Diffusion of Innovations

The first television was an invention that changed America for ever. The television was also one of the many early inventions that follows the diffusion of Innovations model beautifully. The television caught on and spread because people realized that it was a lot more interesting to watch a play be acted out on television than listen to it over the radio and imagine what the scene might look like. The television also allowed news to be broadcasted a lot easier and the television also allowed the news to be seen rather than just heard. The start of television news is rarely recent with CBS introducing the first television news segment in 1944 in the way of a 15 minute evening news segment, with NBC jumping in the mix with their own Sunday evening newscast in 1945. The television was a growing necessity for most people in the early 1940's. The fascination of the television started during the World's Fair in 1939 when the then president of RCA showed off the first commercially accessible television broadcast and that broadcast consisted of FDR who also became the first televised president. This event coupled with the introduction of televised news just 4 - 5 years later allowed for there to be a big amount of early adopters. By the mid 1950's, television had reached its tipping point. This was the hight of the televisions popularity with programing being made more specifically for television and away from the traditional radio format. The first notable of these programs was an idea by NBC president Sylvester Weaver which was Peter Pan in 1955 and that program attracted 60 million views alone. He also developed the idea of programing such as Today (1952) and The Late Show (1953). Many late adopters at this point started to consider the idea of buying a television since they hadn't purchased one recently for whatever reason whether it be that they couldn't afford it at the time or that they thought it was a pointless invention just to name a few examples. This popularity was steady for many, many decades with there even being a spike in popularity around the introduction of the color television in 1954. However, in recent years the popularity of the television has declined and according to New York Times authors Sapana Maheshwari and John Koblin it is believed that the increase in streaming services and the decline of advertising on major networks is the cause of this. Earlier on in the televisions life, there were plenty of downsides. One main one was the impact the TV had on the radio industry. It caused people to stop listening to the radio and they just watched TV instead. However, nowadays there aren't really that many downsides to television. From the ease of access to information such as news and educational materials as well as the entertainment aspect to it, there aren't really that many ill effects of the television being in existence.