AUSTIN, Texas — It was just an experiment in 1948. Television was new back then, and the idea was to carry live coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions to a small network of just 18 TV stations along the East Coast.
The experiment was a success. Several million viewers gathered around TV sets in the Northeast U.S. to watch the conventions as they happened in real time.
Republicans in 1948 nominated Thomas Dewey, while Democrats nominated incumbent President Harry S. Truman, who later won the race for president.
Just four years later, convention coverage reached a nationwide audience, as America had been linked by hundreds of microwave relay towers that fed network TV programming to television stations in most major cities.
There were approximately 15,000 televisions sets in Travis County in 1952 and just under 4,000 in Williamson County, according to the Broadcasting Yearbook from 1953.
Austin's first TV station, KTBC Channel 7, wasn’t on the air yet. It would sign on a few months after the 1952 conventions ended, so Austin viewers had to catch the live coverage from stations in San Antonio or Waco that had already begun broadcasting.
Military hero Gen. Dwight Eisenhower accepted the Republican nomination in 1952 and went on the win two terms as U.S. President.
From limited broadcasts in 1948 to nationwide coverage in 1952, political conventions have been a staple of network television.
These events are part of a long and fascinating journey from a time when television captured the first live images of an American tradition.