{"id":616097,"date":"2026-04-30T22:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/616097\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:28:10","slug":"happy-anniversary-tv-revisiting-its-launch-at-1939-ny-worlds-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/616097\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Anniversary, TV! Revisiting its Launch at 1939 NY World’s Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, we look ahead at plans for\u00a0Variety\u2019s TV Week celebration in a conversation with Variety\u2019s Emily Longeretta. And we take a Vintage Variety look back at the momentous launch of television in the U.S. on the opening day of the New York World\u2019s Fair<\/a> in 1939, some 87 years ago today.<\/p>\n

\n\tHappy anniversary, television. April 30, 1939, the opening day of the landmark New York World\u2019s Fair, is generally considered the launch date for commercial television in the U.S. RCA and NBC boss David Sarnoff<\/a> flipped the switch and NBC broadcast three and a half hours of live material from the sprawling World\u2019s Fair site in the Flushing Meadows area of Queens. (It\u2019s now home to the Queens Art Museum.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThat day also marked the launch of NBC\u2019s first regular television schedule, beamed out of a giant antenna stuck on top of the Empire State Building. The initial reach of NBC\u2019s TV signal was about 55 miles in all directions from the Midtown landmark.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAdvertisement from the June 14, 1939, edition of Variety<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVariety<\/p>\n

\n\tTelevision was revved up and ready to go \u2014 until the onset of World War II in Europe with Hitler\u2019s invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Shortly thereafter, all of the engineering and technological work that had been devoted to the development of television since the mid-1920s was diverted to military purposes to support the war effort. The birth of the medium (in America) would have to wait until 1946 before television sets were generally available at a reasonable price for everyday consumers.<\/p>\n

\n\tOur look back through Variety\u2018s pages confirms that the New York World\u2019s Fair was a Super Bowl-level marketing platform for the country\u2019s biggest brands, media included. RCA already owned the nation\u2019s most powerful radio network, NBC. RCA\u2019s leader, David Sarnoff, drove the launch of television through sheer force of will, as RCA intended to profit through sales of TV sets while NBC would clean up as the pioneer in regular programming. The initial TV schedule was hardly a 24\/7 feed. It was a patchwork quilt of an hour here and a two-hour block there, some of it in daytime and some in the evening hours.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe World\u2019s Fair was was RCA\u2019s introduction to the public of television. They\u2019d been working on television going back to the 20s. David Sarnoff waited until 1939 because he thought television was too expensive and too complicated for release to the public,\u201d says Steve McVoy, founder of the Early Television Museum based in Hilliard, Ohio. \u201cBy 1939, he felt that they were finally there, and the World\u2019s Fair was the perfect venue to introduce it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to looking back at a milestone of the medium\u2019s past, the episode looks ahead to Variety\u2018s upcoming celebration of all things television and Emmy Awards with next week\u2019s slate of events that we\u2019re calling TV Week. From our long-running \u201cNight in the Writers Room\u201d event to an afternoon tea celebrating female directors, next week will be a busy one for Variety\u2018s TV team.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFYC season is very crowded. There\u2019s a big landscape, there\u2019s a lot of TV. It\u2019s no secret. And so that means there\u2019s a lot of events,\u201d says Emily Longeretta, Variety\u2019s director of features. \u201cSo we decided that this would be a dynamic, invite-only slate of events, three days in a row, spotlighting all the voices that are making the best TV today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAdvertisement from the June 14, 1939, edition of Variety<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to Daily Variety<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0iHeartPodcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Variety\u2019s\u00a0YouTube Podcast<\/a>\u00a0channel,\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and other podcast platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, we look ahead at plans for\u00a0Variety\u2019s TV Week celebration in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[16792,267334,88,92],"class_list":["post-616097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-daily-variety","tag-david-sarnoff","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}