TV pioneers: Next year, PBS will present a look at early TV

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In the 58 years since Betty White first became a television star, a lot has changed on the small screen.

"My husband, Allen Ludden, always said, 'My wife was a pioneer in silent television,'" White said.

Today, nobody would think of doing a live TV show for 5 1/2 hours a day, six days a week. Which White did back in the early 1950s. She even did the commercials live. Which, of course, meant no breaks.

But it's not just that the people making television today are different than the people who pioneered the medium, so are the people watching TV. "Television hasn't changed as much as the audience has changed," White said. "When we started ... I would do a commercial for five dollars. And when I got a job, 5 1/2 hours a day, six days a week, for $50 every week, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

"But in those days, the audience hadn't heard every joke or seen every plot. It was just this magic new box in the corner of the room, and the audience was so willing to be amused. It's not that easy now."

White, a six-time Emmy winner whose credits range from "Life With Elizabeth" to "Mary Tyler Moore" to "The Golden Girls" to "Boston Legal," was part of a panel promoting PBS' "Pioneers of Television," a four-part documentary series that will air in early 2008. She was joined by Dick Cavett, Tim Conway, Ed McMahon and Tony Orlando, who all had some thoughts on TV now vs. TV then.

It's a different TV universe today just because there is so much more to choose from. "It's harder now to find those ratings. Remember, when we were on television there were only three networks, period," said Orlando, whose variety show was canceled when it was averaging about 30 million viewers per week — a figure that would make it No. 1 most weeks today.

"I'm a big fan of television, now and then. I can find problems with it back then, and I can find problems with it now," Orlando said. "When you consider there's somewhere in the vicinity of 500 to 800 channels ... and shows still find their place, I think the competition is good, and I think it provides for better television."

There have obviously been changes in terms of what the people on TV can and cannot say. "I'll tell you something that's quite remarkable," McMahon said. "The first two or three years of 'The Tonight Show,' Johnny Carson and I were not allowed to say the word 'pregnant,' if you can believe that.

"Nowadays you can say anything you want."

And the people saying whatever they want don't always seem to have the same class as the TV pioneers.