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Infrared remote controls

		When: 1980
		Where: Canada
		Why: The infrared remote control has changed forever the way people watch television and asserted family hierarchy in the home
		How: A cable box engineer created an accompanying television remote control, which used infrared light technology
		Who: Paul Hrivnak
		Fact: The first wireless remote control had to be abandoned after its photosensitive receiver cell was activated by beams of sunlight

It is impossible to think of television without thinking of the remote control. It has become as ubiquitous as the TV set itself. Despite being a focal point for family tensions, and fodder for comedy writers everywhere, it is a business idea that has changed the way we watch television – as well as changing the nature of television programming as a whole.

The background

The first, primitive remote controls for televisions were developed by electronics company Zenith, which in 1950 released the Lazy Bones, a wired device for remotely operating a television. The wire soon proved to be a safety hazard, however, and it was clear that it had to be eliminated to make remote control commercially viable.

Five years later, Zenith released the Flashmatic, the world's first wireless television remote. It worked by shining a beam of light onto a photosensitive receiver cell located on the television. But the receiver did not distinguish between the Flashmatic's beam and ordinary light, meaning that direct sunlight would often activate the controls. In addition, the remote had to be pointed precisely at the receiver.

However, a breakthrough came just a year later, when a prolific inventor at Zenith, Robert Adler, developed the Space Command – widely credited as being the world's first true remote control for television. Uniquely, it used sound to communicate with the television; when a button was pressed it would strike an aluminium rod inside the device, producing a high-frequency sound that was picked up by a receiver on the TV set. When different buttons were pressed, different pitches were produced, allowing for multi-functional operation.

With the introduction of ... cable TV – with its greater selection of channels – the necessity for a remote with more buttons became clear.

Despite making the cost of a television set one-third higher, the Space Command remote control proved to be popular with customers drawn to the concept of being able to operate a television without leaving their chair. The sound of the tiny internal hammer striking the tubes earned it the nickname 'the clicker', which endures to this day.

But Adler's ultrasound technology had drawbacks that made it unsuitable for the long-term future of television. With the introduction of the BBC's interactive Ceefaxteletext service in the 1970s, as well as cable TV – with its greater selection of channels – the necessity for a remote with more buttons became clear. The Space Command, however, sported only four (channel up, channel down, on/off and mute), and adding any more would have meant adding more rods, increasing the size of the device.

It was in 1980 that the first iteration of what we would recognise as a 'modern' television remote control appeared. The Viewstar TV, developed over 10 years by Canadian engineer Paul Hrivnak, was a cable receiver box that came bundled with a remote control that used infrared light technology, allowing for greater range, low power usage and, perhaps most crucially, many more buttons to control all the facets of a television's operation.

Commercial Impact

Viewstar's infrared remote systems were an immediate and sustained success, and within five years the company had sold over a million units – reaching 1.6 million in 1989. Television manufacturers quickly caught on, and by the 1990s, the remote control had securely entered popular culture, spawning stereotypes such as that of the 'couch potato', and the phenomenon of 'channel surfing'. But perhaps the greatest indicator of the impact of the remote control is not in the adoption of the technology itself, but in the way it has fundamentally altered television broadcasts.

Inevitably, the commercial impact of the remote control stretched way beyond the device itself, which was, and is, typically provided with the purchase of electronic goods at no extra cost. Commercial channels, and to a lesser extent public service broadcasters, had to adapt quickly. With a remote control, viewers no longer had to sit through a lengthy title sequence or advertisement because they didn't want to get up and change the channel – they could switch instantly, meaning that their patience for the more tedious parts of programming suddenly dropped.

Perhaps the greatest indicator of the impact of the remote control is ... in the way it has fundamentally altered television broadcasts.

Faced with this decreased attention span, the networks resorted to a variety of solutions that turned their old models upside down. One example was the 'squeeze and tease' method of broadcasting credits, pioneered after a show on NBC. It was found that customers would change channel instantly when the show ended and the credits began, so the network decided to broadcast the last few minutes of the programme simultaneously with the credits, which would be 'squeezed' into a portion of the screen, forcing people to keep watching.

This practice is now commonplace, and across the board similar responses to the remote control can be found, like advertisements in the middle of programmes rather than between them (to keep interested viewers from switching), shows beginning with an action sequence rather than the opening titles, and the increased use of multi-plot dramas and cliff-hangers to maintain interest. Indeed, in some cases entirely original programmes were formed in a direct response to the new proliferation of the remote.

Philips RC775 remote control, one of the first universal multibrand remote controls, launched in the 1980s.

Music Television (MTV), established in 1981, was seemingly perfect for the new, remote-wielding market, with its three-minute music videos short enough to capture even the radically reduced attention span of the channel-surfing generation. However, MTV found that even these short segments proved too long to hold the viewer's interest, and so it created an animated comedy show, Beavis and Butthead, that would play intermittently during a music video while the music continued in the background. The TV remote had well and truly arrived and had a material commercial impact on the way television programming is made.

A survey in the early 2000s found that there were over 400 million remotes in the USA – an average of four per household. Inevitably, the figure is likely to be far higher now, with remote controls being provided with almost all electronic goods.

Today, the market for universal remote controls is enormous. Market research and consulting group Parks Associates predicted that in 2012 revenues would hit $1.9bn, thanks to the proliferation of content options, increased investment in household entertainment and technologies, and continuing consumer desire for multiple products.

What happened next?

Universal remote controls began with former Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's release of the CL9 CORE ('Cloud 9' Controller Of Remote Equipment) in 1987 – the first fully programmable remote that could 'learn' to interact with multiple devices in the home. The development of Wi-Fi technology now allows for increased range and compatibility of remote controls, with the potential to operate many devices at once.

The remote control has changed the way we view the world – without getting up from the couch.

Universal remote control devices are now used for a wide array of functions, such as controlling heating, lighting, security, window blinds and games consoles in modern 'smart homes'. Companies such as Logitech, Universal Electronics Inc, Philips, RTI Technologies Inc, Crestron and AMI compete for share of the lucrative market with increasingly sophisticated and sleek-looking controllers.

Remote controls are also beginning to converge with portable devices and smartphones, with software making use of large screens and keyboards to increase usability, often being used to control programs and media players on a PC over Wi-Fi, or even in some cases the PC itself. Some would even argue that the television remote has been the catalyst for the modern move towards portability in everything, from garage doors to mobile phones and laptops. What is clear is that the remote control has changed the way we view the world – without getting up from the couch.