| 1969 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
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| January 1 |
UK television licence fee is
increased by £1 to £6 monochrome and £11 colour. |
à 1971 |
| January |
Experimental pay TV service at Hartford, Connecticut closes. |
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| January 30 |
The Beatles' last public performance together is on the roof of Apple Corps, their
company building in Savile Row, London. The performance of Get Back for release
as a recording and for the film Let It Be ends when the police appear on the roof. |
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| February 5 |
Turn On, a comedy sketch show to challenge NBC's hit series Rowan and Martin's
Laugh-In, is taken off the ABC network after its first episode. |
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| February |
Arab States Broadcasting Union is formed. |
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| April |
IBM announces a method of contact printing videotape at high speeds. |
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| April |
Matsushita announces a 'bifilar' high-speed contact videotape printer. |
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| April |
Sony announces its first colour videocassette recorder. Known as the Magazine
Videocorder, it uses one-inch tape running at 3.25 ips giving 60 minutes’ recording time. Sony’s
one-inch videotape recorder model EV310, costing £1,200, is introduced this year. |
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| May |
First gallery exhibition entirely devoted to video:
Television as a Creative Medium, at Howard Wise Gallery, New York. |
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| May |
Film and Television Committee of the
Australian Council of the Arts recommends establishment of a
film development corporation, a national film school and an experimental film fund. Under
lobbying pressure, prime minister John Gorton accepts the recommendations and all are
implemented within the next three years. |
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| May |
Canadian government bans all tobacco advertising on
television once current contracts are fulfilled. |
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| l |
In the USA, the Federal
Communications Commission issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to ban cigarette advertising
on radio and television. Cigarette advertisers agree to withdraw broadcast advertising in
return for a delay in imposing restrictions on the sale of cigarettes. |
à 1970 |
| May 29 |
Broadcasting Act comes into effect in the Netherlands,
setting up Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) as the controlling and co-ordinating body. |
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| June 7 |
BBC Overseas Service begins transmissions in the Nepali language. |
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| June 17 |
JVC announces plans to market cartridge video recorder
using half-inch tape running at 7.5 ips for a maximum playing time of 30 mins. Audio to be
on dual stereo tracks. JVC, Matsushita and Sony discuss standardisation of colour format under
auspices of Electronic Industries Association of Japan (EIAJ). |
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| June 27 |
Telesat Canada Act is passed to ‘establish a Canadian
corporation for telecommunication by satellite’. |
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| July 8 |
Kinney National Service conglomerate acquires Warner
Bros-Seven Arts, changing its name to Warner Communications. |
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| July 21 |
Live television coverage of the first moon landing,
including, at 02:56 GMT (in US prime-time), Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon's surface.
An estimated 40.13m US households (65 per cent) are watching and 1,000 people involved at
the three US networks in producing the coverage, based on signals from the two remote
television cameras on the lunar landing module. |
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| July 21 |
First public demonstration of EVR home video system at
the International Audio-Visual Exhibition (Internavex) at Olympia in London. |
à 1970
The quest for home video: EVR |
| August |
Television service starts in United Arab Emirates. |
Television service starts |
| August 15-18 |
Woodstock Music and Art Fair concert is held at Bethel, NY. Despite rain, an estimated
500,000 people turn up at Yasker’s Farm for the concert featuring many of the top rock music acts of the
day. The event, preserved on film in Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970), becomes one of the
defining moments of its age and for a generation. |
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| September 8 |
First experimental transmissions by the Independent Television Authority of colour
programmes from the new Crystal Palace transmitter on UHF Channel 23. |
â November 15 |
| September 30 |
RCA demonstrates its HoloTape video playback system. This appears to be a rushed response
to EVR as the prototype machine has no audio facility. |
The quest for home video: HoloTape |
| September |
The first industrial strike at the BBC is called by the Association of Broadcasting
Staff when pay negotiations collapse. |
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| October 5, 23.00 |
BBC broadcasts the first edition of the
anarchic comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. |
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| October |
Television service starts in Trust Territory of the Pacific, using the NTSC
television standard. |
Television service starts |
| October |
Under the Post Office Act passed by the UK parliament the General Post Office (GPO) is
turned into a statutory corporation headed by a government-appointed chairman. Responsibility for
broadcasting is passed to the new Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. |
à 1974 |
| October 27 |
Vidicord teleplayer is demonstrated in London. Using Super 8 cine film, stored in a cassette,
it plays back in monochrome via the aerial socket of a conventional television receiver. The player costs £370. |
The quest for home video: Vidicord |
| October |
RCA announces SelectaVision HoloTape holographic video playback system. |
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| October |
EIAJ Type 1 video cartridge specifications are agreed and announced. |
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Electronic Industries Association of Japan sets CP-504
unified standards for non-broadcast open-reel videotape recorders. |
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| November 8 |
First German satellite, Azur, is launched. |
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| November 15 |
First BBC1 and ITV colour television transmissions (experimental
since September 8) from five UK transmitters. BBC2 has been in colour
since 1967. The first commercial shown in colour is for Bird's Eye peas, shown on ATV
Midlands at 10:05 am during Thunderbirds. |
â December 13 |
| November |
Matsushita introduces a magazine video recorder
with audio-type cassettes containing two reels of EIAJ standard reels of videotape. |
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| November |
Sony announces a new home videocassette machine called Color Videoplayer, using
three-quarter-inch tape running at 3.15 ips, giving 90 minutes' playback with two audio tracks. A
revamped version of this machine is re-introduced in 1972 as the U-matic system. |
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| November |
Technicolor Corporation of America announces plans for
new method of using videotape with 2,000 scan lines for feature film production. |
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| December 13 |
Three more UK transmitters begin colour television broadcasts. |
See á November 15 |
| l |
Kirk Kerkorian, a Las Vegas financier, acquires MGM for $80m but sells $60m worth of assets. |
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| l |
Associated Television opens the ATV Centre in Bridge Street, Birmingham for its Midlands operations. |
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| l |
Warner's pre-1948 film library is sold to United Artists. |
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| l |
EMI gains control of Associated British Pictures Corporation. |
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| l |
Bell & Howell introduces the Filmosound 8 double-system
using separate audio cassettes to record sound and camera sync pulses at one per frame. |
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| l |
'Cinema Action' group is formed in the UK. |
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| l |
Twentieth Century-Fox makes a loss of $36.8m for the year. |
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| l |
Durwood Theatres opens the first six-screen multiplex
cinema. The expanding company's name is changed to American Multi-Cinema (AMC). |
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| l |
Cinemas are nationalised in Upper Volta (=Burkina Faso),
leading to a boycott by French distributors who exercise a film supply monopoly in the region. |
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| l |
Inaugural Panafrican Film Festival at Ouagadougou, Upper Volta (=Burkina Faso). |
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| l |
Snooker tournament coverage introduced on BBC2 as a way of
boosting interest in colour television, while providing hours of low-cost programming. |
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| l |
Television service starts in Bolivia. |
Television service starts |
| l |
Ampex's Videofile system is adopted by Scotland Yard for
electronic storage and retrieval of fingerprints. |
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| l |
NHK begins regular FM radio broadcasting in Japan. |
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| l |
Pioneer becomes the first Japanese company quoted on the Amsterdam stock exchange. |
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| l |
US Department of Defense's Advanced Research
Projects Agency establishes a computer communications network, ARPAnet. |
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| l |
Australian Rupert Murdoch
buys UK newspaper The Sun, which is re-launched in tabloid format. |
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| l |
UK’s most popular newspaper Daily Mirror launches weekly colour magazine. |
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