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No licenses have yet been issued to any station to broadcast commercial matter by television but advertising has been televised under regular radio licenses.
Telephonic Television is still the most satisfactory means of transmitting an image. In the U. S. there is one telephone television circuit in regular operation. One end of it is in American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s offices at No. 195 Broadway, the other in the Bell Telephone Laboratories at No. 463 West St., Manhattan. Anyone trying it out goes into a small pitch dark booth and waits until the image of the person at the other end, the size of a desk-photograph, flickers on a little lens. Voices in telephonic television boom resonantly and recognizably (they are carried over regular telephone wires) but the image on the little screen is uncertain, like a snapshot taken out of focus. Weirdly this snapshot rolls its unfocused eyes and moves its puffy lips. Celebrities who have telephoned their pictures and voices include King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambai Barni of Siam, who chattered in their own language, and Banker Charles Edwin Mitchell, who said: "Why, if you linked up the important U. S. cities with this thing you would get enough business from the banks alone to make money."
A. T. & T. is not considering adopting Banker Mitchell's suggestion. They do not think that commercial telephone television is yet by any means practical. First, it is too expensive. A roomful of light transforming equipment, another roomful of motors, and at least two expert engineers are needed for each sending receiving station. The transmission cost, without figuring equipment, is more than 20 times ordinary toll rates. A. T. & T. is experimenting because it feels that sometime a practical use for television may crop up. Only uses conceived so far: for separated sweethearts, for identifying criminals, for the convenience of bank depositors who want to cash checks away from home.*
* But signatures are already sent by telegraph at small cost.