In an act "concerning equipment of vehicles," to be known as the McCann Act, the General Assembly on March 24, 1952, prohibited automobiles from being equipped with television receivers without a permit from the Commissioner of State Police. The Commissioner was authorized to grant such permits "upon such terms and conditions as he may prescribe."
Motorola television service and delivery truck in Louisville, ca. 1954. Concepts for television technology date to as early as the 1870s. On April 9, 1927, Bell Laboratories and the Department of Commerce (home to the Federal Radio Commission) held the first long-distance transmission of a live picture and voice simultaneously. The next year, Charles Jenkins received the first American television license. Jenkins broadcast the first television commercial in 1930, for which he was promptly fined by the Federal Radio Commission, the predecessor of the FCC. D. L. MacKaye Kentucky Adult Education Slides, ca. 1953-54, Kentucky Historical Society Collections.
