Fun Video Factoids

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Surrounded by so much video technology, it’s easy to forget that video hasn’t always been a part of our world. In fact, the entire concept of “video” — starting with broadcast television and running through today’s landscape of camcorders, VCRs and DVRs — is barely 60 years old!
Over those 60 years, some pretty amazing changes have occurred. Video has evolved from grainy, barely recognizable pictures in a laboratory into arguably the most successful and pervasive communications medium that the world has ever seen. And if you doubt the impact that video has on our lives, just take a look at the current Nielsen Media Research statistics for the most popular form of video – television.

Fact #1
There’s a watched television on in the average American household nearly 8 hours out of every day! And it’s been like that - not just for years - but for decades.
As humans, we have self-selected our entertainment system of choice and since the first commercial broadcast TV program hit the airwaves that choice has clearly been to watch video.

Fact #2
That first US commercial broadcast started out with (it figures) a commercial. On July 1, 1941 the first FCC authorized broadcast opened with a 10-second “Bulova” watch commercial. The networks made a whopping $7 profit on the first ad, and never looked b…