Telepresence

A Gothamist link alerted me to an interesting blog post about a photographer in the '40s. But to me, the highlight was this 1947 New Yorker article describing the television in its native habitat. The social niceties surrounding a nascent technology still far from mass adoption. It's an interesting medium to consider. All it really offered was a combination of movies and radio, which were certainly entrenched by then.

I was fascinated by what they thought could be done with this new medium, and how early the major concepts arose. Made-for-TV movies, game shows, nature documentaries, cooking shows, and live sports broadcasts, constantly interrupted by commercials. Broadcast in New York by NBC, CBS, and... ABD? The author probes at calling it 'telecasting', although the word 'broadcasting' is already in use, probably by radio. Why bother selling a new term when you can co-opt the old one?