Game of Thrones’, is also available on Showcase. Its an American epic fantasy television drama series created for HBO and made in Northern Ireland. Interestingly, the US ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich, himself a fan of the show, has pleaded with Australians to stop illegally downloading it. He was troubled to find out that Australian fans were some of the worst offenders with among the highest piracy rates in the developed world.

    Many see this as an indictment of the situation in Australia, that viewers find it necessary to do this, and are thus not prepared to subscribe to Pay TV for what they consider to be an exorbitant fee, to then get commercials and a huge amount of rubbish they don’t care for, and a limited amount of shows they do.

    Australia often lags behind in meeting such needs, and much of it has to do with us having less population, and thus being less important as a market. This dates back to the cinema when we had to wait to see new movie releases. It was even worse in the suburban picture houses when movies could be many years old. Then when television arrived, many of the shows were also years behind the US and movies seemed to date back to the dark ages.

    There is a demand that shows be fast tracked from the US, to pre-empt the need for people to download shows illegally, though now many of Australia’s popular programs are locally made, thus alleviating the situation all together. Not only that, but our talent is so highly regarded that local actors are increasing being syphoned off by the United States. Fortunately, training institutions such as the WA Academy of Performing Arts and other Australian institutions are pumping out artists of a high standard, and at a constant rate. Now Australian developed television series are being copied in the US. The only down side is of Government cutbacks in funding for these institutions.

Part 1 starts when Perth was still referred to as the Swan River Colony. Western Australia had been a penal colony from 1850 to 1868, receiving over 9,000 convicts transported over 43 ocean voyages. The colony’s first cultural centre was The Swan River Mechanics’ Institute, established in 1851. As well as housing an extensive library, and various specimens of our natural history, the Institute also provided a venue for entertainment. The population of Perth tripled in a decade to 27,553 in 1901, as a result of the gold rushes in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie from 1892–93. This led to a transformation of the city with much building taking place. Many of these structures would last into the 1960s, until the next big mining boom which eventuated in a vast number of the earlier structures being demolished, and within a decade most of Perth’s grand old theatres were gone.

Career opportunities in the performing arts have evolved over the years. Fifty years ago in Western Australia there were no formal schools to teach radio and television broadcasting skills, other than the technical college trade related courses and the AWA run Marconi School of Wireless. Private teachers taught elocution, singing and dance and there were the amateur thespians of the Repertory Club producing an eclectic range of plays, revues and musicals. Many promotors also staged performances which covered a wide range of popular entertainment forms at the professional theatres.

Owing to Perth’s relative isolation it developed a strong local music scene from the earliest days of the colony.

For more than two and a half decades the Perth Town Hall (1870) and sometimes the Swan River Mechanics’ Institute (1851) and St George’s Hall (1879) were used to stage live theatre productions.

    The above images were captured by photographic techniques which dates back to 1822. The origins of photography, developed from the work of many, including French inventor Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), who was experimenting with photogravure etching and use of the the camera obscura. The earliest being pin hole camera that projects an inverted image of its surroundings on a screen, until a lens was employed. Niépce also experimented with silver chloride, which darkens when exposed to light, but eventually looked to bitumen, which he used in his first successful attempt at capturing nature photographically. Then Louis Daguerre (1787–1851), a French artist and physicist, together with Nicéphore Niépce, were able to produce a direct positive image in the camera on a silvered copper plate, but the image was very fragile and could be rubbed off with a finger. The exposure in the camera was also too long to conveniently take portraits.

    Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), a British inventor, photography pioneer and noted photographer made a number of major contributions to the development of photography as an artistic medium. In 1835, Fox Talbot created his own photography process. Talbot’s contributions include the concept of a negative from which many positive prints can be made, which succeeded as the basis for almost all 19th and 20th century photography.

    Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) was a British photographer who spent much of his working life in California, using multiple cameras to capture motion in stop-action photographs. In 1878, he placed a series of glass-plate cameras in a line along the edge of a race track, with the shutter of each triggered by a thread as a horse and jockey passed. As a neutral background, he lined the track with cloth sheets to outline the silhouette of the galloping horse. He then invented an early movie projector he called a zoopraxiscope to demonstrate “The Horse in Motion.” The film camera was yet to evolve, as this was just a series of still photographs taken in rapid succession.

Animated galloping horse, using photos by Eadweard Muybridge

Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope

This is a short film created for the Eadweard Muybridge exhibition at Kingston Museum, in September 2010. When Eadweard Muybridge visited Thomas Edison’s laboratory in February of 1888, it stimulated Edison’s resolve to develop a motion picture camera.

    In 1878, Raymond Longford was born. He was to become Australia’s most prolific director of the silent era. Among his many hits were “The Silence of Dean Maitland” (1914), “The Sentimental Bloke” (1919) and “On Our Selection” (1920). The AFI award for lifetime achievment is named after Raymond Longford. Starting off as a stage actor before acting in films for producer Charles Cozens Spencer (1874 – 1930), another significant figure in the early years of the Australian film industry who became the leading exhibitor in the country by 1912. Spencer acquired picture theatres across Australia, as well as overseas agencies for film releases. His screenings ranged from footage of the San Francisco earthquake and the Burns-Johnson fight to the American classic, The Great Train Robbery.

During the later stages of the industrial revolution motion pictures developed gradually from a carnival novelty in the 1890s along with a myriad of other innovations. A revolution introduced by the steam engine, patented by James Watt in 1775, followed by the development of steam-powered ships and factories, the locomotive and railways, and later in the 19th century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation, all brought radical changes. Changes that were captured for perpetuity, first by still photography and then by the marvel of moving pictures. Clever though primitive contraptions built by the artisans of yesteryear. Mechanics were to that era what electronics is today. The skills gained by makers of clocks, watches and scientific instruments were employed on a far greater scale in the building of complex machinery, which drove the evolution of modern engineering. Though the process of economic and social change took place gradually, each step was dependant on new inventions and technological discoveries. Starting with iron making, and the coke fuelled blast furnace leading to cheaper iron and steel, and the development of portland cement, led to a revolution in building.

Refinements made in the use of electricity, further advanced technology with the introduction of the telegraph, the telephone, radio and sound with movies. This would later lead to a new revolution in electronics that not only produced television but also the computer.

New innovations in all scientific disciplines resulted in sweeping changes that left nothing untouched, other than remote indigenous tribes. But even they were eventually impacted as western technology reached every corner of the globe. Since the development of motion pictures, the social impact has been documented, and dramatised in book, play, and film forms. The way this is conveyed, is also undergoing change as each new media developments impact on the other, eventually making old forms obsolete. Entertainment forms encroached on one another as live theatre and radio were effected by cinema and television, then threatened by video stores such as Blockbuster, who in turn have been challenged by the internet.

Between 1850 and 1930, variety theatre was presented by a number of companies who engaged a wide range of artists. The acts were considerably varied and included magic lantern and towards the turn of the century, early silent film offerings, often with a live musical accompaniment. These were presented at many venues from open air gardens to halls until purpose built theatres were erected. Some traded under the name Ye Olde Englishe Fayre (YOEF). Live entertainment required the services of musicians and small orchestras to provide accompaniment not only to other acts but also silent movies until the advent of sound, which then put many out of work.

As raised above, new forms of entertainment delivery disrupted the old. Live theatre was effected by the cinema, which in turn was impacted by television. Vaudeville also disappeared with the arrival of TV. A stage act that could play many locations and enjoy a long life soon found that the mass audience of TV destroyed those opportunities. Early radio also employed live actors and musicians until gramophone recordings and television made it necessary for the medium to change. Early local variety television gave work to those who could carry a tune, though networking now means that production is centralised on the eastern coast thus limiting opportunities for locally domiciled musicians. New genres have evolved with reality TV taking advantage of a public seeking 15 minutes of fame and imaginative twists on the age old talent quests.

    It was a different world in 1892, when The Salvation Army founded its filmmaking branch, the Limelight Department, which was responsible for 80 per cent of all Australian film production between 1900 and 1906. It closed down in 1910. The inspiration for the name coming from the light source used for slide projection and theatre spotlights at the time. Blocks of lime were heated to white incandescence by a gas jet, usually generated by heating chemicals in a retort beside the projector. In May 1901, the Limelight Department was commissioned by the Victorian Government to film the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary. The royal party travelled to Melbourne, where the Duke opened the first sitting of the new Commonwealth Parliament at the Exhibition Buildings.

    In 1894, thousands of people around the country saw films displayed in Kinetoscopes, at Penny Arcades in single viewer peepshow devices invented by Thomas Edison’s Company. Two years later, projectors began to arrive in Australia, allowing grouped audiences to view films.

Amusement arcades developed out of penny arcades from the nineteenth century, as venues for people to entertain themselves whilst operating a variety of mechanical games including coin-operated billiards, hockey tables or shooting games. There were fortune telling and strength testing machines, games of chance which rewarded with a toy or a money prize to full blown poker machines. There were also peep shows, being a slot machine which played a short duration silent movie of a titillating nature. Later pin ball machines became very popular, evolving into more combative video games in the late 1970s.

Early History of the Moving Image

WA TV History
Richard Rennie demonstrates a wide range of early motion picture amusement arcade equipment from his collection, including the Kinetoscope. In 1891, the Edison company successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures.

Zoetrope
The modern zoetrope was invented in 1834 by British mathematician William George Horner. The earliest projected moving images were displayed by using a magic lantern Zoetrope

Praxinoscope
The Praxinoscope was an improvement on the Zoetrope that became popular toward the end of the 19th century. A magic lantern version was demonstrated in the 1880s.

Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope used a strip of 35mm film to also provide viewing to one person at a time. A popular attraction was a 35 mm filmstrip of the Butterfly Dance (circa 1894-95), featuring Annabelle Whitford Moore, in the format that would become standard for both still and motion picture photography around the world.

Mutoscope
The Mutoscope was an early motion picture device that worked on the same principle as the “flip book.” It was patented in 1894 and provided viewing to only one person at a time. It quickly dominated the coin-in-the-slot “peep-show” business. The series of flip cards simulated a moving image, and usually lasting about 45 seconds to a full minute (depending on how fast you turned the crank), for the magnificent sum of one penny. No “penny arcade” during the first half of the 20th Century was complete without several of these.

The Lumiere Brothers of France, were among the earliest filmmakers in history and patented a number of significant processes leading up to their film camera and the first footage ever to be recorded on March 19, 1895.

The Lumiere Brothers’ – First films (1895)

    Meanwhile between 1895 and 1930 in the UK, early cinematographers were filming much content from the British Music Hall and variety. A wide range of classical, modern, post-modern, contemporary, popular and folk dance was also caught by the camera. Little did the performers realise how much this new medium was going to impact on the career opportunities of future generations of performers.

    In 1895, the original Perth City Brass Band was formed. They were employed as a Regimental Army Band for Citizens Military Units in addition to its main function as a Community Band.

    Also that year The Dalkeith Opera House was opened, to later be named the King’s Theatre. It was a live venue located at 52-62 South Terrace, in Fremantle. The large, two storey, theatre building was designed to accommodate 1,200 people. It became the venue for a wide range of assembly from meetings to entertainment forms such as vaudeville, boxing and cinema.

    The building still stands with its rendered brick, decorative cornice, stuccoed parapet and pediment. The theatre had a sliding roof, a large fly and twelve dressing rooms. The street frontage is now given over to shops.

    In September 1896, Marius Sestier, an agent for the Lumiere Brothers, came to Australia to display the Lumiere Cinematographe, a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures. Sestier is credited with taking Australia’s oldest surviving films, those of the 1896 VRC Derby and Melbourne Cup.

First Australian Film – The Crowd Pre-Race 1896 Melbourne Cup

This is Part 1 of the first film made in Australia – it’s at the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in 1896.

First Australian Film – The Horses Being Prepared for 1896 Melbourne Cup

This is Part 2 of the first film made in Australia – it’s at the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in 1896.

Richard Ashton provided much input and guidance in the compilation of this essay, Gordon McColl assisted in field trips and library research with Richard. Also appreciate the help provided by Dr Peter Harries, and Ian Stimson. Conversations with Coralie Condon, Audrey Long and Rick Hearder are highly valued, as they reminisced about the topic.

INDEX: Factors that moulded entertainment in Perth

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Entertainment was evolving beyond live performers on a stage. A spate of inventions led to the recording of performances both in sound and picture. These innovations started a revolution in the way we amuse ourselves. No longer were people dependant on the family piano or folk enjoying a sing along, for we could now enjoy the work of musicians and actors from around the world.

    Though the phonograph (record player or gramophone) was conceived in 1877, it would be many more years before the recording industry became a major factor in home entertainment, hence live music remained dominant until records were of reasonable quality and could be mass produced in a form the public preferred.

    The Edison cylinder phonograph used of wax-coated cardboard cylinders, and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side.

    Edison’s team were prolific innovators taking ideas, turning them into reality and marketing the new gadgets with great success. They may not always have been the first, but they had a way of creating enthusiasm among the public, as each novelty was released. Some items that started out as little more than that, soon became a growth industry. Everything from the incandescent light bulb, public electricity generation, record players, movie cameras and projectors and movie production. Edison held 1,093 patents for a wide variety of inventions in an effort to monopolise the revenue generation of the many concepts. Like Bill Gates and Microsoft became dominant in the computer software sphere, as Edison had a century before with pioneering entertainment technologies. Both had the vision to identify a product that had a potential need, generate demand for it, and have outstanding success selling it. A hot example of yesteryear, was the novelty of moving pictures, which caught the public imagination to such an extent that it attracted large crowds to amusement arcades, just to view brief snippets of film in a Kinetoscope. Lots of people viewing peep shows soon produced a substantial profit. A profit to grow even more once the solitary viewing of a Kinetoscope was given a larger audience with a full theatre of paying patrons sharing the same experience at one sitting, courtesy of a projector.

    About 1890, the Edison laboratories developed a movie camera, the Kinetograph, where the first incarnation was far from portable. The first motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States was in 1894 and was five-seconds of footage of an Edison employee, Fred Ott taking a pinch of snuff, then sneezing. Its formal title is Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze.

Fred Ott’s Sneeze

The first Kinetoscope Parlors began opening from 1894

    The Edison Manufacturing Company developed its own projector known as the Projectoscope or Projecting Kinetoscope in November 1896, and exhibitors could choose the films they wanted from the Edison inventory and sequence them in whatever order they wished.

    By the turn of the century, motion pictures became a popular attraction in variety and vaudeville theatres in major cities across the world. The Edison Manufacturing Company was one of many to develop working projectors and produce films from as early as 1896. His camera enabled the company to film everyday scenes outside a studio in a fashion similar to the French Lumière films. The films contained scenes of vaudeville performers, notable persons, railway trains, scenic places, foreign views, fire and police workers, military exercises, parades, naval scenes, expositions, parades, and sporting events.

    Edison was not only pioneering moving imagery but also engaged in early sound reproduction techniques, even trying to marry the two together. The synchronisation was achieved by connecting the projector with the phonograph by a pulley system.

    In 1913, nineteen talking pictures were produced and the Kinetophone introduced as an attempt to synchronise motion pictures with a phonograph cylinder recording. He basically supplied Kinetoscopes with a phonograph inside each cabinet, but by 1915 Edison had abandoned the idea.

The Kinetophone consisted of a Kinetoscope with earphones wired up to a cylinder phonograph within the cabinet.

    Disc recordings were more practical than using cylinders as they were easier to manufacture and more convenient to store. They could also be double sided and this format remained popular through the 20th century as it evolved to micro-groves, high fidelity and stereo recordings. The early machines used a steel needle that required regular replacement. The ABC radio stations replaced the needle after every playing. Sapphire and diamond needles were more resilient and became the norm as the technology evolved.

    In 1896, motion pictures were first screened at the outdoor garden variety venue of Ye Olde Englishe Fayre at the corner of Hay and King Streets, the site of the present His Majesty’s Theatre. Three weeks later, the second venue in Perth opened which would complement their traditional vaudeville performances with a five week season of films. This was the Cremorne Gardens, which from 1904 was known as the Palace Gardens Theatre and became the most popular place of outdoor entertainment in Perth, until it closed about 1914. The theatre was attached to the Westralia Hotel (formally the Horse and Groom Hotel) in Murray Street and situated behind the Criterion Hotel. The site later was used as a boxing venue then became the YMCA.

The Cremorne Arcade, running through from Hay St to Murray Street, became the theatre entrance in 1897.

    The Royal Theatre in central Hay Street, opened in 1897, to be the first purpose-built establishment in Western Australia used to stage live theatre productions, as opposed to the popular form of variety entertainment provided by the vaudeville venues, which featured a mixture of specialty acts such as musicians, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, female and male impersonators, acrobats, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and early movies.

    Motion picture films soon appeared at the Queen’s Hall in William Street in 1899, which was replaced with Hoyts Regent Theatre in 1927, and then again by the Metro Theatre in 1938, all at the same address.

Richard Ashton provided much input and guidance in the compilation of this essay, Gordon McColl assisted in field trips and library research with Richard. Also appreciate the help provided by Dr Peter Harries, and Ian Stimson. Conversations with Coralie Condon, Audrey Long and Rick Hearder are highly valued, as they reminisced about the topic.

INDEX: Factors that moulded entertainment in Perth

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6