The move for a reconsideration of the colour television issue was made by Senator E.G. Johnson, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Interstage and Foreign Commerce, when, on 20 May 1949, he sent a letter to Dr E.U. Condon, the director of the national Bureau of Standards. Johnson stressed that his objective and that of his committee was to encourage the development of colour television and press for a nationwide competitive television service in the public interest. The Interstage and Foreign Commerce Committee saw television as a great new industry, not only in providing new jobs and a new source of wealth but as the greatest medium of entertainment and diffusion of knowledge yet known to man. Accordingly, the Committee wished to learn whether the time had now approached when minimum standards could be fixed.

Inspec keywords: television standards; entertainment

Other keywords: knowledge diffusion; entertainment; FCC colour television hearings; Foreign Commerce Committee; television standards

Subjects: Television and video equipment, systems and applications