Thirteen years ago we helped organize the first national conference

of the newly formed International Television Association (ITVA) at

~he National Association of Broadcasters Convention (NAB) in Wash-

ington DC. The ITVA had just been formed by the merger of two

separate video user organizations, the Industrial Television Society

(ITS) and the National industrial Television Association (NITA).

The opening session was the inauguration of a new television trans-

mission system in Washington called Multipoint Distribution Service

(bIDS). This inaugural program featured ITVA s first president, Lynn

~~azel (currently a member of ITVA s board), FCC Chairman Dean

l~urch and White House Communications Director Herbert Klein. The

i tmn "private television" was coined at this meeting with the new

transmission service being described as "making possible hundreds of

private television networks."

~ The term "private television" seemed to aptly describe our then un-

Ened industry made up of only a few hundred organizations which

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l~re using television for communications and training. The term was

broader in scope than "industrial television", more positive than

"non-broadcast" and clearly superceded "closed-circuit" as a term

@plied to the fast growing area of corporate communications. The

ttew name stuck and has been used ever since to describe the industry as

awhole in this country and abroad.