Telephone newspaper

1901 photograph of a Stentor (announcer) at the Budapest Telefon Hirmondó.

Telephone Newspaper is a general term for the telephone-based news and entertainment services which were introduced beginning in the 1890s. These systems were the first examples of electronic broadcasting, and they offered a wide variety of programming, although only a relatively few were ever established. Moreover, the technical capabilities of the time meant that there were limited means for amplifying and transmitting telephone signals over long distances, so listeners had to wear headphones to receive the programs, and service areas were generally limited to a single city. During this era telephones were still considered luxury items, so the subscribers tended to be the wealthy elite of society. Although these systems predated the invention of radio, beginning in the 1920s they were largely supplanted by radio broadcasting stations, mainly due to the ability of radio signals to cover much wider areas with higher quality audio.

History

After the electric telephone was introduced in the mid-1870s, it was mainly used for personal communication. But the idea of distributing entertainment and news appeared soon thereafter, and many early demonstrations included the transmission of musical concerts. In one particularly advanced example, Clément Ader, at the 1881 Paris Electrical Exhibition, prepared a listening room where participants could hear, in stereo, performances from the Paris Grand Opera. Also, in 1888, Edward Bellamy's influence novel Looking Backward: 2000-1887 foresaw the establishment of entertainment transmitted by telephone lines to individual homes.

The scattered demonstrations were eventually followed by the establishment of more organized services, which were generally called Telephone Newspapers, although all of these systems also included entertainment programming. While some of the systems, including the Telefon Hirmondó, built their own one-way transmission lines, others, including the Electrophone, used standard commercial telephone lines, which allowed subscribers to talk to operators in order to select programming. Financing was normally done by charging fees, including monthly subscriptions for home users, and, in locations such as hotels, through the use of coin-operated receivers, which provided short periods of listening for a set payment. Some systems also accepted paid advertising. The Telephone Newspapers drew upon a mixture of outside sources for their programs, including local live theaters and church services, in addition to programs transmitted from their own studios. In later years, retransmitted radio programs were added.

Théâtrophone

The first organized telephone-based entertainment service appears to have been the Théâtrophone, which went into operation in Paris, France in 1890. This system received much of its programming from the Paris theaters, but also reportedly included regular five-minute news summaries. The Théâtrophone finally ceased operations in 1932.

Telefon Hirmondó

On February 15, 1893, the Telefon Hirmondó began operation in Budapest, Hungary. It would become the most prominent and longest-lived of the Telephone Newspaper systems, surviving in a limited fashion until 1944. The founder was inventor Tivadar Puskás, who died one month after the system went into operation. From the beginning the Telefon Hirmondó — which was generally translated into English as the "Telephone Newsteller" or "Telephone Herald" — provided an extensive programming service. Its schedule in 1907 was as follows:

    A. M.
9:00 --     . .Exact astronomical time.
9:30 --10:00. .Reading of programme of Vienna and foreign news and of chief contents
               of the official press.
10:00--10:30. .Local exchange quotations.
10:30--11:00. .Chief contents of local daily press.
11:00--11:15. .General news and finance.
11:15--11:30. .Local, theatrical, and sporting news.
11:30--11:45. .Vienna exchange news.
11:45--12:00. .Parliamentary, provincial, and foreign news.
12:00 noon  . .Exact astronomical time.
    P. M.
12:00--12:30. .Latest general news, news, parliamentary, court, political, and military.
12:30-- 1:00. .Midday exchange quotations.
1:00 -- 2:00. .Repetition of the half-day's most interesting news.
2:00 -- 2:30. .Foreign telegrams and latest general news.
2:30 -- 3:00. .Parliamentary and local news.
3:00 -- 3:15. .Latest exchange reports.
3:15 -- 4:00. .Weather, parliamentary, legal, theatrical, fashion and sporting news.
4:00 -- 4:30. .Latest exchange reports and general news.
4:30 -- 6:30. .Regimental bands.
7:00 -- 8:15. .Opera.
8:15(or after the first act of the opera). . Exchange news from New York, Frankfort,
              Paris, Berlin, London, and other business centers.
8:30 -- 9:30. .Opera.

1912 publicity photograph of a family listening to the Newark, New Jersey Telephone Herald.

The limited means for amplification meant that the Telefon Hirmondó had to employ strong-voiced "stentors" to speak loudly into double-cased telephones, so that the programs could be heard throughout the system. At its peak, the service had thousands of subscribers, and many contemporary reviews mentioned that the subscription price was quite reasonable.

Electrophone

In 1895, the Electrophone went into service in London, England. Most of its programming came from live performances via special lines connected to local theaters. On a few special occasions, it also shared programs with the Paris Théâtrophone. The Electrophone ceased operations in 1925, unable to compete with radio. During its thirty years, the service never had more than a few hundred subscribers.

Telephone Herald and Araldo Telefonico

The operators of the Budapest Telefon Hirmondó were interested in licencing their technology to other sites, and at least two related systems were established. One was in the United States, where Telephone Herald in Newark, New Jersey (a suburb of New York City) began operation in 1911, but shut down due to economic problems the next year. A second facility, the Araldo Telefonico, began operation in 1910 in Rome, Italy. In 1922, this system, which at one point had more than 1,000 subscribers, was renamed the Fonogiornale.