Dead
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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 07.8
Dead Medium: PhoneVision
From PADGETT_AT_hobbes.orl.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson)
Source: "The Zenith Story," an inhouse Zenith publication
from 1954.
Zenith had experimented with subscription *television*
since 1931, and had completed a system in 1947.
"Phonevision" was trademarked. In 1951, with FCC approval,
a limited test involving 300 Chicago families was
conducted.
Each day for 90 days, Zenith broadcast a Hollywood
motion picture available to any family for $1 (not cheap,
a new Buick was $1800 then). The families watched an
average of 1.73 movies per week. More than the average,
but not enough to justify a commercial venture.
In 1954, a second test of an improved system was
made, this time in New York City using WOR facilities to
determine the effectiveness in a high broadcast density
environment. The over-the-air coding/decoding mechanism
worked well and the test was considered a success.
In October of 1954 the first contract was concluded
for the use of Phonevision for Australia and New Zealand.
I do not know what happened as a result.
The mechanism lingered on until the seventies without
any real success. In 1971 a test of a limited number of
subscribers was made in Hartford, Connecticut, but again
the setup expense was considered to be to high for
commercial viability. It took the mass-market penetration
of cable to make pay-per-view effective.
The original PhoneVision required a dedicated phone
line to each subscriber's house. Later ones used on-the-
air signals, but all required a special decoder box.
Two types of billing saw experimental use. The first
had a coin-operated box on top of the TV. When the proper
amount was deposited, it would retrieve the decoding
information over the phone line to unscramble the signal.
Later designs required the user to call a number on
the telephone and authorize the charge in exchange for a
code. Entering the code into the box unscrambled the
picture.
Today Zenith is one of the top manufacturers of cable
TV decoders. Few realize it all started back in the '30s.
Warmly, Padgett
btw: Zenith began regular colour TV broadcasts in Chicago
back in 1940 using a "colour wheel" mechanical method and
field sequential transmission. When the American standard
NTSC (known as "Never The Same Colour") was adopted in
1953 by the FCC (under tremendous lobbying pressure by
RCA), the field sequential colour TV system also became
"dead media."
Dead
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