The passing of an era

The passing of an era

No link with this one. I just happened to read an interesting piece of trivia in William Manchester's The Glory and the Dream.

Q: Which obscure but significant event happened in Baltimore, Maryland in May of 1950?

A: The first evening in which more people in a major metro area watched TV than listened to radio.

This event did not happen by accident, or even by natural evolution. Three Baltimore newspapers, having missed out on the economic benefits of the radio era by allowing others to acquire all the major frequencies and radio stations, had invested in a Baltimore TV station, WMAR. They used the clout of their newspapers to promote the programs on that TV station. Those programs were terrible: mostly talk shows and wrestling matches filmed with a single camera, but that evening was a harbinger of modern pop culture.