How the Pioneering Have Fallen!

[Rinehart]

It is painful to hear of it. WRGB has a claim to be the oldest television station in the world, and it has a number of historical firsts to its credit, including broadcasting the first play ever on television, The Queen's Messenger in September of 1928, eighteen months before the BBC produced Pirandello's The Man With The Flower In His Mouth, which is often credited as the first. It does tell you something about the respective cultures of the two organizations: The Queen's Messenger was a 19th-century melodrama, very popular with amateur theatre companies, but Pirandello is decidedly a highbrow taste.
There were some interesting production problems: since the cameras couldn't be moved, they used three of them, one for each actor, and a third camera for their hands, which were provided by two other actors. This was a cumbersome setup, but it did away with the need to to put a transition board in front of the camera when they switched from one actor to another, and so it probably looked smoother than the BBC effort.