1947 in television

The year 1947 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1947.

Events

• January 3 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
• January 22 – The first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, begins operation in Hollywood.
• January 29 – RCA demonstrates an all-electronic color television system using live images, to the Federal Communications Commission.
• January 30 – The FCC rejects CBS' color television system.
• February 10 to March 11 – BBC television service in the UK is temporarily suspended due to a national fuel crisis.
• March 11 – The first successful American children's television series, Movies for Small Fry debuts on the DuMont Network.
• July 16 – RCA demonstrates the world's first all-electronic color camera to the Federal Communications Commission. (Only television receivers were present at the demonstration on January 29; the camera was at a remote studio.)
• September 30 – The opening game of the World Series is the first World Series game to be telecast. The 1947 World Series brought in an estimated 3.9 million people, becoming television's first mass audience.
• October 5 – The first presidential address from the White House is telecast. President Truman speaks about the world food crisis. It is preceded by a Jell-O commercial, and features the president discussing his program for food rationing. The address was televised by WTVW-TV (today's WJLA-TV Channel 7 in Washington DC) on its inaugural broadcast. It was also simulcast on radio. It was long believed that no copy of this broadcast existed, but segments are preserved on kinescope in the Library of Congress. (For the record, President Franklin Roosevelt's address on experimental TV at the 1939 New York World's Fair preceded the 1947 Truman broadcast.)
• October 13 – The puppet show Junior Jamboree, later known as Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres on WBKB in Chicago, Illinois.
• November 6 – Meet the Press first appears as a local program in Washington.
• November 8 – Memorial service broadcast from the Cenotaph by the BBC, using tele-recording for the first time.
• The first Hollywood film production for TV, The Public Prosecutor.
• There are 14,000 television sets in use in the United States.

Debuts

• May 7 – Kraft Television Theater premieres on NBC, the first regularly scheduled drama series on a network (1947–1958).
• October 13 – Junior Jamboree (later called Kukla, Fran and Ollie), premieres on WBKB in Chicago (1947–1957).
• November 18 – situation comedy Mary Kay and Johnny debuts on Dumont network (1947–1950).
• November 20 – Meet the Press first network telecast on NBC (1947–present).
• December 27 – Puppet Television Theater (later called Howdy Doody), a children's television program, makes its debut (NBC) (1947–1960).
• Café Continental (UK) premieres on the BBC Television Service) (1947–1953).
• Eye Witness premieres (1947–1948). Gary Simpson produced this show which featured guests like Vladimir Zworkin, one the pioneer inventors of TV, discussing and showing television technology (explaining how TV worked to the new medium's first viewers.
• In the Kelvinator Kitchen premieres (1947–1948).
• Musical Merry-Go-Round premieres (1947–1949).
• Americana premieres (1947–1949).
• King Cole's Birthday Party premieres (1947–1949).
• Charade Quiz premieres (1947–1949).
• Doorway to Fame premieres (1947–1949).
• Author Meets the Critics (1947–1954).
• Juvenile Jury (1947–1954).
• Adelaide Hall October 1947 – first telecording by BBC (kinescope) showing black singer Adelaide Hall performing 2 songs with chorus and her guitar. Copies of this first English kinescope of live TV broadcast are preserved by BBC, and copy is available for viewing on YouTube.com

Television shows

Ending this year

• May 16 – Pinwright's Progress (UK) (1946–1947).
• The Voice of Firestone Televues (1943–1947)
• Hour Glass (1946–1947)
• Cash and Carry (1946–1947)
• Campus Hoopla (1946–1947)
• Face to Face (1946–1947)
• I Love to Eat (1946–1947)
• Let's Rhumba (1946–1947)
• Serving Through Science (1946–1947)

Births

• February 2 – Farrah Fawcett, actress (died 2009)
• February 24 – Edward James Olmos, Mexican-American actor
• February 28 – Stephanie Beacham, English actress
• March 1 – Alan Thicke, actor
• March 6 – Rob Reiner, actor, comedian, producer and director
• April 6 – John Ratzenberger, actor, Cheers
• April 12 – David Letterman, comedian and talk show host
• April 23 – Blair Brown, actress
• April 30 – Leslie Grantham, English actor
• June 21 – Meredith Baxter, actress
  • Michael Gross, actor
• June 22 – David Lander, actor and comedian
• July 2 – Larry David, actor, comedian and producer
• July 3 – Betty Buckley, actress and singer
• July 22 – Albert Brooks, actor, comedian and director
• September 6 – Jane Curtin, actress and comedienne, Saturday Night Live, 3rd Rock from the Sun
• September 30 – Rula Lenska, English actress
• October 1 – Stephen Collins, actor
• October 17 – Michael McKean, actor and comedian
• October 26 – Jaclyn Smith, actress
• November 25 – John Larroquette, actor
• November 30 – Dwight Schultz, actor
• December 11 – Teri Garr, actress and comedienne
• December 29 – Ted Danson, actor

External links

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