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Radio Killed the Video Star: Mass Communication Development in the 1632 Universe

Written by Jay Robison

As we have seen so far in both fiction ("Waves of Change" Grantville Gazette, Volume 9) and non-fiction (articles by Rick Boatright and others), the mass media of radio and television are bringing big changes to seventeenth century Europe. In this essay, I will explore the creative and commercial aspects of radio and television, and why I believe that radio will be king in the world of 1632, at least for the foreseeable future. This essay will not touch on the technical aspects of manufacturing televisions versus radios or expand on the problems of transmission already covered by more knowledgeable writers in previous Grantville Gazette issues. Rather, I hope to cover some non-technical reasons why the manufacture of new televisions may be a ways off in Grantville and the shape mass communication policy debate may take in the USE.

A Question of Standards

The first issue that's going to have to be resolved before television can spread will be the broadcasting standard—how many lines of resolution will new television sets be equipped to display? If you've ever wondered why you can't play a DVD or video tape purchased in Europe on your U.S. or Canadian television set (or vice versa), then you've encountered the problem of competing standards. It would be easy to say that new television sets will copy the standard already used in up-time exemplars, and this may well be the case. But this does not mean there won't be a vigorous debate.

Consider how the broadcast standard used in the United States, known as NTSC, came to be. A standard American analog television has a resolution of 525 lines. This was a compromise reached in 1941. In 1936, the Radio Manufacturer's Association (RMA) recommended the U.S. adopt a standard of 441 lines. Perhaps not coincidentally, David Sarnoff, head of RCA, was a major force in the RMA, and RCA's television sets had a 441-line resolution. The NBC television network, owned (surprise!) by RCA, broadcast using the 441 line standard.

Philco, one of RCA's competitors, actually wanted a standard with a far better resolution, between 600 and 800 lines. The agreed-upon standard split the difference. The USE will also have to agree upon a uniform broadcast standard. When television does achieve the kind of market penetration in the USE that it has in many countries uptime, it would never do for a station in, say, Magdeburg to broadcast in a standard that viewers in, for instance, Stockholm will never be able to view. Given that the single operating television station broadcasts in the 525-line NTSC standard, and the existing television sets receive the same, there will no doubt be a lot of people who will push to keep the NTSC standard as new televisions are produced and new television stations come online. But it's by no means set in stone, and if a wealthy and powerful nobleman (or men, or women) back a manufacturer who wants to use a different standard, expect a lively and contentious debate mirroring the VHS versus Betamax wars of the early 80s in our timeline or (for younger readers), the current battle over the next generation of DVD technology.

Radio doesn't have this problem. Crystal sets either have to be tuned to a single radio station, or have a tuning circuit to receive multiple stations (see Rick Boatright's "Radio, Part 3" and Iver Cooper's "The Sound of Mica" in Grantville Gazette, Volume 9 for a more in-depth exploration of the technical aspects involved in making crystal radio sets). With radio there won't be those pesky format issues that television manufacturers will have to face. Not to mention the fact that crystal radios are cheap enough for even the very poor to make (Goodlett and Huff, "Waves of Change")—not something that will ever be true of television sets.

A Question of Production Values

There's no question as to which medium offers the best bargain for production dollars. It's radio, hands down. Enterprising radio producers able to get anyone with a little woodworking skill will be able to make sound effects equipment, some of which—like the slapstick—will probably already be known to seventeenth century theater-goers.

And radio will offer a great opportunity to aspiring composers and musicians to gain the notice of a large audience. Being the house orchestra or string quartet for a radio theater company may lack the prestige that patronage from a high-ranking nobleman or church official might bring, it might be more lucrative in the long run.

The aspiring radio producer will be able to make do with a smaller performing company than a television producer, especially if they can find talent who can create multiple voices for multiple characters. If you're very fortunate and find a talent comparable to Mel Blanc, the voice of every Looney Tunes character, Harry Shearer, who voices about a dozen characters on The Simpsons, or even Peter Sellers, who starred in The Goon Show on radio before crossing over to film, you practically have an entire cast in just one performer! Even a talent like Peter Sellers couldn't carry an entire television show or movie by himself, though at times he came close.

For the time being, television will do well with live or taped performances of plays, something that started not long after the Ring of Fire, with high school performances of Shakespeare's plays providing some of the earliest WVOA programming (1632). Television addresses by important leaders like Frank Jackson ("Breaking News," Grantville Gazette, Volume 5) and Emperor Gustavus ("Mightier Than the Sword," Grantville Gazette, Volume 6) will certainly be inspirational to those who can see them, and pictures will add an extra dimension to instructional programming that radio won't be able to match. Still, there's no question that radio will provide the better bargain.

A Question of Editing

Another problem television in the 1632 universe will face is editing pre-recorded content. Equipment probably won't be much of a problem. We know there's at least one digital video camera in Grantville, and there are probably a number of analog camcorders floating around as well. But it's less likely that the type of recording equipment generally used even for amateur video productions would be available. Items such as a portable digital audiotape (DAT) recorder with a boom microphone, or similar equipment would probably not have been in Grantville, except by extremely wild coincidence. The built-in mikes on video cameras will not capture sound nearly so well, though they'd probably be serviceable for "talking head" type programs, and if shooting on location outdoors there will be no way to block out unwanted noise.

Editing pre-recorded material on tape will be a challenge for both media, but much more so for television than radio. To talk about editing, we have to talk about "linear" versus "non-linear" editing systems.

Editing analog sound or video requires what's known as linear editing. Basically, you have to edit in the order you record. For sound, this is done with tape on a reel-to-reel system. Editors have to physically splice tape together. Videotape used to be edited the same way, until the advent of "helical scan" videotape, which is what the VHS machine in your home uses.

To edit the videotapes made by analog camcorders in Grantville, one would need an editing rig consisting of two tape decks, a monitor, and a keyboard for editing functions. Though much of the video industry has switched to non-linear editing systems, linear editing is still commonly used in editing news. Given the realities of school budgets, it is almost certain that Grantville's high school television studio has at least one analog video editing machine. It is probable, however, that if there are only one—or maybe two—linear editing machines at WVOA that they will be in much demand for station and student use, and a long line for anyone else wanting to use them.

An independent producer with access to the right manuals or a knowledgeable individual willing to experiment will be able to assemble a crude but workable linear video editing system by using two VCRs, two televisions, and a stopwatch to make sure everything is synchronized. An expensive proposition in down-time Grantville, given the finite quantities of ...