Scrapbook 3: More than 200m viewers saw Telstar triumph
MORE than 200,000,000 viewers in America and Europe saw Telstar triumph last night. Two shows relayed via the satellite 3,000 miles up gave a brilliant send-off to a new era in “live” television.
In 20 breathtaking minutes each the new world and the old exchanged whirlwind sightseeing tours.
Reception in Europe was almost perfect, and America reported generally good pictures as the cameras switched to Paris, Vienna, London and other cities.
Europe’s programme opened with U.S. commentator Howard K. Smith telling Richard Dimbleby in Brussels: “Go, Europe, go.” But at the end the programme neared disaster.
A minute before the final scenes from Britain the Brussels headquarters for the nine-country hook-up lost contact with England.
Richard Dimbleby hurriedly filled in with conversation. After ten seconds even he began to look concerned.
Lost
But a few seconds later he said “I can now see Cowes, Isle of Wight . . .” And on the screen flashed a “live” picture of the new Hovercraft there.
The cameras switched to London for a glimpse of the Tower and its ancient ceremony of the keys, and faded out on Big Ben and Westminster Bridge.
But in America the final London scenes were lost when the picture dissolved in a dazzle of broken lines.
The tour of Europe—on Telstar orbit 124—began in London with shots of floodlit Big Ben and policemen talking to American tourists in front of the House of Commons.
Fifty-four cameras moved swiftly from shots of the Eiffel Tower in Paris; the Colosseum and a performance of the opera Tosca in Rome; and to Sweden, Sicily, Yugoslavia and back to Paris and London.
The American programme, relayed on orbit 123, brought into European homes President Kennedy giving his Press conference, spaceman John Glenn, Americans on holiday, a baseball game and a Red Indian.
At Cape Canaveral, where Telstar was launched two weeks ago, Colonel Glenn talked about space travel and introduced America’s next spaceman.
A shot of a highway in Detroit . . . then to the streets of Quebec in Canada.
Meditations
From Chicago came a baseball match. At Cape Canaveral, where Telstar was launched two weeks ago, Colonel Glenn talked about space travel and introduced America’s next spaceman.
A shot of a highway in Detroit . . . then to the streets of Quebec in Canada and a greeting in French and English.
On to Custer National Park in faraway South Dakota, where Americans sat in the sun beneath huge rock carvings of past Presidents.
Then came Seattle’s waterfront and the World’s Fair. . . . Two hundred miles up the St. Lawrence river to Stratford, Ontario, for an excerpt from Macbeth at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre.
The grand tour ended in the United Nations building in New York. In the meditation room it stopped for ten seconds of silence. Then, to background shots of San Francisco’s Golden Gate, Niagara Falls and the Statue of Liberty the picture faded.
The European pictures were distributed by the G.P.O.’s Goonhilly station in Cornwall.
IT was the first count down I have really enjoyed. “Five, four, three, two, one” — and there was Walter Cronkite of C.B.S. introducing Chet Huntly of N.B.C., who ushered in the first programme of Mondeovision (I understand this is the name to be coined for it): Scenes from a baseball game in Chicago.
“All the way from the Wrigley Field to the Colosseum in Rome,” shouted the unseen and unknown commentator.
That the programme should switch at once from the cheerful friendliness of people to the bleak anxiety of international politics as depicted by President Kennedy’s Press conference was as sombrely apt a comment on Telstar as though the script had been written by Tolstoy.
Telstar can never repeat this unique occasion. TV is the greatest consumer of wonder. But on the whole the material was adequate for the occasion and comparisons between the European and American contributions would be fatuous.
Between the two they showed some marvellous possibilities. From Stratford, Ontario, came a rehearsal of Macbeth and a solicitous phrase from Huntly: “By your leave, there will be no translation.”
From the Caracalla Baths in Rome came a tenor singing Tosca.
The Americans were more concerned to emphasise the significance of the occasion. And if Kennedy’s Press conference was too formal (he gave no recognition of the event) and if Colonel Glenn’s talk from Canaveral contained too strong a whiff of propaganda, the idea of ending the American programme with ten seconds of silence struck the note that should have been sounded somewhere inside the 20 minutes.
The European broadcast gave itself the brief of showing “the diversity and vigour of life in our continent” and brought us a superbly efficient flicking of pictures between nine countries in a little over 15 minutes.
Richard Dimbleby, compering the whole thing, maintained a blend of sense of occasion, unflappability and mateyness for which no expression of admiration that I can think of seems quite enough.
I think that the Americans got a better picture of Europe than Europe got of America. But, from wherever you were looking, it was a heartening night for the human race.