Original subtitles

‐ [Narrator] They are in 90% of American households

with a quarter billion shipped globally each year

and nearly a decade of our lives

spent glued to their screens.

‐ Television has become life

and life has become television.

‐ [Narrator] But one century ago,

the idea of sending images through the air electronically

is science fiction.

‐ The future is electric television.

‐ [Narrator] Until a poor farm boy with a genius idea

grows up to take on a ruthless radio mogul

in a race to bring this revolutionary machine

to the world.

‐ Seeing Farnsworth go up against RCA

is this classic underdog story.

‐ [Narrator] It's an epic battle of outsized egos,

dirty tricks and bad blood.

‐ I want you to blow Mr. Farnsworth's plans

to smithereens!

‐ You may be able to push everyone else around

but not me.

‐ [Narrator] But with billions at stake,

only one man will make history.

(dramatic music)

This is "Titans of Television".

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] It's 1921.

While the decade that will become known

as the Roaring Twenties is just beginning,

mass popular entertainment is in its infancy.

‐ Entertainment that everyone is sharing

and experiencing at the same time,

news events that everyone is experiencing at the same time,

that's a really novel thing.

‐ [Narrator] Cinema is still silent

and one brand new medium, radio is a luxury.

At a time when Americans earned about 16 cents an hour,

radios costs $200,

too expensive to be common in homes.

Most still think of radio only as a way to send messages,

a wireless telegraph.

‐ The notion that we would send

entertainment over the air,

that we would gather around a radio in the night

and listen to a concert from hundreds of miles away,

that really hadn't occurred to a lot of people.

(dramatic music)

‐ If we can't own the device, we're not interested.

RCA does not pay royalties.

We collect them.

‐ [Narrator] But one low‐level executive at RCA,

the Radio Corporation of America

sees this technology as his way to the top.

‐ Thank you.

‐ [Narrator] 30 year old David Sarnoff

has been obsessed with making his mark

since he stepped off the boat from Russia.

‐ When Sarnoff first got here,

he didn't know any English,

but he wound up selling newspapers on the street

without knowing any English.

I mean the guy was a hustler.

‐ [Narrator] That hustle got him a job at the company

of radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.

When one day Sarnoff just a teenage office boy,

encountered his famous boss on the street.

‐ And Sarnoff introduces himself.

You know, "I'm David Sarnoff.

May I be of assistance?"

‐ He became his valet, his personal assistant.

He wanted to become a great man like Marconi

and grow up to be someone who changed the world.

‐ [Narrator] One day, Sarnoff will be known

as the father of television

and the man who launched NBC,

(dramatic music)

the longest running TV network of all time

now worth some $30 billion.

Back in July, 1921,

the world still has no idea who Sarnoff is.

That's about to change.

(dramatic music)

He's trying something that's never been done,

broadcasting a huge sporting event

live.

It's the fight of the century.

American Jack Dempsey versus George Carpentier of France.

And to pull it off,

Sarnoff's putting thousands of RCA's dollars

and his own job on the line.

‐ They just thought it's this weird little thing

that Sarnoff wants to do.

They didn't really see the potential.

‐ [Radio Announcer] July 2nd, 1921,

the largest crowd ever assembled in America

for any sporting event.

‐ [Narrator] To make sure a big audience can tune in,

Sarnoff's set up dozens of listening stations

everywhere from theaters to town squares.

‐ Can they hear you?

‐ [Narrator] But he's using World War I era

military equipment

not built to transmit for long periods.

(bell dinging)

‐ There's that good right hand by Carpentier.

Dempsey still advancing on George Carpentier.

Ripping bright hands by Carpentier.

‐ How many people are in the theater?

Can everybody hear?

(crowd cheering)

I said, "Can everybody hear?"

‐ Round number four and it's anybody's fight.

‐ [Narrator] By the fourth round,

Sarnoff's in trouble,

his transmitter is fading.

He needs the fight to end before it fails altogether

and cuts off thousands of listeners from

hearing the outcome.

‐ Dempsey's still belting away at the stomach.

‐ Come on. ‐ And Dempsey goes after him.

‐ Come on.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Announcer] And down goes Carpentier.

Nine, 10 and out!

‐ Yes!

‐ [Narrator] Moments later,

the overburdened transmitter blows,

but the world's first live sports cast is a sensation

with 300,000 listeners.

‐ David Sarnoff was such a promoter.

He was a real operator,

a genius in business.

In a way he reminds me a little bit of Elon Musk

who often is over promising

or doing something dramatic for publicity,

but at the same time, building incredible technology.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Within three years,

RCA sells $80 million in home radio sets.

‐ [David] Sophie will you come in, please?

‐ [Narrator] Sarnoff is elevated to vice president,

and now he's pushing the top brass at RCA

to invest in his next dream.

‐ I believe that television,

which is the technical name

for seeing instead of hearing by radio

will come to pass in due course.

‐ [Narrator] The only question is how does he do it?

Someone unexpected

may have already beaten him to the answer.

(dramatic music)

A 14 year old Idaho farm boy.

His name is Philo T. Farnsworth.

‐ First of all, where but in America

do you get a name like that?

And Farnsworth is just such a great American story.

‐ His family as far as we know, didn't even have a radio.

He'd only recently moved to a house that had electricity,

but he told members of his family

that he wanted to be an inventor like Thomas Edison.

‐ [Narrator] In 1921, Farnsworth has his head

buried in the latest science magazines,

obsessively reading everything he can

about what will one day be called television.

At the time, the only device that exists

is a crude one known as mechanical television,

giant spinning disks with holes

each with a camera lens.

‐ The speeding disc would capture pieces of an image

over and over

and kind of piece them together like a flip book.

‐ At this point,

they were never able to get any kind of resolution

more than a thumbnail or a postage stamp,

blurry image and you couldn't tell what it was.

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth believes the key is a new device

called the vacuum tube.

It's already been used in radio to transmit sound.

He thinks it can do the same with images.

But he has no idea how.

(ominous music)

While staring at the family's potato field,

Farnsworth suddenly imagines a new way to make television.

‐ You plow a field by doing one row,

then doing another and then another.

‐ That's it, that was his bolt from the blue.

‐ [Narrator] He envisions a system

that would break an image into horizontal lines

and reassemble those lines into a picture on the other end.

‐ Farnsworth realized that the secret of television

was that it was delivered in little bits

and those bits had to be organized.

And his idea was to organize them in lines

that would be constantly scanned over and over again.

‐ [Narrator] It will be the foundation

of nearly all the world's television systems

for the next 60 years.

Farnsworth calls his idea electric television,

but in 1921, the concept seems bizarre.

‐ He first told his father, who said,

"You should keep it secret."

He thought people would think his son was strange.

‐ [Narrator] After months of silence,

Farnsworth finally tells

the only person he thinks might understand,

his high school science teacher, Justin Tolman.

‐ So you know about television? The spinning discs, right?

Forget that.

The future is electric television.

‐ I'm lost.

‐ Okay.

Here, this is simpler.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] By 1927, American industry is booming

accounting for nearly half

of the entire planet's economic output.

And the hottest sector of all is tech.

‐ We have aviation, we have cars, we have radio.

‐ The stock market takes off during the 1920s,

which means there's more money to be invested on innovation

and new technologies are everywhere.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] One technology that's benefiting,

electronic television.

Philo Farnsworth has secured a $25,000 investment

for his idea.

No longer an Idaho farm boy,

Farnsworth has traveled west along with his new wife Pem

to chase his dream.

The technology he's trying to develop

is a new kind of vacuum tube.

He calls it his image dissector.

‐ The image dissector

is really the world's first electronic television camera.

‐ [Narrator] But after months of effort,

Farnsworth can't get it to work.

‐ We've got to wait for it to heat up.

(light bulb shattering) (sad music)

Let's start again.

‐ The image dissector tube was structurally unsound

and there was a danger that it was going to implode

at any moment.

‐ The tube had to be created in the right shape.

It had to be big enough.

He had fires in his laboratory.

He was just working out all these problems.

‐ [Narrator] After months of failures

and a crash course in the art of glassblowing,

Farnsworth finally lands on a much larger design

that doesn't blow up.

But now, Farnsworth has to prove his new tube

can capture clear moving images.

‐ [Farnsworth] I'm turning on the receiver tube.

‐ [Narrator] Transmitting a simple vertical line

painted on a glass slide.

‐ Here we go.

(ominous music)

Cliff, insert the slide.

‐ [Female] It's not very clear.

‐ Just going to adjust the focusing coil.

(mysterious music)

Turn the slide a quarter turn, Cliff.

Well, that's it folks.

There you have the electronic television.

‐ Looking back on it for us, it doesn't seem like a lot,

but that's the first time anybody

has ever sent a moving picture over the airwaves.

‐ Today we'd be like,

"How can you get so excited about that line?"

But for him,

after all the blood, sweat and tears, it finally works

and he literally can see the light.

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth applies for a patent.

And in 1928, his breakthrough makes front page news.

(ominous music)

In New York after two years of effort,

David Sarnoff's engineers are still experimenting

with primitive mechanical television

and have little to show for it.

‐ Sarnoff sees this little Philo Farnsworth

from Midwestern United States

as having done what their teams of inventors couldn't do.

What is going on?

‐ [Narrator] To head off his new rival.

Sarnoff pens an op ed about television

in The New York Times.

‐ He says, "RCA is gonna be the company

that perfects the system

so don't buy into anybody else's system."

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] But on October 29th, 1929,

the stock market crash puts the emerging TV wars on ice.

‐ Innovation depends on a certain degree of confidence

in future markets.

And so one of the things the depression did

was basically put this real crimp on innovation.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth's tiny operation

is suddenly on the brink of ruin.

His most valuable asset, his TV design,

still awaits approval at the US Patent Office.

‐ He was running out of money.

He couldn't raise more money.

‐ And although he was still a young man,

it began to take a toll.

‐ [Narrator] In New York, RCA takes a major hit as well.

Sarnoff lays off several hundred RCA employees

and has his $80,000 salary slashed almost in half.

Even so, Americans still hold on to their radios.

‐ When times got really bad during the great depression,

people were more willing

to have all of their furniture repossessed

than to give up their radio.

‐ [Narrator] Despite the financial challenges

caused by the depression,

Sarnoff doubles down

and buys up radio stations nationwide on the cheap,

building the very first broadcast network,

NBC.

He then uses them to innovate something new and profitable.

‐ [Spokesperson] Have a bottle of ice cold Coke

and shop refreshed.

‐ [Narrator] Commercials.

‐ Can you imagine how messaging can be crafted and shaped

to create a nationwide buzz over a product or an idea?

That was impossible

before the creation of the radio network.

‐ [Sarnoff] Not tomorrow, I want it done now.

‐ [Narrator] In 1930,

Sarnoff is promoted to president of RCA.

Flush with money from NBC's ads,

he now has the funds and the power

to try to overtake Farnsworth in the race for TV.

And Sarnoff is willing to play dirty to win.

‐ He found out about a scientist

who was also on the trail of electronic television

and he started hatching a plan.

‐ Vladimir Zworykin is smart, he's clever.

Probably not as clever as Farnsworth but he's imaginative.

‐ [Narrator] Zworykin has been working for years

at Westinghouse, an RCA competitor,

but his bosses don't see much value in his ideas.

(ominous music)

‐ It is a receiving tube

that I have been working on for some years.

The screen will show a picture of five inches

clear enough for more than one person to see.

‐ Farnsworth had a working camera.

Zworykin had a working receiver.

So in a sense, they had two pieces of the puzzle.

‐ [Sarnoff] How much do you think it'll cost

to develop this device?

‐ [Zworykin] $100,000.

‐ Welcome to RCA.

‐ [Narrator] David Sarnoff steals Vladimir Zworykin

from a competitor,

but his first assignment for him won't be as an engineer.

(knocking on door)

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

(knocking on door)

‐ So glad you could make it.

‐ [Zworykin] Yeah.

‐ Please.

The image dissector has a very specific design.

Have a look at the flat end.

‐ [Narrator] In April, 1930,

a struggling Philo T. Farnsworth

welcomes engineer Vladimir Zworykin to his lab.

Farnsworth knows of Zworykin's experiments in television

but not his with RCA mogul, David Sarnoff.

(ominous music)

‐ Should we be showing him all this?

‐ Zworykin's a scientist, he's no thief.

Plus, the patent'll protect us.

‐ Zworykin spends three days in Farmsworth's lab

and he asks a lot of questions, a lot of detailed questions.

‐ This is a beautiful instrument.

I wish I'd designed it myself.

‐ Just that little bit of know‐how,

just knowing how it should be done

can be an incredible advantage

for those that have that knowledge.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Despite that, Sarnoff reevaluates

when Farnsworth's patent is approved.

Convinced his work is an imminent threat to RCA.

Sarnoff tries to buy it outright.

‐ We are to own all Mr. Farnsworth's patents

as well as his lab space.

‐ [Narrator] Sarnoff knows Farnsworth's lab

desperately needs an infusion of cash.

‐ And the equipment.

‐ Sarnoff would make $100,000 offer

for Farnsworth's lab and for the services

of Farnsworth himself.

‐ Tell Mr. Sarnoff he may be able

to push everyone else around but not me.

‐ Maybe we should not.

‐ The answer is no.

‐ Especially in the backdrop of the depression,

that was a gutsy move.

‐ Most passionate inventors will do that.

They believe so much in what they have

that they don't want to let go of the baby.

‐ [Narrator] But Sarnoff won't let a simple no stop him.

(dramatic music)

‐ Back at the RCA laboratories in Camden, New Jersey,

Zworykin formed a team

known as the Get Around Farnsworth Department.

The idea was to reverse engineer Farnsworth's system

that Zworykin had seen,

but to try to do it in a way

that didn't violate Farnsworth's patent's.

‐ [Narrator] Meanwhile, Zworykin's undercover job at RCA

is discovered by his rivals.

‐ They were alarmed.

David Sarnoff already had a reputation

of taking other people's ideas.

‐ You can't be naive

and you've got to have the proper checks and balances,

the proper insulation,

or someone's gonna steal it.

Unfortunately, that's life.

(ominous music)

‐ [Narrator] Then, a cash strapped Farnsworth

gets an unexpected lifeline

RCA's rival, radio maker Philco

have finally realized

the goldmine potential of television.

But they're starting from square one

so they bring in Farnsworth

to catapult them instantly ahead

and they let him retain control of his patent.

‐ It seemed providential.

It seemed like a good fit.

They gave him some of the corporate structure

and the financial backing.

(mysterious music)

‐ The interesting thing is that the Philco building

was on one side of the Delaware River in Philadelphia.

On the other side was Camden, New Jersey,

home of RCA Laboratories.

(dramatic music)

‐ If Mr. Sarnoff is still in the building, go get him.

‐ Zworykin and RCA

pick up Farnsworth's experimental transmissions

now growing more advanced

and coming from just a few hundred yards away.

‐ What am I looking at here?

‐ It has to be Farnsworth.

‐ [Narrator] What he sees doesn't make Sarnoff happy.

Farnsworth is ahead of him again

and his patent is so broadly worded,

simply titled television system,

that it seems untouchable.

‐ A television system?

That's like me patenting the desk!

I want you to blow Mr. Farnsworth's patent's

to smithereens!

‐ Sarnoff wages a holy war on Farnsworth.

‐ [Narrator] In 1932,

he takes legal action to invalidate Farnsworth's patent

claiming an earlier application filed by Vladimir Zworykin

takes precedent.

Then, Sarnoff delivers another blow.

Get me Jim Skinner from Philco on the phone.

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth's backer, Philco,

licenses RCA technology to build its radios.

‐ Sarnoff called the higher muckety mucks at Philco

and said,

"If you don't stop your television effort,

you're not gonna be able to get your license

to produce radios from us.

We'll cut you off."

(phone ringing) (ominous music)

Sarnoff got Philo fired from the project.

‐ You could co‐op your enemies,

you could destroy your enemies.

Sarnoff followed that perfectly.

‐ Sarnoff was playing with brass knuckles.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] By spring 1934,

David Sarnoff and RCA

have been waging a legal battle for nearly two years

to invalidate the television patent of Philo T. Farnsworth.

‐ RCA still hasn't quite figured out

a way to make television

that isn't somewhat similar to Farnsworth's patent.

‐ Seeing Farnsworth go up against RCA

is sort of this classic underdog story.

‐ [Narrator] But Farnsworth,

still without corporate backing after being axed by Philco,

is starting to crumble.

‐ Farnsworth was under a lot of pressure.

Farnsworth at that point is drinking a lot.

He was thinking about this around the clock.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] That April,

the two sides present their arguments

to a panel from the US Patent Office.

‐ Mr. Zworykin, during your visit to Mr. Farnsworth lab,

did you say, "This is a beautiful instrument.

I wish I had invented it myself."?

‐ I was just trying to be polite.

‐ [Narrator] RCA focuses

on who's idea for electronic television came first.

‐ I would like to say that I devised my television system

long ago in 1923.

I filed for a patent.

‐ Well, Mr. Farnsworth had his idea well before that.

‐ You have no proof of that, do you?

‐ [Narrator] Farnsworth's team is convinced he's losing,

but they might have one last ace in the hole.

‐ [Male] Excuse me, I'm looking for a teacher

named Justin Tolman.

‐ That's me, but I'm retired.

‐ Remember a student name Philo Farnsworth?

‐ He actually goes and finds his high school teacher

with hopes that there's some evidence

that his teacher might retain somehow

that would save his invention

and maintain his intellectual property.

‐ He goes to his attic and he digs through dusty notebooks

and he flips through the pages

and there it is, Farnsworth's drawing of an image dissector.

‐ "In summation,

I state without reservation

that Mr. Farnsworth diagrammed for me

a system of electronic television in 1922",

so sworn by Justin Tillman of Salt Lake City, Utah.

(mysterious music)

‐ [Narrator] Eventually, the board issues its decision,

Farnsworth's patent is upheld.

Anyone who markets a television system

that uses his technology

will have to both credit him and pay him fees.

‐ I can only imagine just the feeling of satisfaction

that Farnsworth must have had at that moment.

‐ [Narrator] It's a huge victory.

(dramatic music)

The win over RCA attracts new investors

and Farnsworth begins plans to launch his own company

at an old phonograph factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

But the good feelings are short‐lived.

‐ Well, it seems like David has beaten Goliath here, right?

But these court fights

have been not just financially draining on Farnsworth,

but emotionally draining too.

‐ [Narrator] Despite winning the case,

Farnsworth faces today's equivalent

of a half million dollars in unpaid legal bills.

He needs cash quick,

but thanks to financial regulations

following the stock market crash,

his attempt to start a publicly traded company

is delayed by the government.

(dramatic music)

‐ It's late.

‐ [Farnsworth] I just want to work a little more.

‐ He started to drink heavily,

not just at night but during the day.

And he got a prescription for chloral hydrate as a sedative,

that also became a problem.

‐ And mentally, he's getting very depressed

so he's beginning to crack.

‐ It's come to the point of choosing

whether I want to be a drunk or

go crazy.

(ominous music)

‐ [Narrator] And Philo Farnsworth has no idea

that David Sarnoff

is about to make his most audacious move of all.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Announcer] From far and near, come countless visitors.

They arrive to view the marvels

of the greatest exposition in history.

‐ [Narrator] On April 30th, 1939,

the World's Fair begins on a sprawling 1,200 acre site

in Flushing, Queens.

With another world war brewing in Europe,

America is out to display its inventive might.

‐ We've come out of the depression.

It's chance for every country and large corporations

to show off the best of what they have to everybody else.

‐ [Narrator] The theme of the six month exposition

is the world of tomorrow.

Among the futuristic inventions unveiled,

nylon fabric,

a toy called the View‐Master,

and thanks to David Sarnoff,

RCA's new state‐of‐the‐art television.

RCA builds a 9,000 square foot pavilion

to show off its new TRK‐12 television sets,

including a specially made model

displayed like a work of art.

‐ Beautiful big television set.

Instead of being made of wood, it's made of lucite,

the new miracle see‐through plastic.

‐ [Narrator] Cameras are there

to show visitors on screen live.

‐ It's really hard to recapture what it was like

the first time people saw themselves on camera.

It was a remarkable thing.

You know, "Wave."

"Oh, that's me, I'm doing that right now."

It had never happened before.

And people who saw it,

they were blown away by the whole idea.

‐ [Narrator] Sarnoff himself dedicates the exhibit

with a speech beamed

to several hundred RCA prototype television receivers

scattered across New York.

‐ We have arranged this demonstration

in the spirit of greatest possible cooperation

with our licensees.

‐ [Narrator] What no one knows

is that David Sarnoff's television system,

particularly the camera,

is still using aspects of Philo Farnsworth's technology.

a fact Sarnoff is brazenly ignoring.

‐ Sarnoff just made this decision,

screw it, I'm gonna do it

and I'm gonna kind of seize the narrative.

He who stands on the mountain top

and beats their chest and screams the loudest

very often wins.

‐ The birth of television happened

really as a fake news event.

Sarnoff knew he was on the hook and had a lot of liability,

but he went ahead anyway.

(ominous music)

‐ [Sarnoff] We have prepared a special motion picture film

for this demonstration.

‐ I will now transmit it to you.

‐ [Narrator] By pure coincidence,

Farnsworth is in New York for a meeting with his investors.

‐ So that you might judge for yourself

the extent of the technological progress

we have made in television.

‐ Sarnoff is broadcasting the birth of television

and essentially was taking credit for the invention.

‐ The long years of patient experimenting

and ingenious invention by the scientists of RCA

have been crowned with success.

Radio enabled man to send a whisper around the Earth

and now we add radio sight to sound.

I thank you.

‐ And that was the official birth of television

happening without Farnsworth.

‐ Inventors and entrepreneurs too share something

and that's a kind of obsession with achieving their vision.

Sometimes it can border on the fanatic.

Farnsworth sees his destiny

wrapped up in the future of television,

but it's left him very much a broken man.

‐ At one point,

his sister said that he suffered a nervous collapse,

a nervous breakdown.

Later, the guy who built his whole career

on controlling electricity

now found himself strapped to a table

at this facility in Massachusetts

and electrodes strapped to his head.

A terrible, dark chapter.

‐ [Narrator] Philo Farnsworth has been dealt a major blow

by Sarnoff's gambit at the World's Fair.

But he still carries one last hope, his patent.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrtor] It's late summer of 1939,

David Sarnoff has just claimed RCA invented television

at the New York World's Fair

even though he knowingly used

his rival's patented technology.

‐ He wanted the narrative to be RCA gets television first.

‐ [Narrator] Philo Farnsworth remains in ill health,

but his corporation finally gets official approval

and begins making noise about suing RCA.

Knowing the damages from a lawsuit could be severe,

Sarnoff makes a move no one expects.

‐ [Sarnoff] Okay, let's make this quick.

I have a luncheon.

‐ [Narrator] In 1940, Sarnoff finally agrees

to license Farnsworth's patent for a one million dollar fee

plus royalties on RCA television sets.

‐ Okay, I trust we're done?

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

(dramatic music)

‐ Sarnoff understood the power of a good story

and a good story is we invented television.

That's a good story.

A less good story is there was this other guy

and then we used some technology

and then he said that it was corporate espionage,

but we did it anyway.

That's a bad story.

‐ All of their bullying tactics,

all of their attempts to buy him out,

it had all come to nothing.

‐ [Narrator] But Farnsworth's victory is short‐lived.

When the US enters World War II,

work on television ceases

as both RCA and Farnsworth's company

switch to wartime production.

The delay means a new problem for Farnsworth.

‐ Sarnoff has time on his side

whereas Farnsworth has these patents

that have a time clock on them.

‐ Farnsworth's original patent is going to expire.

It expires in 1947.

(ominous music)

‐ [Narrator] When the war ends in 1945,

Farnsworth attempts to jumpstart his TV company,

but the clock's running out.

‐ Farnsworth starts making TVs, rolling them out.

They're very high end.

They're advertised in the best magazines,

but they don't sell that well

and the company is losing money.

‐ They are for the elite, the effete.

Boy, what a contrast

when you think about how David Sarnoff approached this.

‐ [Announcer] Joe Louis puts the finishing touches

on his training for the June 19th title bout

with Billy Conn.

‐ [Narrator] In 1946, Sarnoff makes a bold move.

He stages the first ever TV broadcast

of a heavyweight title bout on NBC

between Joe Louis and Billy Conn

and sells expensive RCA televisions to bars

so the public can watch it.

The broadcast draws 140,000 viewers in New York City alone

jump‐starting demand for TVs.

In the two years after Farnsworth's patent expires,

RCA sells a million TVs

capturing an overwhelming 80% of the market.

‐ Sarnoff was this person

that in the minds of many Americans

really had thought of a new world of communication

and through RCA had made that happen.

‐ [Narrator] At the beginning of the 1950s,

there are three million TV sets in the United States.

By the end of the decade, there are 55 million.

‐ It's the sign of success and it's the symbol of the age.

It becomes a way in which Americans

demonstrate to each other,

that frankly they're doing well enough to buy a television.

‐ It is a space where Americans experienced together

some of their greatest triumphs and tragedies.

Television becomes a huge driver

of social change and cultural transformation.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] Traditional television usage

will continue to increase steadily for 50 years

when it hits a peak of nine hours per day

for the average household in 2010.

By then, TV is as common in America as indoor plumbing.

The man who believes he invented television, however,

won't even let his children watch it.

‐ Of course, he was bitter.

He was really written out of history.

‐ [Narrator] The Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation

is sold in 1949 and ultimately goes out of business.

The inventor himself leaves the TV industry behind

by the early 1950s.

‐ He did have what I would say is a final redeeming moment.

(dramatic music)

‐ [Narrator] In July, 1969,

Farnsworth, now retired,

finds himself watching the greatest event

in television history to date.

A record 600 million people worldwide are tuned in

waiting for Apollo 11

to become the first manned spacecraft to land on the moon.

‐ [Neil] Here we can see coming down the ladder now.

‐ [Narrator] For Philo Farnsworth,

who knows the role he played

in making this experience possible,

it is a reward of sorts for the work that began

when he was just a kid in high school.

‐ [Neil] I'm ah, at the foot of the ladder.

the LEM foot pads are only...

‐ And after a long wait,

Neil Armstrong comes out of the module,

sets a foot on the moon,

Farnsworth gives a big sigh and he says,

"Pem, this has made it all worthwhile."

‐ [Neil] That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind."

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