In the context of today’s high tech endeavors; the internet, digital television, cell phones, etc. Mr. Jewett’s observations read as modern insight. He offered this view in 1928 at a Harvard Business School lecture series on managing high technology. The lecture series chairman and organizer was none other than David Sarnoff of The RCA. Under discussion - the nascent commercial broadcasting industry, economic models for one-to-one and one-to-many communications, and the practicality of early television systems.
mbt04001015.jpg mbt04001013.jpg mbt04001011.jpg mbt04001009.jpg mbt04001007.jpg mbt04001005.jpg mbt04001003.jpg mbt04001001.jpg
In the beginning, this new medium of television was as different from its predecessor, motion picture film, as different could be. Motion pictures formed a permanent record crafted over time with great care. Television was live and immediate, leaving a permanent record only in the minds of the viewers. Sixty years ago that all changed!

In 1956; in twin events, one in Chicago at the predecessor the modern NAB Convention, and one in Redwood City, California; Ampex Corporation introduced to the world a practical means of recording television signals on magnetic tape. They called their new product Videotape!
"  The whole art is so new and so many wonderful things have already been accomplished that many will believe almost any claim.
To the honest misconceptions of the partially informed are added the overstatements of promoters with something to sell. The interests of these people are best served by the greatest possible stimulation in the public of a desire to participate in a prospective golden harvest. This phenomenon is common to every new invention or development."
 
- Frank Jewett, VP ATT/Bell Labs, 1928
Welcome
wmbtsite6001001.jpg
All text, art elements and pages copyright 2018, Museum of Broadcast Technology. All rights reserved. MBT05 2018-11-19