1931 in television

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The year 1931 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1931.

Events

• May 1 – The first wedding is broadcast by television, on New York City's W2XCR.
• July 21 – CBS's station W2XAB began broadcasting 28 hours a week in New York City.

October 30: NBC on Empire State Building which had opened during May 1931.

• August – At the Berlin Radio Show, Manfred von Ardenne gives the world's first public demonstration of a television system using a cathode-ray tube for both transmission and reception. Ardenne never develops a camera tube, using the CRT instead as a flying-spot scanner to scan slides and film.^[1]
• October 9 – Canada's first television station, VE9EC, begins broadcasting in Montreal, Quebec. VE9EC was owned jointly by radio station CKAC and the newspaper company La Presse.^[2]
• October 30 – NBC installs a television transmitter on top of the Empire State Building.
• November 1 – Television images are transmitted from JOAK radio station in Tokyo, Japan by Professors Kenjiro Takayagani and Tomomasa Nakashima. The still images comprise 80 lines at 20 frames per second.
• December 22 – NBC begins broadcasting experimental test transmissions from the Empire State Building transmitter.
• December 23 – Don Lee Broadcasting begins broadcasting low-definition electromechanical television from the station W6XAO (later KTSL) in Los Angeles, broadcasting one hour of film footage, six days per week.

Debuts

• Exhibition Boxing Bouts premieres on the experimental W2XAB (1931–1932)
• Hints for Swimmers premieres on the experimental W2XAB (1931)
• Piano Lessons premieres on the experimental W2XAB (1931–1932).
• The Television Ghost premieres on the experimental W2XAB (1931–1933).
• Television Today premieres on the experimental W2XAB (1931).
• W2XAB debuts music segments with Connie Boswell, Doris Sharp, Elliot Jaffee, Grace Yeager, Harriet Lee, and Helen Haynes, among others.
• W2XCD debuts a semi-regular segment with singer Alice Remsen.

Television shows

Series	Debut	Ended
Exhibition Boxing Bouts	1931	1932
Hints for Swimmers	1931	1931
Piano Lessons	1931	1932
The Television Ghost	1931	1933
Television Today	1931	1931

Births

• January 13 – Charles Nelson Reilly, actor, game show panelist (died 2007)
• January 14 - Himanshu Dev, engineer
• January 17 – James Earl Jones, actor
• January 19 – Robert MacNeil, news reporter
• February 13 – Geoff Edwards, game show host (died 2014)
• February 28 - Gavin MacLeod, actor
• March 11 – Rupert Murdoch, media mogul
• March 22 – William Shatner, actor
• March 26 – Leonard Nimoy, actor (died 2015)
• March 27 – David Janssen, actor (died 1980)
• April 6 – Ivan Dixon, actor (died 2008)
• April 26 – Bernie Brillstein, agent and producer (died 2008)
• May 16 – Jack Dodson, actor (died 1994)
• May 23 – Barbara Barrie, actress
• June 8 – Dana Wynter, actress (died 2011)
• June 14 – Marla Gibbs, actress
• July 6 – Della Reese, actress, singer
• July 8 – Roone Arledge, producer (died 2002)
• July 27 – Jerry Van Dyke, actor
• July 28 – Darryl Hickman, actor
• August 15 - Janice Rule, actor (died 2003)
• August 23 – Barbara Eden, actress, I Dream of Jeannie
• August 25 – Regis Philbin, talk show host
• September 4 – Mitzi Gaynor, singer, actress
• September 10 – Philip Baker Hall, actor
• September 13 – Barbara Bain, actress
• September 21 – Larry Hagman, actor (died 2012)
• September 30 – Angie Dickinson, actress
• October 31 – Dan Rather, news reporter
• November 8 – Morley Safer, news reporter (died 2016)
• November 12 – Dick Clair, writer (died 1988)
• December 3 – Jaye P. Morgan, game show panelist
• December 11 – Rita Moreno, actress
• December 23 – Ronnie Schell, comedian
• December 28 – Martin Milner, actor (died 2015)

References

1. Albert Abramson, Zworykin: Pioneer of Television, University of Illinois Press, 1995, p. 111.
2. "CRTC Origins". Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. 2008-09-05. Retrieved 2009-11-15.