Television and Hollywood
in the 1940s

CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON

Television from the rest of the country. Heralded by stories of scientific breakthroughs and by occasional demonstrations of the technology, television's arrival as a popular medium had been anticipated for more than a decade by 1940. As early as 1928, the chairman of RCA, David Sarnoff, had predicted that within five years television would become "as much a part of our life" as radio. Executives in the movie industry may have questioned Sarnoff's time frame, but few ignored his prediction, since press reports throughout the 1930s assumed that television loomed just over the technological horizon. The motion picture trade press certainly fueled speculation, as when the Hollywood Reporter announced in November 1934 that commercial TV sets would hit the market by January of the following year. "Television Is Ready," the headline brashly-and prematurely-reported...