Chronomedia: 1920

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1920	Chronomedia index Numbers after entries link to the list of references.	links and notes
January 16	Charlie Chaplin's feature film The Kid is released in the US.
January 23	Manifesto of the Council of Three to the Cinematographers publishes a blueprint for Soviet cinema; its signatories include Dziga Vertov.
January	H J Round installs a 6kW radio transmitter at the Marconi Company's headquarters in Chelmsford, Essex and makes a transmission of amateur musicians.
January	Release of Shakuntala, the first Indian film with a foreign actress (Dorothy Kingdom) in the leading role.
February 23-March 6	Half-hour news and entertainment broadcasts are made twice daily from the Marconi Company transmitter, 2MT, at Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex.	First wireless concert
•	General Post Office licences issued in the UK for experimental radio transmissions limit transmitter power to 10W and do not allow music broadcasts except for test purposes. Even the Marconi Company is limited to only 30 minutes' transmission time a day. However, some restrictions are eased.
March	German film production companies Decla and Deutsche-Bioscop merge as Decla-Bioskop.
March	Motion Picture Research Council is formed in the USA. [0038]
April 29	First of a series of musical concerts is broadcast from experimental radio station PCGG in The Hague, Netherlands.
May 12	All films intended for screening in Germany must be licensed under the Reichslichtspielgesetz.
May	Stoll Picture Productions, founded by theatre impressario Sir Oswald Stoll is listed as a public company with capital of £400,000. The directors are Sir Oswald Stoll, Jeffrey BErnerd, T C Elder, W S G Mitchie and J D Williams. The company buys a former aircraft factory in Cricklewood, north London and converts it into the largest film studio in Britain to diversify from exhibition into production, following the loss of a lucrative contract to distribute Goldwyn films in the UK. A New York sales office is also opened by Stoll during the year.[0019, 0080d]	The company remains at Cricklewood until 1938
May	Prototype of Kodak Model A 16mm camera is unveiled by J G Capstaff at Rochester, NY.
May	Imperial Wireless Committee (chairman: Sir Henry Norman) recommends establishment of a wireless network to link the various parts of the British Empire.
June 15	Dame Nellie Melba sings over the wireless from the Marconi company transmitter (2MT) at Writtle at the instigation of The Daily Mail [right]. She is heard all over Europe, in Iran and at St John’s, Newfoundland. Part of the transmission is recorded on disc at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. [Picture source: Marconi]	First wireless concert
August 27	First radio broadcast in Argentina, arranged by Enrique Susini of the self-styled Radio Argentina Society, is of Wagner's Parsifal from the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires, of which Susini is manager. Further operas are transmitted over the next 19 days. Among singers heard is Beniamino Gigli.
September 6	Radio station 8MK (later WBL, then WWJ) in Detroit, Michigan broadcasts commentary on a boxing prize fight at Benton Harbor, Michigan. Jack Dempsey knocks out Billy Miske in the third round.
September 14	Paul Specht & His Orchestra is [probably] the first dance band to broadcast on US radio, on station WWJ in Detroit.
September 29	Ready-made wireless receivers are offered for as little as $10 at Joseph Home Company department store in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
September	A departmental committee is set up by the UK Ministry of Health 'to investigate and report on the causes of blindness, including defective vision, sufficient to impair economic efficiency, and to suggest measures which might be taken for the prevention of blindness' in film studios. At issue in a complaint from the Actors' Association is the use of open and unscreened arc lights.	> 1921
October 17	Broadcasting licence is granted to radio station KDKA set up by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, at a Westinghouse factory in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
October	France raises the tariff on American film imports to 20 per cent in response to US proposals (the Forducy Tariff Bill) to raise US tariffs on imports.
November 1	First issue of American Cinematographer magazine.
November 2 18:00	Regular scheduled broadcast programmes started by KDKA. The first programme includes music on records in between election coverage (including the election of Senator Warren G Harding as president), using a telephone link to the Pittsburg Post to receive results. The broadcast continues until 12:00 next day. The programme also includes the first audience research with the periodic message: 'Will anyone hearing this broadcast communicate with us as we are anxious to know how far the broadcast is reaching and how it is being received.'	Election results broadcast clip
November 23	UK government bans all radio broadcasting because of complaints about interference with military wireless communications.	> 1922
November 25	Live commentary on an American football game is broadcast by radio station WTAW in College Station, Texas.
December 22	First broadcast of a ringside commentary on a boxing match at Madison Square Garden is carried by radio station WEAF in New York.
end	Germany's ban on film imports is lifted.
•	First Danish animated film is De tre små mænd (The three small men) by Robert Storm-Petersen (Storm P) and Carl Wieghorst.
•	First film produced in Burma: The Funeral of U Tun Shein, directed by U Ohn Maung.
•	First Belgian feature film is Belgique meurtrie, directed by Paul Flon.
•	British production company Minerva Films is formed by writer-director Adrian Brunel, the actors Leslie Howard and C Aubrey Smith, and writer A A Milne.
•	Neptune Films, based at Elstree, goes into liquidation.
•	Alliance Company is formed and acquires British Actors Film Company and its studio at Bushey; it buys Twickenham Film Studios for £35,000, where a further £23,000 is spent on upgrading the lighting installations. [0019]
•	First UK 'super-cinema' opens in Dalston, east London.
•	Windsor Studio at Catford, south London is bought by Walter West to supplement facilities at his Broadwest Studios in Walthamstow. The Catford studio goes into liquidation the following year. [0019]
•	US exports 175,233,000 ft of exposed film. Hence forward, at least 35 per cent of ‘Hollywood’ earnings are from foreign sales.
•	France has 2,400 cinemas. [0041]
•	US cinema exhibitor Marcus Loew acquires the Metro Pictures Corporation business and studio.	> 1924
•	Paramount and Fox Film open distribution branches in France.
•	Fox Film Company owns 25 cinemas, all in New York.
•	US film exports: 188.5m feet, of which 25 per cent go to the UK.
•	In India, film censorship boards are set up in Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta, Madras (Chennai) and Rangoon.
•	Victor Talking Machine Co acquires controlling interest in Gramophone Company of UK, which in 1931 provided direct links between RCA and EMI.
•	First suggested use of powdered magnetic materials on tape made by German A Nasavischwily.
•	Echophone company introduces Dailygraph German wire recorder.
•	The Cinematograph Exhibitors Association decides that its members’ cinemas shall show only films carrying a British Board of Film Censors certificate.	History of film censorship and classification in the UK.
•	Provincial Cinematograph Theatres is the leading UK exhibitor, controlling 68 cinemas. Its nearest rival is Biocolor Picture Theatres with 25 halls.
•	A 100W transmitter is set up at rue Beaument, Luxembourg by Les Amis de TSF (Télégraphie Sans Fils). This amateur group broadcasts over 1,000 square miles for the next six years. [0054]

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