August 9, 1936…Jesse Owens Won His 4th Gold Medal In Berlin

The first live television coverage of a sports event in world history occurred during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. These games were televised by two German firms, Telefunken and Fernseh.

Telefunken’s two large stationary cameras were based on RCA technology and the single, smaller Fernseh “roving” camera was based on Philo Farnsworth’s system.

Below, the dark camera is the Fernseh camera and was a bit smaller than the big white Telefunken cameras. Both systems broadcast at 180 lines and 25 frames per second. Four different areas were telecast using three cameras. In total, 72 hours of live transmission went over the airwaves to special viewing booths, called “Public Television Offices” in Berlin and Potsdam.

The cameraman looking into the viewfinder on the Telefunken is Walter Bruch who later went on to develop the Phase Alternation Line System or PAL that was initially adopted by more than thirty countries and eventually, more than one hundred. When interviewed by German talk show host Hans Rosenthal on why he had named it the “PAL system”, Bruch replied that certainly no German would want to have a “Bruch-System” because Bruch in German is synonymous with “broken”.

By the way, these were basically Iconoscope cameras. The Telefunkens appear to have zoom lenses, but they’re not. There were several fixed focal length lens options that could be changed out and we can see an example of that in the telephoto lens shot. They have placed the focus mechanism on the outside of the camera instead of inside and are already using cradle heads instead of friction heads. Enjoy and share!

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