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Video Tape & Recorders - In
1956 Videotape is introduced by Ampex Corp. at a CBS-TV affiliates' session.
Most TV shows at the time are produced by the kinescope process. The first
use of "videotape" was demonstrated on the comedy variety program THE
JONATHAN WINTERS SHOW/NBC/1956-57.
On October 23, 1956, a 2 and 1/2 minute experimental video
segment of guest singer Dorothy Collins (a regular on THE HIT PARADE) was
inserted into the program to see if the viewing audience could tell the
difference from the "live" broadcast. When no one noticed the transition,
the age of video tape was born.
The first videotaped news broadcast aired on November 30,
1956 from CBS New York studios to the West Coast outlets.
The first use of videotape leading to the "instant replay"
in sports occurred in 1957. The first soap opera to be videotaped was THE
HOUSE ON HIGH STREET/NBC/1959-60 about case worker, John Collier (Philip
Abbott) and his files on divorce and delinquency.
The technology for video cassette recorders (VCR's)
originated in the United States in 1961, but today the Japanese dominate the
production market. The Sony Corporation introduced the first commercial home
video tape recorder on June 7, 1965. It cost $995.00.
A study released by NBC in June of 1986 revealed that the
most recorded TV show was the CBS SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE, copied for later
viewing by over 530,000 TV homes.
The first TV movie using a single camera videotape system
was Sandcastles, a romance about a lovely girl who communes with a
man she thought was dead. It aired October 17, 1972.
On December 15, 1978, MCA began test marketing "DiscoVision"
the first video disk player. Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (died 1946)
demonstrated the first videodisk system using a standard wax phonograph
record.
In January 1984, a landmark Supreme Court decision
established that federal copyright laws were not violated by the taping of
television broadcasts at home for later viewing. The practice was commonly
called "Time shifting." This ruling made it easier for persons working
varied schedules to tape programs while otherwise engaged and later enjoy
the recorded program at their leisure. Sales of VCR's soared after the
decision was announced.
The staple TV commercial which for years brought a sponsor's
products into the living rooms of America came under attack in the 1980s
with the popular acceptance of the VCR and remote control TV devices. With a
press of a finger, the advertisers carefully planned ploy at TV marketing
was zapped into fast forward and past the eyes of its intended audience.
With this in mind many advertisers turned to flashy music videos disguised
as commercials to sell their wares.
The first agreement to put a commercial advertisement on a
movie video was executed by Paramount Pictures in 1986. The movie Top Gun
was chosen to feature advertisements for Diet Pepsi soda. In exchange, a
Pepsi ad campaign would indicate that their ads (seen in 1987) were inspired
by the Tom Cruise/Kelly McGillis box-office hit. This was the first video
marketed with advertising support as extensive as a movie ad campaign. The
Top Gun video was expected to reach at least 31.5 million viewers
through sales and rents, giving the Diet Pepsi people exposure comparable to
an ad placed in a television show with a ratings average of 18.3 in the
Nielsen scale.
A Senate bill entitled "The Video and Library Privacy
Protection Act" was introduced in the spring of 1988 by Senators Patrick
Leahy, Paul Simon, Charles Grassley and Alan Simpson which would bar
disclosure of what people buy or rent from video stores as well as what they
borrow from libraries. The bill required that purchase, rental and
circulation records be destroyed on a routine basis and give a victim the
rights to sue a retailer or library for damages.
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