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September 7, 2027 will mark 100 years from the day when electronic television made its first appearance on Earth.  To generate interest in the Centennial,  this website and accompanying podcast is going to Count Down the Top 100 Milestones from the First 100 Years of Television over 100 weeks until September 7, 2027.
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On the evening of May 7, 1947, RCA-made, Image Orthicon-powered television cameras came to life at NBC’s Studio 8-H in Rockefeller Center — the same studio where, a decade earlier, Maestro Arturo Toscanini had made NBC a cultural force with live broadcasts of the NBC  Symphony⁠.^⁠1

The new show was called Kraft Television Theatre, and represented a turning point for the new medium in two respects.

First, it was live theater, like Broadway on the air. It was not filmed, canned, or recycled from radio. Kraft Television Theater was written and produced for TV, performed live by marquee actors, and broadcast into American living rooms in real time.

It was also American advertising’s first serious foray into the new realm of television. 

The FCC had permitted commercial television to begin on July 1, 1941 (which was covered in Countdown #91, Bulova Time) 

The war put the whole proposition on hold. 

First, A Public Service 

Before the advent of television, advertising had a long history with radio that reflected the medium’s rudimentary origins, none of which were overtly ‘commercial.’ 

Radio started in the early 20th century with amateur wireless experiments before finding its way into military and maritime applications.  There was initially no demand for home entertainment.  But by 1920, with the addition of the circuitry pioneered by the likes of Edwin Armstrong and Reginald Fessenden⁠, radios were finding their way into American homes, and companies like Westinghouse, General Electric, and RCA began broadcasting regular programming to stimulate radio sales.^⁠2

The first radio station to offer regular programming – KDKA in Pittsburgh – went on the air on November 2, 1920, broadcasting the results of that day’s presidential election.  This established a precedent for broadcasting as a public service, not a source of revenue.  The precedent didn’t last very long. 

On August 28, 1922, radio station WEAF in Queens, New York broadcast the first paid-for content transmitted over the airwaves. WEAF was operated by AT&T, the company that made its money transmitting signals over wires, not air.  Envisioning radio as an extension of its existing business, the company proposed to engage in “toll broadcasting,” where organizations could pay to use the airwaves, just as they paid to use telephone lines.

WEAF’s first paid-for broadcast was a ten-minute segment paid for by the Queensboro Corporation, a real estate developer promoting properties in Jackson Heights.  The ad (if you can even call it that) wasn’t a jingle or a hard-sell pitch — it was a spoken essay, read by an announcer, extolling the virtues of a new suburban lifestyle. Though the effort was modest by modern standards, this moment was pivotal: for the first time, a third party had paid a radio station to reach a mass audience via radio.

The model established that day morphed in the decades that followed. 

Wait, We Can Make Money With This!?

In 1924, AT&T leased WEAF to RCA, which folded it into the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926 – the first true national radio network.^⁠3⁠  NBC was structured around a “sustaining sponsor” model, where advertisers would fund entire programs in exchange for on-air promotions. The result was a slate of programs like 

• The A&P Gypsies – sponsored by the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company 
• The Ipana Troubadours – sponsored by Ipana Toothpaste from Bristol-Myers
• The Voice of Firestone – sponsored by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
• The Cities Service Concerts – sponsored by Cities Service Oil Company (which today is known as CITGO).

These and dozens of other programs promoted America’s most familiar brands. Even RCA got into the act, sponsoring the prestigious  Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra as a vehicle for promoting both the NBC network and RCA’s own line of radios and phonographs. 

At the nexus of this web of broadcasters and advertisers, one firm ruled the roost: J. Walter Thompson.  

From its roots in print advertising in the 1860s, JWT became the dominant force in radio in the 1920s and ‘30s.  JWT crafted radio programs around clients like Kraft Foods, Lever Brothers, the Ford Motor Company, General Foods, and Westinghouse, seamlessly embedding advertising into broadcast entertainment.  With such single-sponsor programming, advertisers – not talent – controlled the tone, style, and even the casting of radio shows.  

The agency’s success with radio dramas and music programs like The Kraft Music Hall and The Lux Radio Theatre made JWT the go-to firm for brands looking to advertise on the air.  JWT’s  access to all the essential talent — producers, writers, announcers — put the agency in the driver’s seat for any future shifts in the industry. 

When television came out of the gate after the war, JWT remained cautious. Early broadcasts were clunky, production costs were high, the audiences were minuscule, and the visual demands of the new medium posed creative challenges that neither radio producers nor ad agencies were fully prepared for.

But once the technology was proven and TV sets began to sell, audience surveys revealed that viewers recalled more than just the shows.  They remembered the sponsors. 

Say Cheese!

While JWT and NBC tested several formats, Kraft’s own ad team pushed JWT to mount a full hour show, firm in their conviction that high-minded drama would appeal to viewers and elevate their brand.  Keen to promote a new line of processed cheese products — the individually wrapped Kraft Cheese Slices –  the company agreed to foot the bill for a 13-week trial starting in the spring of 1947.

The debut episode of Kraft Television Theater was an adaptation of Elizabeth McFadden’s 1933 Broadway play Double Door, directed by Fred Coe and Delbert Mann and featuring actors John Baragrey and Eleanor Wilson.  The program was narrated by Ed Herlihy, who’s voice would become familiar to TV viewers for the next thirty years. ^⁠4

Trade magazines reported a tremendous surge in demand for Kraft Cheese Slices immediately after the debut of Kraft Television Theatre. In oral histories archived by the Television Academy, ad executives recalled the “phones lit up” at Kraft headquarters. A Television Magazine reader poll noted that Kraft Television Theatre had achieved “the highest sponsor recall of any program on the air” – effectively dispelling whatever doubts Madison Avenue may have still harbored for the potential of television. 

For eleven years from 1947 to 1958, Kraft Television Theater ran more than 650 live episodes on NBC and ABC, and showcased a memorable array of actors, directors, and writers. Future stars like James Dean, Grace Kelly, Rod Steiger, Helen Hayes, and Paul Newman all made appearances during the salad days of their careers. Future Hollywood directors like Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman, and George Roy Hill cut their teeth learning how to choreograph actors and block cameras across a tight studio floor. And a young screenwriter named Rod Serling added his unique voice to the medium.

Starting with adaptions of existing plays or short stories, the form quickly evolved to inspire original writing better suited for small screen’s intimacy and immediacy.  Stories of marriage, war, ambition, politics, and crime offered viewers something more substantial than puppets, pratfalls, and vaudeville-style hijinks. 

The success of Kraft Television Theatre inspired what some look back on fondly as the “Golden Age” of live television. Its success spawned a wave of imitators: Philco Television Playhouse, Studio One, Goodyear Television Playhouse, Playhouse 90, and other shows that gave television a style  distinct from radio, film, and theater.

But despite the highbrow pretensions, it’s instructional to remember that it all started with the imperative to sell more cheese.

¹ And where, three decades later,  Saturday Night Live would launch another five decades of comedy history.

² Armstrong’s contributions are covered in Coundown #99, Video Gets Its Audio.  Reginald Fessenden was a Canadian radio pioneer who, in 1906, made the first known broadcast of voice and music over radio waves.

³ Also In 1926:  RCA, AT&T, GE, and Westinghouse agreed to a consent decree that formally divided the emerging radio and electrical industries. AT&T ceded broadcasting to RCA, selling  WEAF to RCA for $1 million. RCA in tern ceded wired communications to AT&T in exchange for for using AT&Ts wired network to relay its content to the fledgling NBC network (that also launched in 1926).   GE and Westinghouse retained manufacturing roles but stepped back from content production or distribution.  This agreement effectively carved up the airwaves and established the structural blueprint of American broadcasting — with RCA controlling content, AT&T owning infrastructure, and GE/Westinghouse supplying the hardware.

⁴ Ed Herlihy was a familiar voice  on American radio and television for over three decades, with his presence on TV lasting from the late 1940s into the early 1970s.   Herlihy was a regular presence on NBC programs, voiceovers for newsreels, and countless commercials, especially for products like Cheez Whiz and Jell-O. He occasionally made appearances — notably in Woody Allen films like Annie Hall (1977) and Zelig (1983),  playing a version of himself or using his iconic announcer persona.

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