TV’s ‘Great Future’ Will Be in ‘High Definition, High Frequency Color,’ Zenith Founder Said in 1946 Letter

The “great future for television when it comes will be in high definition, high frequency color,” Zenith Radio Founder-CEO Eugene McDonald told Variety magazine in a letter that was 70 years old to the day Sunday that LG said Friday it had unearthed from the Zenith archives. “Television will one day be a great industry,” McDonald said in the Feb. 14, 1946, letter. “There is nothing wrong with it that money will not cure but it needs a box office,” said McDonald, who was 59 then. “The advertisers, in my opinion, do not have the kind of money it needs to supply appropriate acceptable programs in quantity that will be needed to make television a great industry,” said McDonald, who also founded NAB in 1922 and was its first president.