The Electronics Revolution Inventing the Future

32 Seeing by Electricity: Development of Television
The Baird low definition transmissions had, however, performed their purpose: they
had raised the level of interest in television. This was sufficient to persuade the UK’s
Postmaster General, Sir Kingsley Wood, to set up a committee under Lord Selsdon to
examine whether a television service should be set up. 37 At the end of January 1935 the
report was published; it recommended the setting up of a service with a minimum standard
of 240 lines at 25 frames/s. 38 The systems from two companies were to be trialled: EMI,
which had now formed a joint company with Marconi who would provide the transmitters,
and of course Baird.
The now united EMI–Marconi team had reached this standard with a 243 line system,
on which they used a clever arrangement to minimize the flicker. In one-fiftieth of a second
they transmitted half the lines and then in the next fiftieth the intermediate lines. This kept
the required bandwidth of the signal down but gave a picture at effectively 50 frames/s and
so had less flicker. They had found that as the brightness of the receiving tubes was
increased this became noticeable at 25 frames/s.
Seeing how the committee was thinking, Shoenberg took a calculated gamble. He
believed that they could go further to 405 lines and that this would produce a standard
which would last for some time. 39 The downside was that nearly all the parts of the system
had to be redesigned to get this increased specification. There is often puzzlement as to
why he did this, but in my mind the reason is simple. He wanted EMI’s to be the superior
system, and though at first sight 243 lines is as good as 240 there was a problem. In the
electronic system some of the notional lines were lost at the end of each frame, and in
practice there would have been somewhat less than 240 actual lines. 40 It was thus arguable
whether it would have truly met the specification.
The BBC, which was going to run the new television service, decided on Alexandra
Palace in north London as their chosen site. It was on a hill so the antenna on top of the
tower didn’t need to be so high to get a reasonable coverage area. 41 The building itself
provided enough space for a double set of studios and equipment so that Baird and EMI
Marconi could each have one. By mid-1936, the building work was sufficiently advanced
for the two companies to start assembling their equipment.
The opening of the television service was scheduled for November 1935, but suddenly
there was a call from the organizers of the trade show, RadiOlympia, to have a television
demonstration. This was at the end of August so there was a frantic rushing around to get
equipment ready and some sort of show that could be broadcast. It was called ‘Here’s
Looking At You’, and went out twice a day for 2 weeks, using the Baird and EMI Marconi
systems on alternate days.
The service started to operate on November 2, 1935. The opening ceremony was broadcast
on the Baird system (who had won the toss) and repeated on the EMI Marconi
(Fig. 4.5). After that one system transmitted for a week before swapping over. The limitations
of the Baird system soon became apparent. In addition to the problems of the fixed
cameras, the system was overly sensitive to the red light used in the studio for announcements,
so the three presenters, Elizabeth Cowell, Jasmine Bligh and Leslie Mitchell, had
to use peculiar blue and black makeup. 42
Though originally the trial was due to last 3 months, at the end of January 1936 the
Baird system was shut down. There was really no comparison between the systems; the
electronic one was clearly better even though it was at the beginning of its development