Some things take time

People diss the Internet because of how many things aren't what they should be: high bandwidth delivery; real time video communication; or other technologies that are still not there yet.

How long do you figure TV took to get off the ground?

1928: Station W2XBS, RCA's first television station, is established in New York City, creating television's first star, Felix the Cat — the original model of which is featured in Watching TV. Later in the year, the world's first television drama, The Queen's Messenger, is broadcast, using mechanical scanning. Also this year, John Logie Baird transmits images of London to New York via shortwave.

1948: NBC decided to bring Texaco Star Theater from radio to television, with Milton Berle (Uncle Miltie) as one of the show's four rotating hosts.
Television manufacturing begins in Canada. The television audience increases by 4,000 percent this year, due to a jump in the number of cities with television stations and to the fact that one million homes in the U.S. now have television sets. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission puts a freeze on new television channel allocations until the problem of station-to-station interference is resolved.

1958: The CBC's microwave network is extended from Victoria, B.C. to Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia, to become the longest television network in the world. Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare of Assisi the patron saint of television. Her placement on the television set is said to guarantee good reception. (Ironic: we're still waiting for that...)

So when I hear people bitch about 10 years to get some technologies to come to fruition, I look at TV: it took more than 20 years from the first TV show to Uncle Miltie. Then five years to make it popular.

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