Why was the television an important item starting in the 1950s?

Answer 1

TV really didn't begin until the late 1940's and became popular in the 1950's. There were only 3-4 stations that were on air from 6 am to 12 pm. It changed the way people saw the world and how they lived. Things like TV dinners were created because people were watching shows while eating on TV trays. News gave people views of other places and people so the world widened for people and instead of just hearing popular shows from radio they could see the actors. The actors became celebrities and people began to follow their lives. Color TV didn't come out until the 1960's so all the early shows were in black and white. I remember wondering what the Wizard of OZ looked like in color. Sports didn't come about until the 1970's and popular shows in the 1950's were variety and game shows.

Answer 2

In the 1940s it had negligible effect as no televisions were manufactured or sold from 1942 to 1947 and the very few televisions that had been manufactured and sold from 1939 to 1941 could only receive channels 1 through 5. During WW2 the military took the frequencies used by television channel 1 so the new televisions offered starting in 1947 received channels 2 through 13. No television stations were allowed to operate during WW2 and after the war there were very few television stations and there was very little programming available except local productions.

In the 1950s television practically exploded nationwide. The networks produced programing on tape which they shipped to their affiliate stations. People started buying televisions as the economy improved after the brief postwar recession. Toward the late 1950s the A. T. & T. Microwave Tower system had expanded and been upgraded to carry television as well as long distance telephone calls, making live network television programming possible for the first time to a majority of americans (live network television programming was not universally available in the US though until the 1960s).

In the town I grew up in even as late as the middle 1980s we had only 3 television stations (one for each network: NBC, ABC, CBS) one local on channel 12, and two brought in from other towns via repeater on channels 8 and 10. If I recall correctly when I was a child in the early 1960s we only had the one local channel 12.

Answer 3

TVs were the main source of news for many Americans & it showed the American public their generic role in american society.