Chapter 4. Important Dates

In 1923 the A.C. Nielsen Company is established to provide measurements of radio audiences for advertisers. This enabled the radio ad salesmen to say something other than, "I don't know," or "lots and lots of people," when asked about the potential impact of the ad. By the way, God doesn't use any kind of system like the Nielsen Company does to determine how many are tuned into Him. He already knows.

In 1934, Congress passed the Communications Act which created the Federal Communications Commission. It was supposed to regulate all forms of broadcasting in the United States. However, it was impossible to regulate people's interest in things and, due to the fall of mankind, programming became different from the programming that God gives us when we pray. During prayer we receive a transmission from the Lord in which He informs us that He loves us and cares for us and wants only the best for us. This rarely happens with the programming the FCC is supposed to regulate.

In 1936, the BBC is established as they broadcast the world's first regular TV transmission for three hours a day. Did we have our own best interests in mind when we developed TV? This is the beginning of a kind of foggy, mental manna, which we begin to feed ourselves.

In 1938, Orsen Welles broadcast his adaptation of H.G. Welles' War of the Worlds during his weekly Mercury Theater of the Air radio program on CBS on October 30th. Due to its realistic "news" type format, there was a nationwide panic. Have you noticed it is sometimes hard to distinguish between reality and fantasy when it comes to what we transmit over the airwaves? Is it any wonder that we confuse ourselves about what is truth? Is it any wonder we panic so easily when one spot in the entire world is made far more important and bigger than it really is by our attention, as it is magnified and even glorified by the media?

The problems associated with the broadcast of War of the Worlds are still going on today. We are shown fragments of the truth and expected to make the fragments cohesive in our minds, but the overall assumption that God has no active roll in our lives, makes us believe that lie until, at home, left to stare at the one-eyed mammon machine, we fall into despair and weeping. Perhaps the TV, and its gradual spread over the world, is the invasion we need to panic over. Could we gradually return to God via prayer, as the TV takes up less and less of our lives, so that rather than being a victim of TV, we'll be a conqueror of it, through the mighty power of Christ Jesus? Can we have a happy ending to all these horror shows we transmit to ourselves around the world?

In 1948, the first network nightly newscast, CBS-TV News, debuts on CBS with Douglas Edwards. With the advent of "news" shows, they quickly had to find someone who could sort through all that was happening in the world and condense it into approximately ½ hour. In order to be able to fit all news comfortably into the ½ hour time slot, they had to leave out all things related to God's spirit, the power of prayer, and the miracles of God.

Also in 1948, the earliest cable systems were established in remote areas of Pennsylvania and Oregon. This was to help bring in TV signals into communities where a simple roof antenna (or rabbit ears on the TV set itself), couldn't pick up anything of significance due to interfering mountains or distance. Strangely, even with the advent of cable, nothing of significance was picked up. The time allotted to prayer in these communities dropped drastically, leaving many feeling as if they were unloved by God.

In 1949, the first continuing daytime drama show premieres on NBC. It is called These Are My Children and is a live, 15 minute show. Soap operas later expanded to ½ hour and later still, an hour, and became very popular because people weren't getting enough of "regular life happenings" and they needed to watch more of simulated life happenings. Also, their own lives seemed somewhat boring with not enough exciting negativity sprinkled in it, as far as they were concerned. Soaps, then, became a way to escape without really escaping, live without really living, and do without really doing. Talking to God, about what His will was for them, did not enter into the minds of those wrapped up in the soaps. This trend, though amazingly widespread, was not reported on any of the news channels as significant. It is still going on today. In order for TV not to bite the hand that feeds it, they cannot report as news that Soaps are an abomination to the Lord, a serious slip deep into mammon, and a mighty temptation to cut back on the time spent in prayer.

In 1949, U.S. Department of Commerce confirms television's selling power when it reports in May: "Television's combination of moving pictures, sound and immediacy produces an impact that extends television as an advertising medium into the realm of personal sales solicitation." TV has been determined to have a value as a medium in which solicitors may sell products and services. It would be self-defeating of television to recommend that prayers be prayed for strength that is not our strength alone. It would not be wise of them to ask us to shut our eyes momentarily, as we recognize our Almighty God and give Him some worship time, as we humbly lay our problems before Him, knowing that He can handle them today.

What a wonderful way to start the day that would have been! But, if our eyes are closed, we are not watching the television and not listening to the pitch of the ad, which was produced using moving pictures with sound, to give us a sense of immediacy. It is never what do we need right now. It is Who do we need right now. We need Jesus to lead us out of our self-made prisons, our focus on the dark, cold world, our sense of inadequacy and guilt. Only Jesus can help us.

Jesus, is unquestionably most beneficial for us right now. In the long run, prayers to Him lead to far greater good than purchasing those products ever will. God wants to help we "consumers" to be consumed by Him. He knows how best He can use us for our talents. He will open doors for us, that will appear to be by "chance," He will have us meet someone who will become our mentor, teaching us what God wants us to learn. We will learn to love by loving those who are easy to love as well as, with God's help, choosing to love those who are hard to love. But He only moves upon our lives as we ask Him to. Prayer is vital to God's involvement in our lives.

Also in 1949, Cuba became infected with TV. No one knew that interest in TV would expand relatively rapidly around the world, as more and more people were drawn into the power of this thing of the airwaves, TV. The power of this thing of the airwaves?

Eph 2:2 …you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience;
Eph 2:3 among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath… (MKJV)

3. A lot of the information I got on television history came from a site on the Internet: http://www.the-best-of-television.com. Back.

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