What was the first-ever TV show to have multiple episodes?
It’s been almost a century since television was first pioneered, and it would be an understatement to say the current ‘Golden Age’ of prestige TV series dominating the airwaves would blow the minds of those who were around during those formative years.
New technology has always evolved at a rapid rate, but it still took television a while to gain a significant foothold, with the means of broadcasting images into the homes of audiences everywhere stymied by both the inordinate expense of buying one and the onset of World War II significantly stunting its growth.
The 1920s was more of a testing ground than a haven for engaging programming, with various companies broadcasting little more than static images as they sought to gain an early foothold in a market that was destined to change the face of at-home entertainment forever.
The first TV sold commercially arrived in 1929, but even then, not everyone who wanted one had the financial means to purchase a set. Television broadcasting didn’t truly take off until the 1930s, but when it did, things would never be the same again.
What was the first drama shown on TV?
During those early years of onscreen experimentation when TV was created without being honed or refined, there wasn’t exactly a burgeoning market for drama, which opened the doors to a number of firsts being made by those who grasped the technology the quickest.
As a result, the first full-length programme broadcast in the United States was a one-act drama called The Queen’s Messenger, which was filmed and broadcast live from a New York radio station on September 11th, 1928. It ran for 40 minutes, but it was enough of a game-changer that the popularity of the soap opera can be traced right back to the so-called ‘radio play’, which brought undemanding drama to a captive audience.
In the United Kingdom, the first full-length programme wouldn’t screen until July 14th, 1930, when The Man With the Flower in his Mouth – also a one-act play – became the first drama broadcast on British airwaves.
What was the first recurring TV show to be broadcast?
The winter of 1936 turned out to be a monumental month for television, with a number of British programmes designed to encompass multiple episodes airing for the first time to help usher in a brand new age of recurring TV shows.
On November 3rd, the revue Starlight aired for the first time, just 24 hours after the launch of the BBC Television Service, and it remained on the airwaves until 1949, continuing to unveil new episodes on a regular basis until the outbreak of the Second World War.
When the conflict ended, Starlight was one of the few pre-war shows to make a return, and it would become a staple of the schedule until 1949. The same year brought the arrivals of travelogue progenitor Sea Stories, Theatre Parade presenting excerpts from the most popular plays, weekly two-hour magazine Picture Page, and light entertainment showcase Cabaret Cartoons.
Television was hardly an overnight sensation, with the advent of regular programming not beginning until more than a decade after the technology was invented, but once the means caught up to the imaginations and became more affordable, it completely reinvented the home lives of millions.
