All language subtitles for The Machines That Built America s01e03 Titans of Television.eng

‐ [Narrator] They are in
90% of American households

with a quarter billion
shipped globally each year

and nearly a decade of our lives

spent glued to their screens.

‐ Television has become life

and life has become television.

‐ [Narrator] But
one century ago,

the idea of sending images
through the air electronically

is science fiction.

‐ The future is
electric television.

‐ [Narrator] Until a poor
farm boy with a genius idea

grows up to take on a
ruthless radio mogul

in a race to bring this
revolutionary machine

to the world.

‐ Seeing Farnsworth
go up against RCA

is this classic underdog story.

‐ [Narrator] It's an epic
battle of outsized egos,

dirty tricks and bad blood.

‐ I want you to blow
Mr. Farnsworth's plans

to smithereens!

‐ You may be able to
push everyone else around

but not me.

‐ [Narrator] But with
billions at stake,

only one man will make history.

(dramatic music)

This is "Titans of Television".

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] It's 1921.

While the decade that
will become known

as the Roaring Twenties
is just beginning,

mass popular entertainment
is in its infancy.

‐ Entertainment that
everyone is sharing

and experiencing
at the same time,

news events that everyone is
experiencing at the same time,

that's a really novel thing.

‐ [Narrator] Cinema
is still silent

and one brand new medium,
radio is a luxury.

At a time when Americans
earned about 16 cents an hour,

radios costs $200,

too expensive to be
common in homes.

Most still think of radio only
as a way to send messages,

a wireless telegraph.

‐ The notion that we would send

entertainment over the air,

that we would gather
around a radio in the night

and listen to a concert
from hundreds of miles away,

that really hadn't occurred
to a lot of people.

(dramatic music)

‐ If we can't own the
device, we're not interested.

RCA does not pay royalties.

We collect them.

‐ [Narrator] But one
low‐level executive at RCA,

the Radio Corporation of America

sees this technology
as his way to the top.

‐ Thank you.

‐ [Narrator] 30 year
old David Sarnoff

has been obsessed
with making his mark

since he stepped off
the boat from Russia.

‐ When Sarnoff first got here,

he didn't know any English,

but he wound up selling
newspapers on the street

without knowing any English.

I mean the guy was a hustler.

‐ [Narrator] That hustle
got him a job at the company

of radio pioneer
Guglielmo Marconi.

When one day Sarnoff just
a teenage office boy,

encountered his famous
boss on the street.

‐ And Sarnoff
introduces himself.

You know, "I'm David Sarnoff.

May I be of assistance?"

‐ He became his valet,
his personal assistant.

He wanted to become a
great man like Marconi

and grow up to be someone
who changed the world.

‐ [Narrator] One day,
Sarnoff will be known

as the father of television

and the man who launched NBC,

(dramatic music)

the longest running
TV network of all time

now worth some $30 billion.

Back in July, 1921,

the world still has no
idea who Sarnoff is.

That's about to change.

(dramatic music)

He's trying something
that's never been done,

broadcasting a
huge sporting event

live.

It's the fight of the century.

American Jack Dempsey versus
George Carpentier of France.

And to pull it off,

Sarnoff's putting
thousands of RCA's dollars

and his own job on the line.

‐ They just thought it's
this weird little thing

that Sarnoff wants to do.

They didn't really
see the potential.

‐ [Radio Announcer]
July 2nd, 1921,

the largest crowd ever
assembled in America

for any sporting event.

‐ [Narrator] To make sure
a big audience can tune in,

Sarnoff's set up dozens
of listening stations

everywhere from theaters
to town squares.

‐ Can they hear you?

‐ [Narrator] But he's
using World War I era

military equipment

not built to transmit
for long periods.

(bell dinging)

‐ There's that good
right hand by Carpentier.

Dempsey still advancing
on George Carpentier.

Ripping bright
hands by Carpentier.

‐ How many people
are in the theater?

Can everybody hear?

(crowd cheering)

I said, "Can everybody hear?"

‐ Round number four and
it's anybody's fight.

‐ [Narrator] By
the fourth round,

Sarnoff's in trouble,

his transmitter is fading.

He needs the fight to end
before it fails altogether

and cuts off thousands
of listeners from

hearing the outcome.

‐ Dempsey's still belting
away at the stomach.

‐ Come on.
‐ And Dempsey goes after him.

‐ Come on.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Announcer] And
down goes Carpentier.

Nine, 10 and out!

‐ Yes!

‐ [Narrator] Moments later,

the overburdened
transmitter blows,

but the world's first live
sports cast is a sensation

with 300,000 listeners.

‐ David Sarnoff was
such a promoter.

He was a real operator,

a genius in business.

In a way he reminds me a
little bit of Elon Musk

who often is over promising

or doing something
dramatic for publicity,

but at the same time, building
incredible technology.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Within three years,

RCA sells $80 million
in home radio sets.

‐ [David] Sophie will
you come in, please?

‐ [Narrator] Sarnoff is
elevated to vice president,

and now he's pushing
the top brass at RCA

to invest in his next dream.

‐ I believe that television,

which is the technical name

for seeing instead
of hearing by radio

will come to pass in due course.

‐ [Narrator] The only
question is how does he do it?

Someone unexpected

may have already beaten
him to the answer.

(dramatic music)

A 14 year old Idaho farm boy.

His name is Philo T. Farnsworth.

‐ First of all,
where but in America

do you get a name like that?

And Farnsworth is just such
a great American story.

‐ His family as far as we
know, didn't even have a radio.

He'd only recently moved to
a house that had electricity,

but he told members
of his family

that he wanted to be an
inventor like Thomas Edison.

‐ [Narrator] In 1921,
Farnsworth has his head

buried in the latest
science magazines,

obsessively reading
everything he can

about what will one day
be called television.

At the time, the only
device that exists

is a crude one known as
mechanical television,

giant spinning disks with holes

each with a camera lens.

‐ The speeding disc would
capture pieces of an image

over and over

and kind of piece them
together like a flip book.

‐ At this point,

they were never able to
get any kind of resolution

more than a thumbnail
or a postage stamp,

blurry image and you
couldn't tell what it was.

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth
believes the key is a new device

called the vacuum tube.

It's already been used in
radio to transmit sound.

He thinks it can do
the same with images.

But he has no idea how.

(ominous music)

While staring at the
family's potato field,

Farnsworth suddenly imagines
a new way to make television.

‐ You plow a field
by doing one row,

then doing another
and then another.

‐ That's it, that was
his bolt from the blue.

‐ [Narrator] He
envisions a system

that would break an image
into horizontal lines

and reassemble those lines into
a picture on the other end.

‐ Farnsworth realized that
the secret of television

was that it was
delivered in little bits

and those bits had
to be organized.

And his idea was to
organize them in lines

that would be constantly
scanned over and over again.

‐ [Narrator] It will
be the foundation

of nearly all the world's
television systems

for the next 60 years.

Farnsworth calls his
idea electric television,

but in 1921, the
concept seems bizarre.

‐ He first told his
father, who said,

"You should keep it secret."

He thought people would
think his son was strange.

‐ [Narrator] After
months of silence,

Farnsworth finally tells

the only person he
thinks might understand,

his high school science
teacher, Justin Tolman.

‐ So you know about television?
The spinning discs, right?

Forget that.

The future is
electric television.

‐ I'm lost.

‐ Okay.

Here, this is simpler.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] By 1927, American
industry is booming

accounting for nearly half

of the entire planet's
economic output.

And the hottest
sector of all is tech.

‐ We have aviation, we
have cars, we have radio.

‐ The stock market takes
off during the 1920s,

which means there's more money
to be invested on innovation

and new technologies
are everywhere.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] One technology
that's benefiting,

electronic television.

Philo Farnsworth has
secured a $25,000 investment

for his idea.

No longer an Idaho farm boy,

Farnsworth has traveled west
along with his new wife Pem

to chase his dream.

The technology he's
trying to develop

is a new kind of vacuum tube.

He calls it his image dissector.

‐ The image dissector

is really the world's first
electronic television camera.

‐ [Narrator] But after
months of effort,

Farnsworth can't get it to work.

‐ We've got to wait
for it to heat up.

(light bulb shattering)
(sad music)

Let's start again.

‐ The image dissector tube
was structurally unsound

and there was a danger that
it was going to implode

at any moment.

‐ The tube had to be
created in the right shape.

It had to be big enough.

He had fires in his laboratory.

He was just working
out all these problems.

‐ [Narrator] After
months of failures

and a crash course in
the art of glassblowing,

Farnsworth finally lands
on a much larger design

that doesn't blow up.

But now, Farnsworth has
to prove his new tube

can capture clear moving images.

‐ [Farnsworth] I'm turning
on the receiver tube.

‐ [Narrator] Transmitting
a simple vertical line

painted on a glass slide.

‐ Here we go.

(ominous music)

Cliff, insert the slide.

‐ [Female] It's not very clear.

‐ Just going to adjust
the focusing coil.

(mysterious music)

Turn the slide a
quarter turn, Cliff.

Well, that's it folks.

There you have the
electronic television.

‐ Looking back on it for us,
it doesn't seem like a lot,

but that's the
first time anybody

has ever sent a moving
picture over the airwaves.

‐ Today we'd be like,

"How can you get so
excited about that line?"

But for him,

after all the blood, sweat
and tears, it finally works

and he literally
can see the light.

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth
applies for a patent.

And in 1928, his breakthrough
makes front page news.

(ominous music)

In New York after
two years of effort,

David Sarnoff's engineers
are still experimenting

with primitive
mechanical television

and have little to show for it.

‐ Sarnoff sees this
little Philo Farnsworth

from Midwestern United States

as having done what their
teams of inventors couldn't do.

What is going on?

‐ [Narrator] To head
off his new rival.

Sarnoff pens an op
ed about television

in The New York Times.

‐ He says, "RCA is
gonna be the company

that perfects the system

so don't buy into
anybody else's system."

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] But on
October 29th, 1929,

the stock market crash puts
the emerging TV wars on ice.

‐ Innovation depends on a
certain degree of confidence

in future markets.

And so one of the things
the depression did

was basically put this
real crimp on innovation.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth's
tiny operation

is suddenly on
the brink of ruin.

His most valuable
asset, his TV design,

still awaits approval
at the US Patent Office.

‐ He was running out of money.

He couldn't raise more money.

‐ And although he was
still a young man,

it began to take a toll.

‐ [Narrator] In New York, RCA
takes a major hit as well.

Sarnoff lays off several
hundred RCA employees

and has his $80,000 salary
slashed almost in half.

Even so, Americans still
hold on to their radios.

‐ When times got really bad
during the great depression,

people were more willing

to have all of their
furniture repossessed

than to give up their radio.

‐ [Narrator] Despite
the financial challenges

caused by the depression,

Sarnoff doubles down

and buys up radio stations
nationwide on the cheap,

building the very first
broadcast network,

NBC.

He then uses them to innovate
something new and profitable.

‐ [Spokesperson] Have a bottle
of ice cold Coke

and shop refreshed.

‐ [Narrator] Commercials.

‐ Can you imagine how messaging
can be crafted and shaped

to create a nationwide buzz
over a product or an idea?

That was impossible

before the creation
of the radio network.

‐ [Sarnoff] Not tomorrow,
I want it done now.

‐ [Narrator] In 1930,

Sarnoff is promoted
to president of RCA.

Flush with money from NBC's ads,

he now has the
funds and the power

to try to overtake Farnsworth
in the race for TV.

And Sarnoff is willing
to play dirty to win.

‐ He found out about a scientist

who was also on the trail
of electronic television

and he started hatching a plan.

‐ Vladimir Zworykin
is smart, he's clever.

Probably not as clever as
Farnsworth but he's imaginative.

‐ [Narrator] Zworykin has
been working for years

at Westinghouse,
an RCA competitor,

but his bosses don't see
much value in his ideas.

(ominous music)

‐ It is a receiving tube

that I have been working
on for some years.

The screen will show a
picture of five inches

clear enough for more
than one person to see.

‐ Farnsworth had
a working camera.

Zworykin had a working receiver.

So in a sense, they had
two pieces of the puzzle.

‐ [Sarnoff] How much
do you think it'll cost

to develop this device?

‐ [Zworykin] $100,000.

‐ Welcome to RCA.

‐ [Narrator] David Sarnoff
steals Vladimir Zworykin

from a competitor,

but his first assignment for
him won't be as an engineer.

(knocking on door)

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

(knocking on door)

‐ So glad you could make it.

‐ [Zworykin] Yeah.

‐ Please.

The image dissector has
a very specific design.

Have a look at the flat end.

‐ [Narrator] In April, 1930,

a struggling Philo T. Farnsworth

welcomes engineer Vladimir
Zworykin to his lab.

Farnsworth knows of Zworykin's
experiments in television

but not his with RCA
mogul, David Sarnoff.

(ominous music)

‐ Should we be
showing him all this?

‐ Zworykin's a
scientist, he's no thief.

Plus, the patent'll protect us.

‐ Zworykin spends three
days in Farmsworth's lab

and he asks a lot of questions,
a lot of detailed questions.

‐ This is a
beautiful instrument.

I wish I'd designed it myself.

‐ Just that little
bit of know‐how,

just knowing how
it should be done

can be an incredible advantage

for those that have
that knowledge.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Despite
that, Sarnoff reevaluates

when Farnsworth's
patent is approved.

Convinced his work is an
imminent threat to RCA.

Sarnoff tries to
buy it outright.

‐ We are to own all Mr.
Farnsworth's patents

as well as his lab space.

‐ [Narrator] Sarnoff
knows Farnsworth's lab

desperately needs
an infusion of cash.

‐ And the equipment.

‐ Sarnoff would
make $100,000 offer

for Farnsworth's lab
and for the services

of Farnsworth himself.

‐ Tell Mr. Sarnoff
he may be able

to push everyone else
around but not me.

‐ Maybe we should not.

‐ The answer is no.

‐ Especially in the
backdrop of the depression,

that was a gutsy move.

‐ Most passionate
inventors will do that.

They believe so much
in what they have

that they don't want
to let go of the baby.

‐ [Narrator] But Sarnoff won't
let a simple no stop him.

(dramatic music)

‐ Back at the RCA laboratories
in Camden, New Jersey,

Zworykin formed a team

known as the Get Around
Farnsworth Department.

The idea was to reverse
engineer Farnsworth's system

that Zworykin had seen,

but to try to do it in a way

that didn't violate
Farnsworth's patent's.

‐ [Narrator] Meanwhile,
Zworykin's undercover job at RCA

is discovered by his rivals.

‐ They were alarmed.

David Sarnoff already
had a reputation

of taking other people's ideas.

‐ You can't be naive

and you've got to have the
proper checks and balances,

the proper insulation,

or someone's gonna steal it.

Unfortunately, that's life.

(ominous music)

‐ [Narrator] Then, a
cash strapped Farnsworth

gets an unexpected lifeline

RCA's rival, radio maker Philco

have finally realized

the goldmine potential
of television.

But they're starting
from square one

so they bring in Farnsworth

to catapult them instantly ahead

and they let him retain
control of his patent.

‐ It seemed providential.

It seemed like a good fit.

They gave him some of
the corporate structure

and the financial backing.

(mysterious music)

‐ The interesting thing is
that the Philco building

was on one side of the
Delaware River in Philadelphia.

On the other side was
Camden, New Jersey,

home of RCA Laboratories.

(dramatic music)

‐ If Mr. Sarnoff is still
in the building, go get him.

‐ Zworykin and RCA

pick up Farnsworth's
experimental transmissions

now growing more advanced

and coming from just a
few hundred yards away.

‐ What am I looking at here?

‐ It has to be Farnsworth.

‐ [Narrator] What he sees
doesn't make Sarnoff happy.

Farnsworth is ahead of him again

and his patent is
so broadly worded,

simply titled television system,

that it seems untouchable.

‐ A television system?

That's like me
patenting the desk!

I want you to blow Mr.
Farnsworth's patent's

to smithereens!

‐ Sarnoff wages a holy
war on Farnsworth.

‐ [Narrator] In 1932,

he takes legal action to
invalidate Farnsworth's patent

claiming an earlier application
filed by Vladimir Zworykin

takes precedent.

Then, Sarnoff
delivers another blow.

Get me Jim Skinner from
Philco on the phone.

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth's
backer, Philco,

licenses RCA technology
to build its radios.

‐ Sarnoff called the higher
muckety mucks at Philco

and said,

"If you don't stop
your television effort,

you're not gonna be
able to get your license

to produce radios from us.

We'll cut you off."

(phone ringing)
(ominous music)

Sarnoff got Philo
fired from the project.

‐ You could co‐op your enemies,

you could destroy your enemies.

Sarnoff followed that perfectly.

‐ Sarnoff was playing
with brass knuckles.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] By spring 1934,

David Sarnoff and RCA

have been waging a legal
battle for nearly two years

to invalidate the television
patent of Philo T. Farnsworth.

‐ RCA still hasn't
quite figured out

a way to make television

that isn't somewhat similar
to Farnsworth's patent.

‐ Seeing Farnsworth
go up against RCA

is sort of this
classic underdog story.

‐ [Narrator] But Farnsworth,

still without corporate backing
after being axed by Philco,

is starting to crumble.

‐ Farnsworth was under
a lot of pressure.

Farnsworth at that
point is drinking a lot.

He was thinking about
this around the clock.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] That April,

the two sides present
their arguments

to a panel from the
US Patent Office.

‐ Mr. Zworykin, during your
visit to Mr. Farnsworth lab,

did you say, "This is
a beautiful instrument.

I wish I had
invented it myself."?

‐ I was just trying
to be polite.

‐ [Narrator] RCA focuses

on who's idea for electronic
television came first.

‐ I would like to say that I
devised my television system

long ago in 1923.

I filed for a patent.

‐ Well, Mr. Farnsworth had
his idea well before that.

‐ You have no proof
of that, do you?

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth's
team is convinced he's losing,

but they might have one
last ace in the hole.

‐ [Male] Excuse me, I'm
looking for a teacher

named Justin Tolman.

‐ That's me, but I'm retired.

‐ Remember a student
name Philo Farnsworth?

‐ He actually goes and finds
his high school teacher

with hopes that
there's some evidence

that his teacher
might retain somehow

that would save his invention

and maintain his
intellectual property.

‐ He goes to his attic and he
digs through dusty notebooks

and he flips through the pages

and there it is, Farnsworth's
drawing of an image dissector.

‐ "In summation,

I state without reservation

that Mr. Farnsworth
diagrammed for me

a system of electronic
television in 1922",

so sworn by Justin Tillman
of Salt Lake City, Utah.

(mysterious music)

‐ [Narrator] Eventually, the
board issues its decision,

Farnsworth's patent is upheld.

Anyone who markets
a television system

that uses his technology

will have to both credit
him and pay him fees.

‐ I can only imagine just
the feeling of satisfaction

that Farnsworth must
have had at that moment.

‐ [Narrator] It's
a huge victory.

(dramatic music)

The win over RCA
attracts new investors

and Farnsworth begins plans
to launch his own company

at an old phonograph factory
in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

But the good feelings
are short‐lived.

‐ Well, it seems like David
has beaten Goliath here, right?

But these court fights

have been not just financially
draining on Farnsworth,

but emotionally draining too.

‐ [Narrator] Despite
winning the case,

Farnsworth faces
today's equivalent

of a half million dollars
in unpaid legal bills.

He needs cash quick,

but thanks to
financial regulations

following the
stock market crash,

his attempt to start a
publicly traded company

is delayed by the government.

(dramatic music)

‐ It's late.

‐ [Farnsworth] I just want
to work a little more.

‐ He started to drink heavily,

not just at night
but during the day.

And he got a prescription for
chloral hydrate as a sedative,

that also became a problem.

‐ And mentally, he's
getting very depressed

so he's beginning to crack.

‐ It's come to the
point of choosing

whether I want to be a drunk or

go crazy.

(ominous music)

‐ [Narrator] And Philo
Farnsworth has no idea

that David Sarnoff

is about to make his most
audacious move of all.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Announcer] From far and
near, come countless visitors.

They arrive to view the marvels

of the greatest
exposition in history.

‐ [Narrator] On
April 30th, 1939,

the World's Fair begins on
a sprawling 1,200 acre site

in Flushing, Queens.

With another world
war brewing in Europe,

America is out to display
its inventive might.

‐ We've come out
of the depression.

It's chance for every country
and large corporations

to show off the best of what
they have to everybody else.

‐ [Narrator] The theme of
the six month exposition

is the world of tomorrow.

Among the futuristic
inventions unveiled,

nylon fabric,

a toy called the View‐Master,

and thanks to David Sarnoff,

RCA's new state‐of‐the‐art
television.

RCA builds a 9,000
square foot pavilion

to show off its new
TRK‐12 television sets,

including a specially made model

displayed like a work of art.

‐ Beautiful big television set.

Instead of being made of
wood, it's made of lucite,

the new miracle
see‐through plastic.

‐ [Narrator] Cameras are there

to show visitors on screen live.

‐ It's really hard to
recapture what it was like

the first time people
saw themselves on camera.

It was a remarkable thing.

You know, "Wave."

"Oh, that's me, I'm
doing that right now."

It had never happened before.

And people who saw it,

they were blown away
by the whole idea.

‐ [Narrator] Sarnoff himself
dedicates the exhibit

with a speech beamed

to several hundred RCA
prototype television receivers

scattered across New York.

‐ We have arranged
this demonstration

in the spirit of greatest
possible cooperation

with our licensees.

‐ [Narrator] What no one knows

is that David Sarnoff's
television system,

particularly the camera,

is still using aspects of
Philo Farnsworth's technology.

a fact Sarnoff is
brazenly ignoring.

‐ Sarnoff just
made this decision,

screw it, I'm gonna do it

and I'm gonna kind of
seize the narrative.

He who stands on
the mountain top

and beats their chest
and screams the loudest

very often wins.

‐ The birth of
television happened

really as a fake news event.

Sarnoff knew he was on the hook
and had a lot of liability,

but he went ahead anyway.

(ominous music)

‐ [Sarnoff] We have prepared a
special motion picture film

for this demonstration.

‐ I will now transmit it to you.

‐ [Narrator] By
pure coincidence,

Farnsworth is in New York for
a meeting with his investors.

‐ So that you might
judge for yourself

the extent of the
technological progress

we have made in television.

‐ Sarnoff is broadcasting
the birth of television

and essentially was taking
credit for the invention.

‐ The long years of
patient experimenting

and ingenious invention
by the scientists of RCA

have been crowned with success.

Radio enabled man to send
a whisper around the Earth

and now we add radio
sight to sound.

I thank you.

‐ And that was the official
birth of television

happening without Farnsworth.

‐ Inventors and entrepreneurs
too share something

and that's a kind of obsession
with achieving their vision.

Sometimes it can
border on the fanatic.

Farnsworth sees his destiny

wrapped up in the
future of television,

but it's left him very
much a broken man.

‐ At one point,

his sister said that he
suffered a nervous collapse,

a nervous breakdown.

Later, the guy who
built his whole career

on controlling electricity

now found himself
strapped to a table

at this facility
in Massachusetts

and electrodes
strapped to his head.

A terrible, dark chapter.

‐ [Narrator] Philo Farnsworth
has been dealt a major blow

by Sarnoff's gambit
at the World's Fair.

But he still carries one
last hope, his patent.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrtor] It's late summer
of 1939,

David Sarnoff has just claimed
RCA invented television

at the New York World's Fair

even though he knowingly used

his rival's patented technology.

‐ He wanted the narrative to
be RCA gets television first.

‐ [Narrator] Philo Farnsworth
remains in ill health,

but his corporation finally
gets official approval

and begins making
noise about suing RCA.

Knowing the damages from
a lawsuit could be severe,

Sarnoff makes a
move no one expects.

‐ [Sarnoff] Okay,
let's make this quick.

I have a luncheon.

‐ [Narrator] In 1940,
Sarnoff finally agrees

to license Farnsworth's patent
for a one million dollar fee

plus royalties on
RCA television sets.

‐ Okay, I trust we're done?

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

(dramatic music)

‐ Sarnoff understood the
power of a good story

and a good story is we
invented television.

That's a good story.

A less good story is
there was this other guy

and then we used some technology

and then he said that it
was corporate espionage,

but we did it anyway.

That's a bad story.

‐ All of their bullying tactics,

all of their attempts
to buy him out,

it had all come to nothing.

‐ [Narrator] But Farnsworth's
victory is short‐lived.

When the US enters World War II,

work on television ceases

as both RCA and
Farnsworth's company

switch to wartime production.

The delay means a new
problem for Farnsworth.

‐ Sarnoff has time on his side

whereas Farnsworth
has these patents

that have a time clock on them.

‐ Farnsworth's original
patent is going to expire.

It expires in 1947.

(ominous music)

‐ [Narrator] When
the war ends in 1945,

Farnsworth attempts to
jumpstart his TV company,

but the clock's running out.

‐ Farnsworth starts making
TVs, rolling them out.

They're very high end.

They're advertised in
the best magazines,

but they don't sell that well

and the company is losing money.

‐ They are for the
elite, the effete.

Boy, what a contrast

when you think about how David
Sarnoff approached this.

‐ [Announcer] Joe Louis
puts the finishing touches

on his training for the
June 19th title bout

with Billy Conn.

‐ [Narrator] In 1946,
Sarnoff makes a bold move.

He stages the first
ever TV broadcast

of a heavyweight
title bout on NBC

between Joe Louis and Billy Conn

and sells expensive
RCA televisions to bars

so the public can watch it.

The broadcast draws 140,000
viewers in New York City alone

jump‐starting demand for TVs.

In the two years after
Farnsworth's patent expires,

RCA sells a million TVs

capturing an overwhelming
80% of the market.

‐ Sarnoff was this person

that in the minds
of many Americans

really had thought of a
new world of communication

and through RCA had
made that happen.

‐ [Narrator] At the
beginning of the 1950s,

there are three million TV
sets in the United States.

By the end of the decade,
there are 55 million.

‐ It's the sign of success and
it's the symbol of the age.

It becomes a way
in which Americans

demonstrate to each other,

that frankly they're doing well
enough to buy a television.

‐ It is a space where
Americans experienced together

some of their greatest
triumphs and tragedies.

Television becomes a huge driver

of social change and
cultural transformation.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Traditional
television usage

will continue to increase
steadily for 50 years

when it hits a peak
of nine hours per day

for the average
household in 2010.

By then, TV is as common in
America as indoor plumbing.

The man who believes he
invented television, however,

won't even let his
children watch it.

‐ Of course, he was bitter.

He was really written
out of history.

‐ [Narrator] The Farnsworth
Television and Radio Corporation

is sold in 1949 and ultimately
goes out of business.

The inventor himself leaves
the TV industry behind

by the early 1950s.

‐ He did have what I would say
is a final redeeming moment.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] In July, 1969,

Farnsworth, now retired,

finds himself watching
the greatest event

in television history to date.

A record 600 million people
worldwide are tuned in

waiting for Apollo 11

to become the first manned
spacecraft to land on the moon.

‐ [Neil] Here we can see coming
down the ladder now.

‐ [Narrator] For
Philo Farnsworth,

who knows the role he played

in making this
experience possible,

it is a reward of sorts
for the work that began

when he was just a
kid in high school.

‐ [Neil] I'm ah, at the
foot of the ladder.

the LEM foot pads are only...

‐ And after a long wait,

Neil Armstrong comes
out of the module,

sets a foot on the moon,

Farnsworth gives a
big sigh and he says,

"Pem, this has made
it all worthwhile."

‐ [Neil] That's one
small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind."

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