On September 7, 1927, in a San Francisco loft, Philo T. Farnsworth transmitted the first electronic television image—and set in motion the screen-based world we now take completely for granted.

Ninety-nine years later, we carry screens in our pockets, work on them, communicate through them, watch them, and fill our lives with them. But the pivotal breakthrough that made this culture possible has largely been lost to history.

In this special 99th-anniversary bonus episode of 100 Years of Television, Paul Schatzkin makes the case that we don't live in Oppenheimer's world.

Unless you have an atomic bomb in your pocket.

We live in Philo Farnsworth's world.

And Christopher Nolan made the wrong damn movie.

With exactly one year remaining until the Centennial of Television on September 7, 2027, this episode looks back at the teenage insight, the 1922 sketch, and the fuzzy first image of September 7, 1927 that became television's Big Bang moment.

And we ask listeners to help spread the word as the countdown enters its final year.

On Friday afternoon, November 22, 1963, millions of Americans were following the everyday lives of the Hughes family in the fictional town of Oakdale when a simple black title card appeared on their television screens: CBS News Bulletin.

What followed was four days of continuous television unlike anything the world had ever experienced. Walter Cronkite's calm professionalism, the live murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the funeral of President John F. Kennedy transformed television from a source of entertainment into the nation's indispensable witness to history.

This episode of Countdown to the Centennial explores how one tragic weekend forever changed television news, established the template for modern breaking-news coverage, and united an entire nation around a shared experience that millions would remember for the rest of their lives.

Podcast Description

The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated television's extraordinary ability to place viewers in the middle of history. But once the danger had passed, audiences were ready for something different: relief.

On November 24, 1962, the BBC answered with That Was the Week That Was, a groundbreaking series that transformed the week's headlines into fearless political satire. Hosted by a 23-year-old David Frost, TW3 broke with decades of "Reithian restraint," proving that television could challenge authority with wit as effectively as it could report the news with gravity.

In this episode of Countdown to the Centennial, we explore how one short-lived British program revolutionized television comedy, launched David Frost's remarkable career, and established the blueprint for every major television satire that followed—from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and Saturday Night Live to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

On the evening of October 22, 1962, regular television programming came to an abrupt halt as President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation from the White House. For the first time, tens of millions of Americans learned they were living under the immediate threat of nuclear war.

In this episode of Countdown to the Centennial, we explore how the television coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis transferred the Cold War  from an abstract geopolitical construct into a deeply personal national experience. Kennedy's calm but urgent address, the networks' wall-to-wall coverage, and the steady presence of journalists like Walter Cronkite demonstrated television's unprecedented power to unite—and steady—a nation during thirteen of the most dangerous days in human history. The crisis cemented Kennedy's reputation as America's first true television president and revealed television's growing influence in shaping public understanding of world events.

For most of the 1950s, ABC was the forgotten third network—outgunned by NBC and CBS in affiliates, programming, and advertising. But a series of bold business decisions, led by Leonard Goldenson and a young producer named Roone Arledge, transformed the struggling network into an innovator that forever changed sports television.

Countdown #55 traces ABC's unlikely rise from the ashes of NBC Blue through the United Paramount Theatres merger, the creation of Wide World of Sports, and the revolutionary storytelling techniques that reshaped not only sports broadcasting but television news itself. From Jim McKay's unforgettable introduction to "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat," this is the story of how the smallest network took the biggest swing—and won.

Long before presidents dominated television, they were distant figures known mainly through newspapers and occasional public appearances. Radio brought Franklin Roosevelt’s voice into American homes, but television transformed the presidency into a daily visual presence.

In this episode, Paul Schatzkin traces the evolution from Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats through Harry Truman’s first televised White House address, Eisenhower’s pioneering television campaign, and finally the first televised presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon on September 26, 1960.

The Kennedy-Nixon debates are often remembered as a triumph of image over substance. But the real story is even more significant. Television wasn’t just changing how candidates looked—it was reshaping where political power resided, amplifying America’s demographic shift toward television-saturated urban centers, and creating what became the modern “parlor presidency.”

Part of Countdown to the Centennial: The Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television.

By the end of the 1950s, television was no longer a novelty—it had become the center of American life. In this episode, we explore two remarkable years when the medium truly came of age.

Television discovered style with series like The Rifleman, 77 Sunset Strip, and Peter Gunn. Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone proved television could be intelligent, philosophical, and unforgettable. NBC gambled on color television with Bonanza, helping launch the industry’s transition from black-and-white. And behind the scenes, the Twenty-One quiz show scandal shattered America’s faith in television’s authenticity.

These milestones marked the moment television became more sophisticated, more ambitious—and more powerful than ever before.

By 1957, television had become America’s dominant medium—but almost no one recognized the man who had invented it.

On June 3, Philo T. Farnsworth appeared on the CBS panel show I’ve Got a Secret disguised as “Dr. X.” The panelists guessed everything from dentistry to psychiatry before learning that their guest was the inventor of electronic television.

The episode is funny, revealing, and more than a little ironic. It also gave Farnsworth the opportunity to explain, in his own words, what made his invention different—and to predict high-definition television decades before it arrived.

This is the story of the only time the inventor of television appeared on television.

On November 3, 1956, CBS took a gamble that changed the relationship between Hollywood and television. When The Wizard of Oz made its television debut, more than 35 million viewers gathered around their living-room sets to experience a beloved movie that many had never seen before – wedged between commercials for Ford Fairlanes and Thunderbirds. 

In this episode, we trace the long and often uneasy relationship between motion pictures and television—from Philo Farnsworth’s earliest experiments using film as a television image source, to Mary Pickford’s curiosity about the new medium, to Hollywood’s resistance to television in the postwar era. Then came Oz.

The success of the 1956 broadcast created a new business model for both studios and networks, opened Hollywood’s film libraries to television audiences, and helped establish the annual television movie event. It was the night television and the movies stopped competing—and started working together.

Before 1956, television was fleeting. If a live broadcast wasn’t preserved on film through pointing a film camera at a studio monitor, the show was lost forever. 

That changed on April 14, 1956, when Ampex unveiled the VRX-1000—the world’s first practical videotape recorder.

Led by engineer Charles Ginsburg and backed by Ampex founder Alexander Poniatoff, the machine solved one of the most difficult engineering problems in broadcasting history. Its debut stunned television executives and inspired CBS vice president Bill Lodge to declare, “Gentlemen, this changes everything.”

Within months, networks were using videotape to delay programs for West Coast audiences. Within a decade, videotape had transformed television production itself.

This episode traces the evolution of recording from Edison’s phonograph and Germany’s Magnetophon to the Ampex Quadruplex recorder, the invention that gave television a memory—and paved the way for every DVR, camcorder, smartphone, and streaming platform that followed.