Film in Television News

Robin A. Larsen

Until the American commercial television networks introduced videotape recording in 1956, they produced news only live or on film. They aired live, film, and videotape news reports until 1978, when film was dropped. Televised film news first appeared in late 1936 in England with the launching of the BBC's London Television Service. Three years later, in 1939, NBC/RCA introduced U.S. television at the New York World's Fair. After World War II, in 1946, four networks (ABC, CBS, DuMont, and NBC) began broadcasting daily 15-minute filmed news magazine programs from their New York flagship stations. Coverage of political party conventions and presidential elections followed in 1948. To capture televised images on film, 16mm and 35mm kinescope cameras especially designed for the purpose were aimed at video monitors carrying studio or remote transmissions. Only in the late 1950s were film reels and cameras gradually replaced by erasable, two-inch magnetic videotape and the ...

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