A D V E N T U R E S   in   C Y B E R S O U N D

This article was submitted specially for the Royal Television Society Newsletter by Malcolm Baird who is an Honorary Member and the son of the British TV pioneer, John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird is recognised as Britain's television pioneer; he was born and raised in Scotland, and most of his television work was done in the London area. Yet if events had turned out differently, he might have become a naturalized American like another Scottish inventor, Alexander Graham Bell.

Baird's one and only visit to the USA took place in late 1931. The company that had been formed around Baird, Television Limited, had been pushing hard to get television broadcasting started in Britain, but the BBC was hesitant about the new medium. There was a strong case for developing television in the more open regime of the USA where many experimental television stations were already broadcasting in different cities. So Baird, and the company secretary Walter Knight, sailed into New York on the Aquitania in September 1931. By a strange coincidence, Baird had served as an engineering apprentice twenty years earlier at the Clydeside yard where the Aquitania was being built.

Baird was well known in the USA. His first public demonstration of television in January 1926, and his historic transmission of television across the Atlantic in February 1928, had captured the public imagination. As late as 1931, television techniques were still largely mechanical and Baird's most recent success was the transmission of the Derby from Epsom to a cinema in central London, where it was seen on a large screen.

Much to Baird's embarrassment, he and Mr. Knight were greeted at the pier in New York by a pipe band in full highland regalia. They evaded this VIP reception and quietly went off for a meeting with Mayor Jimmy Walker, before continuing to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. But even here, Baird's troubles were not over because he was besieged by shouting and partially inebriated businessmen trying to make "deals". His autobiography "Sermons, Soap and Television" described the scene vividly and amusingly.

Donald Flamm (neither shouting nor inebriated) was the only person with whom Baird was able to conclude a firm "deal". Flamm was the owner of radio station WMCA in New York City; he and Baird drew up a proposal for a jointly operated television station employing the latest technology. This was subject to obtaining a license from the Federal Radio Commission in Washington. During the interval while the paperwork was processed, Flamm arranged a radio broadcast by Baird on Sunday October 18. The broadcast took place from what was then the WMCA building; that building is used today for the production of David Letterman's national nightly TV talk show! The script of Baird's 1931 broadcast is still in existence and part of it is quoted below.

"... the whole atmosphere of New York is very different from that of Europe. It is an atmosphere of "go ahead" vigor, welcoming of novelty and enterprise. The people here are, to use a New York expression, "all out for progress", whereas in Europe we are inclined to look with distrust and suspicion on anything new. ...As an example of this, the plans of this well known station from which I am speaking, to go ahead immediately with an up-to-date broadcasting program, and to use all means in their power to further the science, and bring its benefits as quickly as possible to the public at large, are extremely encouraging.

"Our company is installing the necessary television transmitting apparatus and we hope in a very short time to be sending out from this station television programs similar to those we are now sending out in London, but with this difference, that through WMCA we will have a much longer time available. You are aware that this station has a sole concession for broadcasting the Madison Square boxing matches and it is hoped in a very short time to add to the word descriptions of the fights by transmitting scenes and the actual fight itself. In addition, arrangements have been made for broadcasting outstanding theatrical events such as the opening nights of Broadway productions. It is proposed to do this with apparatus similar to that being used by us abroad, for broadcasting daylight scenes such as the British Derby classic made in June last.

...Throughout the world the highest scientific thought is being devoted to television. Vast strides have been made and will be made in this new art. I myself look forward to seeing at no distant day, television theatres supersede the talkies, and the home television become as common as the home radio is today."

Baird did more than that, he proposed marriage over the phone and was accepted! So Margaret came over to New York and they were married before judge Murray Hearn on November 13, 1931. The marriage and the reception took place at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, a well-known resort area just a few miles from Manhattan. A group photograph of the occasion shows John and Margaret Baird among a large party of business people --but not a single relative from either side of the family! Nevertheless it was a happy marriage and it lasted until Baird's death 15 years later.

Soon after the wedding, Baird and his new wife and Donald Flamm travelled to Washington to attend the Federal Radio Commission hearings. These lasted 2 days and produced 148 pages of transcript, including Baird's detailed answers to questioning on how he came to develop television. Baird gave a commitment that if the agreement with WMCA was approved, he would spend 6 months of each year in the USA. Privately in conversation with Donald Flamm, Baird said that if things went well he would spend considerably more than 6 months per year in the USA

The examiner was a young man called Ralph L. Walker. He wrote a glowing report to the Commission and recommended that a construction permit should be granted. All seemed well, and John and Margaret Baird sailed back to England. Three months later, the Commission decided against the application. Objections had been filed by Radio Pictures Inc. (station W2XR) of Long Island City that they could do the research just as well. A strong point in the commission's report was that Baird's company was a foreign organization and as such it should not be allowed to play any part in US broadcasting! Donald Flamm has observed the irony of this decision, compared to the situation today; communications are global and for example the Australian Rupert Murdoch can hold a dominant position in the US media, and nobody gives it a second thought.

The news of the F.R.C. rejection arrived soon after Baird's return to England. Back in London, he was faced with more challenges because during his absence Television Ltd. had changed hands. The new owner and the board of directors were critical of the fruitless expense of the US trip and particularly the fact that Baird had got married "on company time." Baird agreed to pay half the travel expenses out of his own pocket, but the bad feeling remained.

So ended John Logie Baird's visit to the USA. It is interesting to speculate on how Baird's fortunes might have been different if the Federal Radio Commission had not vetoed the joint venture with WMCA. He might then have made the move to the USA and his career might have paralleled that of Alexander Graham Bell, who migrated from Scotland and became one of the icons of American technical history. Certainly, Baird's health problems with the cold damp British climate would have disappeared quickly in the warm air of California or Florida.

But as it was, he stayed on in Britain. When war broke out in 1939, Donald Flamm and Sydney Moseley tried to persuade Baird to move, with his family, to the USA Baird said it would be "too much of an upheaval". Through the war years he continued to work on electronic colour television, despite shortages of money and staff. I can remember seeing high-definition colour TV in 1944. But during World War II there were more important things for the public interest, and Baird's work went largely unnoticed. Nevertheless the Baird patents of the 1940s were at the leading edge of the colour television technology. Baird's health was gradually weakened by the difficult wartime conditions and he died in 1946 at the early age of 57. But for the arbitrary and chauvinistic decision of the Federal Radio Commission in 1931, Baird's life and the history of television could have been very different!

Acknowledgment: I am very grateful to Mr. Donald Flamm (Overseas Fellow, R.T.S.) for his encouragement and help in the writing of this article.

Source: Malcolm Baird, The Royal Television Society

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