The Tellevent (also spelled Televent ), established by James F. Land, was the first organized attempt to develop a subscription news and entertainment " telephone newspaper " service in the United States. Although a number of tests over telephone lines were made throughout Michigan from 1906 to 1908, and the company hoped to eventually expand nationally, it never advanced beyond the exploratory stage.
24-553: The Tellevent's name came from a contraction of the phrase: "It tells the event to mind's eye." Its main inspiration came from two existing telephone-based subscriber services: the Paris Théâtrophone , which began operation in 1890 and primarily offered live entertainment from local theaters, and the Telefon Hírmondó of Budapest, Hungary, which was established in 1893 and featured a broad range of news and entertainment. It
48-415: A children's hour, then two hours of dinner music, and closing at 11:00 p.m. with three hours of "Grand opera from distant points". Subscription costs were estimated to be around $ 2 a month, with service provided to private homes, businesses, hotels, and hospitals. Also planned was the option to connect to special services, such as ballgames and speeches. Despite the promoters' enthusiasm, it appears that
72-483: A female character in the novel Massarenes (1897) as "A modern woman of the world. As costly as an ironclad and as complicated as theatrophone." In 1890, the system became operational as a service under the name "théâtrophone" in Paris. The service was offered by Compagnie du Théâtrophone (The Théâtrophone Company), which was founded by MM. Marinovitch and Szarvady. The théâtrophone offered theatre and opera performances to
96-873: The International System of Electrical and Magnetic Units . George Berger was the Commissioner General. Aside from the provision of the building by the French government, the exhibition was privately financed. Organizers would donate profits to scientific works in the public interest. This congress was a decisive step in the building of the modern International System of Units (SI), since ohm , ampere , coulomb and farad were defined at this occasion. Main participants include Éleuthère Mascart , William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin ), Hermann von Helmholtz , Rudolf Clausius , Gustav Kirchhoff , Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann , Carl Wilhelm Siemens and his brother
120-744: The Palais de l'Industrie on the Champs-Élysées in Paris , France . It served to display the advances in electrical technology since the small electrical display at the 1878 Universal Exposition . Exhibitors came from the United Kingdom , United States , Germany , Italy and the Netherlands , as well as from France. As part of the exhibition, the first International Congress of Electricians presented numerous scientific and technical papers, including definitions of
144-408: The telephone of Alexander Graham Bell , an electrical distribution network by Marcel Deprez , and an electric boat by Gustave Trouvé . As part of the exhibition, the first International Congress of Electricians, which met in the halls of the Palais du Trocadero , presented numerous scientific and technical papers, including definitions of the standard practical units volt , ohm and ampere ,
168-480: The 1881 International Exposition of Electricity in Paris. The system was inaugurated by the French President Jules Grévy , and allowed broadcasting of concerts or plays. Ader had arranged 80 telephone transmitters across the front of a stage to create a form of binaural stereophonic sound . It was the first two-channel audio system, and consisted of a series of telephone transmitters connected from
192-465: The Chicago Musolaphone in 1913. However, none of these systems achieved financial success, and the idea of using telephone lines for news and entertainment systems would be eclipsed by the development of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s. Th%C3%A9%C3%A2trophone Théâtrophone ("the theatre phone") was a telephonic distribution system available in portions of Europe that allowed
216-635: The Tellevent service never went into wider use. Individual reports of test transmissions continued to appear through 1908, but the Michigan Tellevent Company was dissolved on August 2, 1909. Later efforts in the United States that had similar goals to the Tellevent included the Wilmington, Delaware, Tel-musici , beginning in 1909, a collection of Telephone Herald companies, from 1911 to 1913, and
240-498: The device as one of the many technological commodities available for the distraction of the upper classes. In his utopian science fiction novel Looking Backward (1888), Edward Bellamy predicted sermons and music being available in the home through a system like théâtrophone. International Exposition of Electricity The first International Exposition of Electricity ( French : Exposition internationale d'Électricité ) ran from 15 August 1881 through to 15 November 1881 at
264-646: The formation of the American Tellevent Company, incorporated in Michigan and capitalized at $ 300,000, with the initial officials of E. L. Ford, W. A. Jackson, George M. Black, Arnold A. Schantz, James H. Swart and James F. Land. In July 1907, Land resigned as the Michigan State Telephone Company's general manager, where he had worked for nearly 30 years, in order to spend full-time with the recently founded Michigan Tellevent Company, of which he
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#1732868815440288-427: The future, "there will be a televent at the stock exchange, banks, at the band concerts on Belle Isle, race track, club houses, hotels, library, political headquarters, court rooms, in short, wherever the public wishes to go". An extensive daily program was also envisioned, starting with "Daily News" at 7:00 a.m., followed by time blocks featuring additional news, stock, and weather reports, assorted special features,
312-477: The industrialist Werner von Siemens , who had to renounce to the siemens mercury as the resistance unit (not to be confused with siemens , current SI unit of conductance). Among the exhibits were: Electric lighting with incandescent lamps was one of key developments on display at the exposition, with up to 2500 lamps used to light the venue. The lamps of Thomas Edison , St. George Lane-Fox , Hiram Maxim , and Joseph Swan were compared in extensive tests by
336-593: The inventor, reported a "most satisfactory" test transmitting a church service and concert in Detroit to a party of Grand Rapids people, located 150 miles (240 kilometers) away. Additional tests followed, including both the 1906 and 1907 May Festivals held by Michigan State University in Ann Arbor. Another report stated that two days of Senatorial Caucus speeches 88 miles (141 kilometers) distant at Lansing had been successfully transmitted to multiple Detroit homes. March 1907 saw
360-575: The rising popularity of radio broadcasting and the phonograph , and the Compagnie du Théâtrophone ceased its operations in 1932. Similar systems elsewhere in Europe included Telefon Hírmondó (est. 1893) of Budapest and Electrophone of London (est. 1895). In the United States , the systems similar to théâtrophone were limited to one-off experiments. Erik Barnouw reported a concert by telephone that
384-652: The stage of the Paris Opera to a suite of rooms at the Paris Electrical Exhibition, where the visitors could hear Comédie-Française and opera performances in stereo using two headphones; the Opera was located more than two kilometers away from the venue. In a note dated 11 November 1881, Victor Hugo describes his first experience of théâtrophone as pleasant. In 1884, the King Luís I of Portugal decided to use
408-407: The standard practical units volt , ohm and ampere . Adolphe Cochery , Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of the time, had initially suggested that an international exposition should be held. This show was a great stir. The public could admire the dynamo of Zénobe Gramme , the incandescent light , the théâtrophone (with stereophonic sound ), the electric tramway of Werner von Siemens ,
432-439: The subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over the telephone lines. The théâtrophone evolved from a Clément Ader invention, which was first demonstrated in 1881, in Paris . Subsequently, in 1890, the invention was commercialized by Compagnie du Théâtrophone, which continued to operate until 1932. The origin of the théâtrophone can be traced to a telephonic transmission system demonstrated by Clément Ader at
456-426: The subscribers. The service can be called a prototype of the telephone newspaper , as it included five-minute news programs at regular intervals. The Théâtrophone Company set up coin-operated telephone receivers in hotels, cafés, clubs, and other locations, costing 50 centimes for five minutes of listening. The subscription tickets were also issued at a reduced rate, in order to attract regular patrons. The service
480-765: The system, when he could not attend an opera in person. The director of the Edison Gower Bell Company, who was responsible for this théâtrophone installation, was later awarded the Military Order of Christ . The théâtrophone technology was made available in Belgium in 1884, and in Lisbon in 1885. In Sweden, the first telephone transmission of an opera performance took place in Stockholm in May 1887. The British writer Ouida describes
504-421: Was also available to home subscribers. French writer Marcel Proust was a keen follower of théâtrophone, as evident by his correspondence. He subscribed to the service in 1911. Many technological improvements were gradually made to the original théâtrophone system. The Brown telephone relay, invented in 1913, yielded interesting results for amplification of the current. The théâtrophone finally succumbed to
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#1732868815440528-578: Was organized in the summer of 1890; around 800 people at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga listened to a telephonic transmission of The Charge of the Light Brigade conducted at Madison Square Garden . The Andrew Crumey novel Mr Mee (2000) has a chapter depicting the installation of a théâtrophone in the home of Marcel Proust . The Eça de Queiroz novel A Cidade e as Serras (1901) mentions
552-618: Was reported in January 1906 that the Michigan State Telephone Company, which held the state's Bell Telephone franchise, was conducting "fairly successful" tests in distributing programs "between the theatres, the churches, the Light Guard Armory, the new Penobscot Inn and the residences of several officials of the company", with hopes that "eventually a new use for the telephone will be developed along these lines". The next month, Michigan State Telephone's general manager, James F. Land, credited as
576-516: Was the majority stockholder. A glowing review in the March 17, 1907, issue of the Detroit Free Press , "'Televent,' Latest Wonder of Electric Science", described the expansive goals of the Tellevent promoters. The service was designed to use subscriber's existing telephone lines, and had been initially installed in 100 Detroit homes, connecting them with local theaters. However, it was planned that in
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