__notoc__ TelePrompTer Corporation was an American media company that existed from approximately 1950 until 1981. The company was named for its eponymous primary product, a

display device A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal the ...

invented by Hubert Schlafly which scrolls text to people on video or giving speeches, replacing

cue cards Cue cards, also known as note cards, are cards with words written on them that help actors and speakers remember what they have to say. They are typically used in television productions where they can be held off-camera and are unseen by the au ...

or scripts. Branded as the "TelePrompTer", the name has become a genericized trademark as "teleprompter".

History

The company started around 1950 by businessman

Irving B. Kahn Irving Berlin Kahn (September 30, 1917– January 22, 1994) was an American media proprietor. He was a founder of TelePrompTer Corporation and an early proponent and developer of cable television.Barron, James"Irving B. Kahn, 76, a Founder Of T ...

; Fred Barton, Jr., a Broadway theatre actor; and Schlafly, an electrical engineer. Schlafly had invented the teleprompter in order to help a soap opera actor who could not remember his lines. He unveiled the device on the set of the CBS soap opera, ''

The First Hundred Years ''The First Hundred Years'' is the first ongoing TV soap opera in the United States that began as a daytime serial, airing on CBS from December 4, 1950 until June 27, 1952. A previous daytime drama on NBC, ''These Are My Children'', aired in 194 ...

'', in 1950. Initially, public relations personnel handled the teleprompters. TelePrompTer sold its eponymous business in the 1960s and invested in cable and satellite broadcast services. Schlafly went on to develop microwave video transmission services with

Hughes Aircraft Company The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other produ ...

. Kahn was convicted in Federal court in 1971 and imprisoned for 20 months for trying to bribe members of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania city council to award his company a local cable franchise. He was also convicted of perjury.Barron, James
"Irving B. Kahn, 76, a Founder Of Teleprompter and Cable TV"
''The New York Times'', January 25, 1994 Kahn had stepped down as chairman of TelePrompTer several months before his conviction. Kahn maintained, before and after his 20-month prison term, that the issue was extortion by the officials and not bribery by the company. In 1969, TelePrompTer acquired the Filmation animation studio from its founders, Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland and Norm Prescott. Scheimer continued as an executive producer for the company until its dissolution."Filmation purchased by Teleprompter." '' Broadcasting'', June 30, 1969, pg. 38

/ref> TelePrompTer merged with H & B American Corporation in 1970, creating the nation's largest cable company at the time. TelePrompTer grew to become the largest cable television, cable television provider in the United States by 1973. The company was later sold to Westinghouse, merging the cable operations into Westinghouse Broadcasting. After the merger, TelePrompTer's cable systems would be renamed Group W Cable, with the broadcasting division renamed "Westinghouse Broadcasting and Cable". The Filmation studios were also part of the deal. Westinghouse would sell off its cable operations in 1986 to Houston Industries, which became

Paragon Cable Paragon Cable was a cable system based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was owned by Houston Industries. Beginnings Formed in the 1980s, Paragon Cable was the largest cable provider in Minnesota with 177,100 subscribers in the Twin Cities and Sout ...

; 25% was sold to

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

. In 1989, Westinghouse sold Filmation to Paravision International, an investment consortium led by the French cosmetics company L'Oréal. Before that sale was complete, Westinghouse shuttered the film studio on February 3, 1989, which left L'Oréal with only the Filmation library."Group W sells Filmation." ''Broadcasting'', February 13, 1989, pg. 94
/ref> Charter Communications (which bought Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016), and, in some areas, Comcast (which obtaining most of the Filmation library as part of acquisition of

DreamWorks Animation DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division ...

in 2016), own and operate cable systems previously run by TelePrompTer.

References

Notes Further reading
"Oral History of Monroe Rifkin"
The Hauser Oral and Video History Collection, The Barco Library, The Cable Center, Denver, Colorado.

External links

{{Boxing on television American companies established in 1950 American companies disestablished in 1981 Defunct mass media companies of the United States Cable television companies of the United States Westinghouse Broadcasting Filmation Time Warner Cable Comcast Mass media companies established in 1950 Mass media companies disestablished in 1981 1970 mergers and acquisitions

History

See also

References

External links