# Why was early television so terrible for so long? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 22, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047 "2019-02-22T22:40:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/41 "2019-02-24T18:41:44Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > Yes, but the poor guys in the red shirts ALWAYS DIED!!! Except for Scotty. 🙂 … And when he was, he was immediately resurrected. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/42 "2019-02-24T18:45:08Z")
> [@Cindycat](#): > > Early TV was live and very low budget. Often it was sponsored by a product like Kraft cheese or Schlitz beer. There are some less stilted tv specials from back then. I’d suggest A Long Time Til Dawn. It stars James Dean and was written by Rod Serling. It’s amazing and it’s on YouTube! 🙂 What about the original _ **Marty** _, with Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand? ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/43 "2019-02-24T20:35:58Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > Desi Arnaz wanted “I Love Lucy” to have a long shelf life, and to ensure that, he wanted it to be filmed, not “live.” Along with Karl Freund (award-winning cinematographer), they developed the three-camera technique for filming a sitcom in front of a studio audience, a method that’s still in use today. It was expensive, though, as you never used more than a third of what you shot. Also players occasionally lose track of which camera they were supposed to be playing to. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/44 "2019-02-25T00:02:05Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > As for hammy acting, literally no one knew how to act for TV. Television forced a type of “small” acting with an emphasis on subtle movements and expressions that positively didn’t work on stage, or even in most films, and few early performers knew how to carry it off. Performing without a live audience tended to ruin a performer’s timing, and > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Why? Mostly because nobody understood television. Movie people looked at the budgets and time restraints and thought no audiences would stand for such a shoddy product. Advertisers looked at the tv sets and thought that nobody would want to watch six-inch screens that showed snow and wavy lines half the time. Crews didn’t know how to light or mike or do makeup or move cameras on tv soundstages. Actors didn’t want to work in a medium derided by almost everyone, for far more effot and far less money. . And now, after decades, it’s still a problem when recording or broadcasting live productions: Cameras zoomed in on actors/singers acting large. I don’t blame the talent now: they are performing in front of a live audience. It’s the producer/director that sucks. Fortunately, stadium acts now are backed by live screens, so you get somebody that actually knows what they are doing providing the video feed. But concert /playhouse performance feeds still suck. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/45 "2019-02-25T20:57:24Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > It was expensive, though, as you never used more than a third of what you shot. Also players occasionally lose track of which camera they were supposed to be playing to. Expensive, but they made bank in syndication. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/46 "2019-02-25T23:21:52Z")
> [@digs](#): > > How was the quality of early color TVs? Generally you could best call it “crude.” On top of that, the sets wouldn’;t hold their adjustments (early black and white TVs had the same problem) so once you got the picture to your liking, there was no guarantee it would stay that way. The first “automatic color control” sets weren’t introduced until the late 1960s. Even then it was still a problem. My parents didn’t get a color TV until 1968 or so. One of my friends was over, looked at the screen and said, “Look, an orange Negro.” ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/47 "2019-02-26T05:58:22Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > baggy pants comedians Band name! Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/48 "2019-02-26T13:46:50Z")
I think the issue of money and advertising was a key. The early TV ads just weren’t good for the most part. Hence, they were not that effective. Why pour big money into ads that weren’t going to get a nice return on sales? And without big ad dollars, the TV shows were many times bare bones. (Ever watched a _Cisco Kid_?) It wasn’t until people like [del]Don Draper[/del] Jerry Della Femina started showing up and coming up with quality commercials that grabbed attention and really affected sales. Then more ads dollars were thrown in, more money was put into shows, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/49 "2019-02-26T17:06:34Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I think the issue of money and advertising was a key. The early TV ads just weren’t good for the most part. Hence, they were not that effective. Why pour big money into ads that weren’t going to get a nice return on sales? > > And without big ad dollars, the TV shows were many times bare bones. (Ever watched a _Cisco Kid_?) > > It wasn’t until people like [del]Don Draper[/del] Jerry Della Femina started showing up and coming up with quality commercials that grabbed attention and really affected sales. Then more ads dollars were thrown in, more money was put into shows, etc. Absolutely not true. Early television was run under the same principles as radio. One company bought a show. The name of the advertiser was in [the title of the show](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jack_Benny_Program), and the show’s host or announcer did the commercials as part of the show. > [@](#): > > Jack Benny first appeared on radio as a guest of Ed Sullivan in March 1932.[13][2] He was then given his own show later that year, with Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor —_The Canada Dry Ginger Ale Program_, beginning May 2, 1932, on the NBC Blue Network and continuing there for six months until October 26, moving the show to CBS on October 30[14]. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933.[1] > > Arriving at NBC on March 17, Benny did _The Chevrolet Program_ until April 1, 1934 with Frank Black leading the band. He continued with _The General Tire Revue_ for the rest of that season, and in the fall of 1934, for General Foods as _The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny_ (1934–42) and, when sales of Jell-O were affected by sugar rationing during World War II, _The Grape Nuts Flakes Program_ Starring Jack Benny (later the _Grape Nuts and Grape Nuts Flakes Program_) (1942–44)[14]. On October 1, 1944, the show became _The Lucky Strike Program Starring Jack Benny_, when American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike cigarettes took over as his radio sponsor, through the mid-1950s. By that time, the practice of using the sponsor’s name as the title began to fade. This worked equally well in television. [The Colgate Comedy Hour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colgate_Comedy_Hour) was one of the biggest hits in early tv. Television advertising was fantastically successful. Advertisers were astounded by the responses. Stories are told, probably truthfully, that at times they sold completely out of their product and had to cancel future ads. This lasted until the end of the 1950s. By then programming had become so expensive that only the very largest firms could afford to buy an entire season. Pat Weaver, the NBC genius who created the Today and Tonight shows, started using what was called magazine-style ads, the now-familiar one minute or less spots that could be dropped into a show separately from the contents, the way that magazines used ads. That quickly took over the industry. The quiz show scandals, almost all from shows sponsored by a single company and therefore tied inextricably to their name, helped kill off the single sponsor. This was a full decade before Jerry Della Femina launched his agency. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047/50 "2019-02-26T17:14:45Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > DuMont programming exists? I thought most of their tapes were destroyed when the network went belly-up. Maybe enough escaped destruction that it could be digitized and shown on Roku? There is a DuMont Network channel on Roku. They have a fair amount of programming, though video quality is not good for most of it and some of the programs are incomplete. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-early-television-so-terrible-for-so-long/830047.md?page=2)