Television in the Soviet Union

Television in the Soviet Union was owned, controlled and censored by the state. The body governing television in the era of the Soviet Union was the Gosteleradio committee, which was responsible for both the Soviet Central Television and the All-Union Radio.О РЕСПУБЛИКАНСКИХ МИНИСТЕРСТВАХ И ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫХ КОМИТЕТАХ РСФСР. Закон. Верховный Совет РСФСР. 14.07.90 101-1 :: Инновации и предпринимательство: гранты, технологии, патенты In Russian.

Soviet television production was classified into central (Soviet Central Television), republican, and regional broadcasting.

History On 1 October 1934, Soviet first television receivers were produced. The B-2 had a 3×4-centimetre (1¼×1½-inch) screen and a mechanical raster scan in 30 lines at 12.5 frames per second. On 15 November 1934, Moscow had its first television broadcast, of a concert. On 15 October 1935, the first broadcast of a film was made.

After the television laboratory was established at the Moscow radio station, the first Soviet cartoons were made. In 1936, 300 television broadcasts with a total duration of 200 hours were produced.Телевизионное вещание // Большая Советская Энциклопедия / под ред. А. М. Прохорова. 3-е изд. Том 25. М., «Советская энциклопедия», 1976.

In 1938, television broadcasting began in Moscow and Leningrad under the auspices of the All-Union Committee for Radiofication and Radio Broadcasting at the USSR Sovnarkom (Всесоюзный комитет по радиофикации и радиовещанию при СНК СССР).Указ Президента РСФСР от 28.11.1991 № 242 «О реорганизации центральных органов государственного управления РСФСР» In Russian.

On 9 March 1938, a first experimental studio television program was broadcast, from Shabolovka tower, in Moscow. Three weeks later, the first full film, The Great Citizen (Великий гражданин), was broadcast. On 7 June 1938, a television broadcast was tried in Leningrad.

Between 1937 and 1939 an experimental network of cable television, called Broadcasting Television Node (Телевизионный Трансляционный Узел), was mounted inside a house, located at Petrovsky Bouleward,17, Moscow. Technicians of VNII of Television, Leningrad and TsNII of Communication, Moscow developed the cable distribution system of radio programms and TV signal for high rank Soviet military commanders as well as Communist Party members. The system included up to 30 ATP-1 (АТП-1) TV receivers.

On March 10, 1939, the first documentary film was shown on television in Moscow.

World War II disrupted regular television broadcasting and caused great damage to the equipment; it was re-instated in Moscow on 15 December 1945.В. Шамшин. Телевидение вчера, сегодня, завтра // журнал "Наука и жизнь", № 12, 1972. стр.124-127 On 4 November 1948, the Moscow television centre began broadcasting in a 625-line standard.

On 29 June 1949, the first out-of-studio broadcast, of a football match, was made, from the Dynamo sports stadium. On 24 August 1950, a long-range broadcast was made from Moscow to Ryazan.

In 1954, the first experimental color television program was broadcast in Moscow.

In February 1956, the second television channel began operating in the USSR. On May 1, 1956, the first live broadcast was made. It was a broadcast from the Red Square.

In 1956, the first Soviet studio camera for color broadcasting on three superorthicons was created at NII-100.

Since 1961, the USSR has been a member of the International Radio and Television Organisation. On April 14, 1961, the first Eurovision telecasts were held. It was a program about the meeting of the first cosmonaut Yu. A. Gagarin, which was broadcast by all European television stations connected to the Eurovision and Intervision system.

In August 1962, the world's first television transmission in outer space took place between Soviet spacecrafts «Vostok-3» and «Vostok-4».

In 1964, television broadcasts began on the international channels Moscow - Kiev - Bucharest - Sofia and Moscow - Kiev - Lvоv - Katowice - Berlin.

In February 1965, the first television series was shown on USSR television. Also, in 1965, a third television channel began operating in the USSR (it was a special educational channel for children and schoolchildren). Since 1966, annual contests for the best television films have been held in the USSR.

In time for the golden jubilee year of the October Revolution, 1967, SECAM color broadcasts debuted in both Moscow and Leningrad on their local TV channels. In the same time, since November 1967, Orbita, the world's first satellite television broadcasting system, became operational.

Since January 1, 1968, a special television news program ("Vremya") began on the 1st television channel.

By 1972, the Soviet television service had grown into six full national channels, plus republican and regional stations serving all republics and minority communities. More than 30 million television sets existed, a larger number than any country other than the United States. More than 75% of the population could watch at least one channel. The goal was to have every citizen able to watch five channels. 35,000 people worked in broadcasting, with a new studio in Ostankino as technically well-equipped as any in the world.

Several morning programs on Central Television were used in school education (for example, the program "The Arrival of Spring" on 1st TV channel was officially used in natural history classes in elementary grades as additional material on the topic of "Spring Phenomena in Nature").Л. К. Юрьева. Учебные телевизионные передачи по природоведению // журнал "Начальная школа", № 3, 1974 стр.56-57Л. К. Юрьева. Рекомендации к учебным телевизионным передачам по природоведению // журнал "Начальная школа", № 8, 1978 стр.87-89Л. К. Юрьева. Учебные телевизионные передачи по природоведению // журнал "Начальная школа", № 3, 1984 стр.68-69 Later, the Dushanbe TV studio began producing a 45-minute television program "Офарин!" ("Well done!") for a local TV channel (it was used in school physical education classes in rural areas of the Tajik SSR).Офарин - молодцы! // "Учительская газета" от 8 декабря 1983

A major boost to television in the Soviet Union occurred with the implementation of the Ekran system. The first Ekran satellite was launched on October 26, 1976, into geostationary orbit at 99° E. The system covered 40% of the country's territory (5 million square kilometers) and was intended for small settlements in Siberia, the Far East, and the Far North of the Soviet Union. Unlike Orbita, Ekran already had elements of direct satellite television broadcasting. The satellite-to-earth channel operated on UHF television frequencies of 714 MHz and 754 MHz, and was originally planned to broadcast from orbit in the format of terrestrial television, which would allow signals to be received directly on a television. However, this required high peak transmitter power and did not meet the requirements of the Radio Regulations on limiting the power flux density in the territory of states adjacent to the Soviet Union. At the suggestion of V. A. Shamshin, frequency modulation was used in the satellite-to-earth channel, which required ground-based signal conversion. However, class II collective reception stations were small and relatively inexpensive, each of them had a built-in low-power terrestrial TV repeater with a power of 1 W (Ekran KR-1) or 10 W (Ekran KR-10), or distributed the signal via a cable network inside an apartment building. Class I stations were created for large television centers. The Ekran system became the first step towards the creation of modern direct television broadcasting systems.

The further development of the Ekran system was the creation of the Moscow satellite TV broadcasting system, developed by the Radio Research Institute and operated on the basis of the Gorizont geostationary satellites, but used a tube with a central frequency of 3675 MHz. This solved the problems with frequency compatibility and made it possible to cover the entire territory of the Soviet Union with broadcasting (Ekran served only Siberia, the Far North and part of the Russian Far East). The basic model of the Moscow-B earth station, also developed at the Radio Research Institute, had a receiving parabolic antenna with a diameter of 2.5 m and, when working together with the RCTA-70/R-12 TV repeater, provided a zone of confident reception with a radius of about 20 km.

Development began in 1974 on the initiative of Nikolai Talyzin and Lev Kantor; in 1979, the first satellite was launched at a geostationary position of 14° W. d., and the system was put into operation. Later, satellites at positions 53° E, 80° E, 90° E and 140° E were connected to broadcasting. Each satellite broadcast a Soviet Central Television program with a time shift for different time zones of the USSR and Radio Mayak, and a telefax channel for transmitting newspaper strips also operated. Systems of the "Moscow" type were widely used in the USSR and in some foreign missions of the country, a total of about 10 thousand earth stations of various modifications were released. In 2005, with the transition to a digital signal, broadcasting of several TV programs in a package began through the system.

In 1977, a short experimental cartoon was made and released, all of the images for which were created on a computer.В. Владимирова. Мультфильм рисует ЭВМ // "Комсомольская правда" от 1 октября 1977 стр.4

On October 13, 1980, an agreement on cooperation in television between the USSR and Mexico was signed in Moscow.В Москве 13 октября было подписано соглашение о сотрудничестве между Гостелерадио СССР и мексиканским телерадио // "Известия", № 242 (19612) от 14 октября 1980 стр.4 As a result, some Mexican films and music began to be shown in the USSR, and some Soviet films and songs began to be shown in Mexico.

In early 1981, the first Soviet standard serial remote control device for TV sets began to be produced by the Minsk plant "Gorizont".Ультразвук управляет телевизором // журнал «Наука и жизнь», № 4, 1981. стр.83

In 1986–1988, under the leadership of Yuri Zubarev, Lev Kantor, the "Moscow-Global" system was developed specifically for broadcasting to domestic missions abroad. It used the same Gorizont satellite trunk as the Moskva system, but connected to an antenna that covered the maximum possible area of the Earth's surface. Two satellites at 11° W and 96.5° E covered most of the Earth's territory and provided work with receiving stations that had an antenna mirror with a diameter of 4 m. The system transmitted one TV channel, three digital channels at 4800 bit/s and two at 2400 bit/s.

Distance and geography The size and geography of the Soviet Union made television broadcasting difficult. These factors included mountains, such as the Urals, the Taiga, and the Steppes, and the spanning of eleven time zones. For instance, a program broadcast at 18:00 in Moscow came at 21:00 in Frunze, Kirghizia. The population density was irregular, with many more residents in the west. The Soviet Union also relayed broadcasts to other Warsaw Pact states.ОБ УТВЕРЖДЕНИИ ПОЛОЖЕНИЯ О МИНИСТЕРСТВЕ ПЕЧАТИ И ИНФОРМАЦИИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ. Постановление Правительства РФ от 18.05.93 № 473 in Russian.

Soviet television standard The Soviet broadcast television standard used CCIR System D (OIRT VHF band with the "R" channels ranging from R1 to R12) and System K (pan-European/African UHF band), with SECAM as the color system standard. The resulting system is commonly referred to as "SECAM D/K".

Soviet television channels