| 1942 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
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Cultural highlights | Predictions made this year |
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| January 1 |
Dutch radio is nazified. Publication of the only authorised programme guide, De Luistergids, begins. |
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| January 16 |
Film actress Carole Lombard is killed in an air crash near Las Vegas. |
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| January 21 |
In New York, Count Basie Orchestra records One O'Clock Jump for Okeh Records. |
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| January 23 |
NBC starts to broadcast a series of training programmes for air raid wardens in the New York area, the start of education television broadcasting in the US. |
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| February 24 |
Voice of America (VoA) begins short wave radio broadcasts using CBS and NBC transmitters. Its first programmes are in German. |
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| March 1 |
BBC begins transmission in the Marathi language to India. |
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| March 10 |
BBC begins transmission in the Sinhala language to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). |
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| March 22 |
BBC begins transmitting news bulletins in Morse code for the benefit of resistance fighters in mainland Europe. |
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| April 2 |
Glenn Miller records American Patrol at RCA Victor's Hollywood studios. |
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| April 21 |
BBC Home Service's ITMA becomes the first royal command radio performance, attended by the royal family. |
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| April |
US government’s War Production Board orders a 70 per cent reduction in the use of shellac—mainly imported from India—for non-military purposes, seriously affecting the production of audio discs. |
> 1946 |
| May 6 |
First BBC radio broadcast by The Radio Doctor giving health care advice. (The speaker is unnamed on air but is actually Dr Charles Hill, who later becomes Postmaster-General, with government responsibility for broadcasting, and Chairman of the Independent Television Authority.) |
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| May 29 |
 Bing Crosby records White Christmas, written by Irving Berlin, backed by John Scott Trotter's Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers, at Decca's Los Angeles studios. Recorded for the film Holiday Inn, it sells a million disc copies by 1946 and 25m copies by 1965, making it the biggest selling disc of all time, a distinction it holds until 1997. |
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| mid |
Twentieth Century-Fox's lease on Shepherds Bush Studios in London expires. |
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| June 4 |
Capitol Record Company starts operations in US. Its first million-seller, recorded this year, is Ella Mae Morse's Cow Cow Boogie. |
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| June |
In the US the newly created Office of War Information inlcudes a Bureau of Motion Pictures. |
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| June 14 |
Walt Disney's Bambi is released in the US. |
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| July 25 |
 J L Baird [right, with colour receiver] applies for a British patent (no 562168, granted 1943) for ‘Improvements in colour television’, which involve a cylindrical cathode ray tube with two guns scanning both sides of a transparent phosphor-coated screen, one side for blue-green, the other orange-red. Because of its appearance, the tube is nicknamed the ‘teapot’.
[Picture source: Royal Television Society] |
See also 1944 August 16 |
| August 1 |
American Federation of Musicians imposes a ban on recording by its members in the USA. |
> 1944 |
| September 18 |
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio service is authorised. |
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| October 1 |
BBC begins transmissions in Hokkien (Fujian) to South-east Asia. |
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| October |
Because of wartime conditions, the screen quota, reserving time for British productions in British cinemas, is suspended. |
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| October |
British restrictions on dollar remittances by American film companies are relaxed. |
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| late |
Between now and 1944 German television broadcasts from occupied Paris are picked up by British intelligence in a 'shed' on Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, Sussex, including newsreels of allied bombing in France. For reception, an array of 32 conventional aerials is suspended between two 105-foot masts. |
> 1944 |
| November 2 |
BBC begins French-language broadcasts to Canada. |
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| November 26 |
Premiere of Casablanca at the Hollywood Theatre, New York. |
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| December |
Longer 15-minute films rleased on a monthly basis replace the five-minute weekly films produced for the Ministry of Information in UK cinemas; 37 are made between now and the end of 1945. [0074] |
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| • |
American broadcasters introduce voluntary censorship. |
> 1943 |
| • |
Broadcasting for armed services develops rapidly. US Armed Forces Radio Service (later AFN) is formed and British units are established in numerous places. |
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Alexander Korda is knighted by King George VI, the first film-maker ever to be honoured thus. |
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Rank Organisation now has 619 cinemas in its Odeon and Gaumont-British circuits, ABPC has 442 cinemas. These two chains control 24 per cent of all UK screens. |
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Controlling interest in RKO is acquired by Floyd Odlum. |
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Ufa-Film (Ufi) becomes the German state film monopoly. [0036] |
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A total of 19 indigenous films open in Denmark, well above the pre-war average. |
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Australian Broadcasting Act loosens ministerial influence over radio programming and allows the ABC to make decisions about which political speeches can be broadcast. |
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First Sindhi-language film is Ekta (Unity), produced by J B H Wadia (see 1937, 1941) and directed by Homi Wadia (1911- ). |
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Total of 400,000 jukeboxes have been installed in the US to date. |
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