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| A Brief Timeline: on the history of television and advertising |
| 1945 In February, at the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Central Region meeting, Foote, Cone & Belding co-founder urges agencies to start preperatory work on TV advertising. Following postwar allocation hearings in May, the FCC rules black & white TV may proceed on a commercial basis, but that color has to await further research. Commercial TV stations become available in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Schenectady, N.Y. |
| 1949 U.S. Department of Commerce confirms TV'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." Betty Furness starts pitching refrigerators and appliances in TV spots for Westinghouse, launching a relationship that lasts more then 11 years and makes her one of the first stars created for commercial TV. |
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| 1952 National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters ratifies a new Television Code establishing guidelines for content and addressing the concerns of social critics. Nearly half the code is devoted to advertising. |
| Borden's Elsie the Cow beats out actor Van Johnson and U.S. Senator Robert Taft in recognition polls as one of America's most familiar faces. |
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| By years end, the number of TV households grows to 20 million, up from 33% from the previous year. U.S. advertisers spend a record $288 million on TV time, and increase of 38.8% from 1951. |
| 1954 The first color commerical televised in a local show was commisioned in March by Castro Decorators, New York, in a contract with WNBT. It was first telecast on August 6th. In April, groundwork is laid for the Televisions Advertising Bureau. For the first time, television is the leading medium for national advertising. |
| 1957 By August, for the first time, more countries worldwide allow TV advertising then forbid it. 1958 By years end, ad expenditures in radio and television cross the $2 billion mark. 1959 The cartoon ad character Mister Magoo becomes the nearsighted spokesman for General Electric bulbs. |
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| 1961 In search of added profit, ABC stretches the station break between programs to 40 seconds from 30. The other networks follow. FCC Chairman Newton Minow delivers a May 9th speech in which he denounces TV as a "vast wasteland," calling for heightened federal regualtion of the medium. The same day, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey calls U.S. TV "the greatest single achievement in communication that anybody or any area of the world has ever known." |
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