United States Telephone Herald Company

The United States Telephone Herald Company, founded in 1909, was the parent corporation for a number of associated "telephone newspaper" companies, located throughout the United States, that were organized to provide news and entertainment over telephone lines to subscribing homes and businesses. This was the most ambitious attempt to develop a distributed audio service prior to the rise of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s. At least a dozen associate companies were chartered, but despite initial optimism and ambitious goals, only two systems ever went into commercial operation — one based in Newark, New Jersey (New Jersey Telephone Herald, 1911-1912) and the other in Portland, Oregon (Oregon Telephone Herald, 1912-1913). Moreover, both of these systems were shut down after operating for only a short time, due to economic and technical issues. Corporation activity peaked in 1913, but the lack of success caused the company to suspend operations, and the corporation charter for the United States Telephone Herald Company was repealed in early 1918.

Company history

The United States Telephone Herald Company was an authorized offshoot of the Telefon Hírmondó audio service of Budapest, Hungary. The Telefon Hírmondó programming, transmitted to subscribers over telephone wires, consisted of an extensive selection of news during the day, followed by instruction and entertainment during the evening. This "news-teller" service began operation in February 1893, shortly before the death of its inventor, Tivadar Puskás. Following a visit to Hungary, Cornelius Balassa procured the U.S. patent rights to the Telefon Hírmondó technology. (Later reports state that the company also held the rights for Canada and Great Britain. Another group obtained the rights for Italy, where in 1910 they established the service under the name Araldo Telefonico). The formation of a parent U.S. company, initially operating under a New York state charter as the "Telephone Newspaper Company of America", was announced in October 1909, with organizing directors Manley M. Gillam (president), William H. Alexander (secretary and treasurer), and Cornelius Balassa, all of New York City. In March 1910, the parent company was reorganized as the "United States Telephone Herald Company", now operating as a Delaware-chartered corporation. An initial demonstration transmission was given at the company headquarters, located at 110 West Thirty-fourth Street in New York City, in early September 1910. The equipment used was similar to that which was employed in Budapest. As in Hungary, announcers were called "stentors", and because vacuum tube technology had not been developed yet, there were limited methods for amplification, so to compensate the stentors had to speak as loudly as possible into oversized dual-microphones. The lack of amplification also meant that subscribers needed to listen through headphones instead of loudspeakers. On February 14, 1911 U.S. patent 984,235, describing "a telephone system... adapted for supplying innumerable subscribers... general news, musical compositions, and operas, sermons, correct or standard time and other happenings at stated intervals of day and night" was granted to Árpád Németh, and assigned to the company. Regionally-based Telephone Herald affiliates were authorized for the purpose of creating local "telephone newspaper" systems, with "the parent company to receive a royalty on every instrument installed". But ultimately the parent company and its affiliates proved financially unsuccessful, and the United States Telephone Herald Company began winding down operations. Its Delaware business charter was repealed on January 28, 1918, for failure to pay state corporate taxes for two years.

Telephone Herald associate companies At least twelve Telephone Herald associate companies were formed, although in only two cases was a telephone newspaper service successfully launched: the New Jersey Telephone Herald (1911-1912) and the Oregon Telephone Herald (1912-1913). (In some cases the service was also referred to as the "telectrophone".) Each associate company was established by local owners operating under a state-granted business charter. Publicity for these services commonly stated that the telephone newspaper subscriptions would cost 5 cents a day. (For comparison, at this time a copy of the daily Oregonian newspaper in Portland also cost 5 cents.) However, a majority of the associate companies got no further than the promotion or demonstration stages. In addition to twelve known associate companies, early company publicity stated that installations would also be set up in Chicago, Scranton, Pennsylvania and Montreal, Canada, but systems do not appear to have been established at any of these locations. Also, a December 15, 1912 advertisement for the Central California Telephone Herald listed associate Telephone Herald companies with company names located at New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Seattle-Tacoma, Columbia (British Columbia and Alberta, Canada), Los Angeles and Oakland, but there is no information for these either.

Associate companies that launched telephone newspapers

New Jersey Telephone Herald Co. (Newark)

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