1946 in television explained
The year 1946 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events during 1946. The number of television programming was increasing after World War II.
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Events
- February 4 – RCA demonstrates an all-electronic color television system.
- February 18 – The first Washington, D.C. – New York City telecast through AT&T corporation's coaxial cable, in which General Dwight Eisenhower places a wreath at the base of the statue in the Lincoln Memorial and others make brief speeches, is termed a success by engineers, although Time magazine calls it "as blurred as an early Chaplin movie."
- February 25 – The prewar U.S. 18-channel VHF allocation is officially ended in favor of a new 13-channel VHF allocation due to the appropriation of some frequencies by the military and the relocation of FM radio. Only five of the old channels are the same as new channels in terms of frequency and none have the same number as before.
- April 22 – CBS transmits a Technicolor movie short and color slides by coaxial cable from Manhattan to Washington (332 kilometers) and return.
- June 7 – The BBC Television Service begins broadcasting again for the first time since 1939. The first words heard are "Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?". Twenty minutes later, the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Gala Premiere, last programme transmitted seven years earlier at the start of World War II, is reshown.
- June 19 – The first televised heavyweight boxing title fight between Joe Louis and Billy Conn is broadcast from Yankee Stadium. The fight is seen by 141,000 people, the largest television audience to see a boxing match to this date.
- July 7 – Broadcasting of the BBC's children's programme For The Children is resumed, one of the few pre-war programmes to resume after reintroduction of the service.
- August 4 – Children's puppet "Muffin the Mule" debuts in an episode of the series For the Children. He is so popular he is given his own show later that same year.
- September 6 – Chicago's WBKB-TV (now WBBM-TV) commences broadcasting as the first U.S. television station outside the Eastern Time Zone.
- September 15 – DuMont Television Network begins broadcasting regularly in the United States.
- October 2 – The first television network soap opera, Faraway Hill, is broadcast by DuMont.
- October 22 – Telecrime, the first television crime series from the 1930s, is resumed by the BBC, retitled Telecrimes.
- December 24 – The first Christmas church service is telecast, Grace Episcopal Church in New York, on WABD.
- Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo founds a company, which would later become Sony.
- Zoomar introduces the first professional zoom lens for television cameras.
- The first postwar television sets are released by the companies RCA, DuMont, Crosley, and Belmont.
Debuts
Television shows
UK
| Series | Debut | Ended |
|---|
| Picture Page (UK) | October 8, 1936 | 1939 |
| 1946 | 1952 |
| Starlight (UK) | November 3, 1936 | 1939 |
| 1946 | 1949 |
| For The Children (UK) | April 24, 1937 | 1939 |
| July 7, 1946 | 1950 |
| Telecrime (UK) | August 10, 1938 | July 25, 1939 |
| October 22, 1946 | November 25, 1946 |
| Kaleidoscope (UK) | November 2, 1946 | 1953 |
| Pinwright's Progress (UK) | November 29, 1946 | May 16, 1947 |
| Muffin the Mule (UK) | 1946 | 1955 |
| Paging You (UK) | 1946 | 1948 | |
USA
| Series | Debut | Ended | Network |
|---|
| Boxing From St. Nicholas Arena | 1946 | 1948 | NBC |
| You Be the Judge | 1946 | 194? | CBS |
| See What You Know | 1946 | 1949 | CBS |
| Hour Glass | May 9, 1946 | March 1947 | NBC |
| Face to Face | June 9, 1946 | January 26, 1947 | NBC |
| Geographically Speaking | June 9, 1946 | October 1947 | NBC |
| Cash and Carry | June 20, 1946 | July 1, 1947 | Dumont |
| I Love to Eat | August 30, 1946 | 1947 | NBC |
| Play the Game | September 24, 1946 | December 17, 1946 | Dumont |
| Faraway Hill | October 2, 1946 | December 18, 1946 | Dumont |
| You Are an Artist | November 1, 1946 | 1950 | NBC |
| Gillette Cavalcade of Sports | November 8, 1946 | June 24, 1960 | NBC |
| Let's Rhumba | 1946 | 1947 | NBC |
| Television Screen Magazine | 1946 | 1949 | NBC |
| Campus Hoopla | 1946 | 1947 | NBC |
| Western Movie | 1946 | 1947 | Dumont | |
Programs ending
Births
- January 5 – Diane Keaton, actress
- January 19 – Dolly Parton, country singer and actress
- January 20 – David Lynch, director and actor, Twin Peaks
- January 24 – Michael Ontkean, Canadian actor, The Rookies, Twin Peaks
- January 28 – Don Reo, producer
- February 1
- February 2 – Blake Clark, actor, Home Improvement, Boy Meets World
- February 7 – Pete Postlethwaite, English actor (died 2011)
- February 8 – Alex Diakun, actor
- February 13 – Joe Estevez, actor
- February 17 – Lynne Moody, actress, Roots
- February 20
- February 21
- March 5 – Michael Warren, actor, Hill Street Blues
- March 6 – Martin Kove, actor, Cagney & Lacey
- March 7
- March 12
- March 15 – Howard E. Scott, singer
- March 17 – Harold Ray Brown, singer
- March 21 – Timothy Dalton, Welsh actor, Penny Dreadful
- March 26 – Johnny Crawford, actor, The Rifleman (died 2020)
- April 5 – Jane Asher, English actress
- April 8 – Tim Thomerson, actor and comedian
- April 10 – David Angell, screenwriter and television producer (died 2001)
- April 12 – Ed O'Neill, actor, Married... with Children, Modern Family
- April 19 – Tim Curry, English actor and singer, It, The Wild Thornberrys
- April 23 – Blair Brown, actress (The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Fringe)
- April 24 – Phil Robertson, American professional hunter
- May 1 – Joanna Lumley, English actress, Absolutely Fabulous
- May 3 – Greg Gumbel, TV sportscaster
- May 7 – Michael Rosen, English TV presenter
- May 9 – Candice Bergen, actress, Murphy Brown, Boston Legal
- May 19 – André the Giant, professional wrestler (died 1993)
- May 20 – Cher, singer and actress, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
- May 28 – Gladys Knight, singer
- May 31 – Maeve Kinkead, soap opera actress
- June 1 – Brian Cox, actor
- June 14 – Donald Trump, TV host and former president of the United States
- June 19 – Jennifer Darling, actress, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman
- June 20 – Bob Vila, TV host
- June 23 – Ted Shackelford, actor, Knots Landing
- June 28
- July 6
- July 7 – Joe Spano, actor, Hill Street Blues, NCIS
- July 9
- July 13 – Cheech Marin, actor and comedian, Nash Bridges
- July 14 – Vincent Pastore, actor, The Sopranos
- July 21 – Mel Damski, director
- July 22 – Danny Glover, actor and director
- July 28 – Linda Kelsey, actress, Lou Grant
- August 5 – Erika Slezak, actress, One Life to Live
- August 10 – James Reynolds, actor, Days of Our Lives
- August 14
- August 16 – Lesley Ann Warren, actress and singer, Mission: Impossible
- August 19 – Bill Clinton, politician
- August 20 – Connie Chung, journalist
- August 26 – Mark Snow, composer
- August 30 – Peggy Lipton, actress, The Mod Squad, Twin Peaks (died 2019)
- September 6 – Loudon Wainwright III, actor
- September 25 – Felicity Kendal, English actress, Rosemary and Thyme[3]
- September 24 – David Anspaugh, director
- September 28 – Jeffrey Jones, actor, Deadwood
- September 29 – Patricia Hodge, English actress, Miranda
- October 3 - Biff Henderson, American comedian
- October 4 – Susan Sarandon, actress
- October 8 – Lynne Adams, actress
- October 10
- October 11 – Bob Warman, presenter
- October 13 – Demond Wilson, actor, Sanford and Son
- October 14 – Katy Manning, English actress
- October 15 – John Getz, actor
- October 16
- October 18 – Howard Shore, Canadian composer
- October 26 – Pat Sajak, game show host, Wheel of Fortune
- October 27 – Ivan Reitman, screenwriter (died 2022)
- October 31 – Stephen Rea, Irish actor
- November 2 – Richard Newman, Voice actor
- November 4
- November 6
- November 20 – Judy Woodruff, broadcast journalist
- November 25 – Marc Brown, author and creator of Arthur
- November 28 – Joe Dante, actor
- December 1 – Jonathan Katz, actor
- December 14
- December 16 – Terence Knox, actor, St. Elsewhere, Tour of Duty
- December 17 – Eugene Levy, actor
- December 18 – Steven Spielberg, American director
- December 19 – Robert Urich, actor, Vega$, Spenser for Hire (died 2002)
- December 20 – Dick Wolf, television producer
- December 23 – Susan Lucci, actress, All My Children
Deaths
Notes and References
- Schrader. Marty. You Be the Judge. 17 August 2017. Billboard. January 12, 1946. 11.
- Book: Brooks. Tim. Marsh. Earle F.. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. 2009. Random House Publishing Group. 9780307483201. 441. 19 August 2017. en.
- Book: Newcomb . Horace . Encyclopedia of Television . 3 February 2014 . Routledge . 978-1-135-19472-7 . 1246 . en.
- Web site: 2018-09-12 . Laura Bush . 2024-07-22 . HISTORY . en.
- News: 125th birthday of the inventor of television John Logie Baird. Hastings Observer. 2 September 2013. 26 January 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160131194231/http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local/125th-birthday-of-the-inventor-of-television-john-logie-baird-1-5436074. 31 January 2016. dead.
- News: W.C. Fields, 66, Dies; Famed as Comedian – Mimicry Star of the Films Since 1924 Got Start as a $5-a-Week Juggler – Rarely Followed Script – Raspy Remarks and 'Know-It-All' Perspective Made Him Nation-Wide Character . New York Times . Associated Press. December 26, 1946. 25. October 9, 2017.
