1950 - Communications, Media

Communications, Media

India's new constitution permits use of English in government work (including courtrooms) until Hindi can take over; the transition is supposed to be completed within 15 years, but millions of people in the nation's southern states speak Tamil, Telagu, Malayalam, and other languages. They will resist imposition of Hindi, and although public schools may teach in Hindi the language of the raj will continue to be a valuable legacy of British rule not only for official proceedings but also for use by the upper classes (see education, 1993).

Haloid Co. of Rochester, N.Y. produces the first Xerox copying machine (see Carlson, 1938; Haloid, 1946). A. B. Dick, Eastman Kodak, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, and Ricoh sell copying machines based on dye-transfer processes, heat-sensitive papers, or other technologies, and they enjoy fairly good sales, but they are either difficult to operate, require specially-treated paper that is expensive, produce wet copies that have to be air dried, or copies that fade or darken over time, making them unsuitable for long-term storage (see model 914, 1960).

Bic Pen Corp. is founded by Italian-born French entrepreneur Marcel Bich, 36, to make cheap ballpoint pens (see 1945) and lighters. Bich has licensed the Biro patents and developed a faster-drying ink, employs a strong ball point made of titanium, and uses a plastic cover instead of metal to produce a 19¢ disposable pen.

The first Japanese tape recorder weighs nearly 40 pounds, uses tape made from rice paper, and sells for nearly $500 (see 1946; tape recorder, 1940). Masaru Ibuka of Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. (Sony) has seen an American tape recorder and tried to improve on it. Although his G-type recorder is intended for institutional use and has few buyers at first, his partner Akio Morita tours Japanese schools and gives demonstrations that persuade teachers to buy the recorder as a teaching device. Some 50,000 orders come in when the company introduces the H-type recorder, its first big consumer product; by next year Totsuko will have sales of $430,500 and employ 159 persons (see 1954; radio, 1955).

Magnetic recording pioneer Marvin Camras unveils a prototype video recorder (see 1944).

U.S. television set sales begin a rapid rise (see 1948). By June, more than 100 TV stations operate in 38 states, and while the U.S. census for the year shows 5 million homes with sets, the figure is belied by sales figures that show 8 million sets in use (45 million U.S. homes have radios).

The Montreal-based media colossus Quebecor founded with a $1,500 loan from his mother by Montreal entrepreneur Pierre Péladeau, 25, will become Canada's second-largest newspaper publisher (its Journal de Montréal will be the nation's largest French-language paper and third-largest paper of any kind) and North America's second-largest commercial printer. The enterprise will grow to own three other Canadian papers, several magazines, a multimedia company, and the forestry concern Donohue, Inc.

"Peanuts" by St. Paul Pioneer Press cartoonist Charles M. (Monroe) Schulz, 27, appears in eight newspapers starting October 2 with the comic-strip character Charlie Brown ("good grief") and expanding to include Snoopy (a beagle, who debuts October 4), Schroeder (who will debut May 30, 1951), Lucy Van Pelt (who will debut March 3, 1952), Linus Van Pelt (and his security blanket, who will debut September 19, 1952), Pig Pen (who will debut July 13, 1954), Sally (who will debut August 23, 1959), Peppermint Patty (who will debut August 22, 1966), Woodstock (a bird, who will debut April 4, 1967), Marcie (who will debut June 18, 1968), Franklin (who will debut July 31, 1968), and others. Their seemingly innocuous problems incorporate dark humor and profound themes (some will say that Schulz has introduced existential angst in the form of comedy). Syndicated by the United Press, "Peanuts" will make the "funny papers" something more than just funny, entertain readers of more than 900 newspapers by 1970, continue until early 2000, and bring Schulz an eight-figure income as it becomes the basis of books, television shows, and countless manufactured items.

Publisher S. S. McClure dies at New York March 21 at age 92; cartoonist Robert L. "Believe It or Not" Ripley at New York May 27 at age 55; former Chicago Tribune cartoonist John T. McCutcheon at Lake Forest, Ill., June 10 at age 79; former New York Evening Post owner-editor and Nation magazine editor Oswald Garrison Villard at New York October 1 at age 77; New Yorker magazine cartoonist Helen Hokinson in an airplane crash near Washington, D.C., November 1 at age 50.