Telefon Hírmondó
Tivadar Puskás, Telefon Hírmondó founder
|
|
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Telephone newspaper |
| Owner(s) | Telefonhírmondó Joint stock company |
| Staff writers | Approximately 200 (Winter, 1907) |
| Founded | 15 February 1893 |
| Ceased publication | Original programming until late 1925, relayed radio station programming until 1944 |
| Headquarters | Budapest |
| Circulation | 15,000 (1907) |
The Telefon Hírmondó (also Telefonhírmondó, generally translated as "Telephone Herald") was a "telephone newspaper" located in Budapest, Hungary, which, beginning in 1893, provided news and entertainment to subscribers over telephone lines. It was both the first and the longest surviving telephone newspaper system, although from late 1925 until its termination in 1944 it was primarily used to retransmit programmes broadcast by an affiliated radio station.
Three decades before the development of radio broadcasting, the Telefon Hírmondó was the first service to electronically deliver a wide range of spoken and musical programming to a diverse audience. Although its inventor envisioned that the technology could be eventually expanded to serve a national or international audience, the technical limitations of the time ultimately limited its service area to just the city of Budapest.
The Telefon Hírmondó was founded by Tivadar Puskás (a few reviews translated his name as "Theodore Buschgasch"), an engineer and inventor who had worked with Thomas Edison. In view of the ever-increasing pace of living, especially in major cities, Puskás recognized that daily newspapers, even with multiple editions, could no longer effectively keep up with developing events. He decided that this problem could be rectified through the introduction of a regularly updated audio news source.
Initially, the Telefon Hírmondó editorial office was located near Astoria, at 6 Magyar Street. The system began operating on 15 February 1893 with around 60 subscribers, and was inaugurated with a message from Puskás, which, translated into English, stated:
For the initial transmissions, individuals who already had telephones called into a central office in order to listen to Telefon Hírmondó reports, that were updated each hour.
At this time newspapers published in the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to be authorized by the government. The contemporary press laws did not apply to a telephone newspaper, and government officials were wary that the Telefon Hírmondó could develop into an "important tool of power", as it could potentially be used to quickly spread strategic, political, and social information. The Telefon Hírmondó had started operations based on an informal verbal approval, in order to demonstrate that the idea was practical. After two weeks of successful operation, on 2 March 1893 Puskás sent a letter to Béla Lukács, the Hungrarian Minister of Trade, requesting formal authorization to run his "newspaper", under the provisions of the Act No. XXXXI of 1888. Included was a request to be assigned fifty years of exclusive rights for operation within the city of Budapest, although the government was eventually unwilling to approve this portion of the request.
...
Wikipedia