Jenkins' system was not commercially successful and was abandoned. This probably occurred because the [[Great Depression]] intervened and made the medium a prohibitively expensive extravagance. Government red tape also played a role in Jenkin's failure: the FRC, the forerunner of the FCC, would not allow him the use of two frequencies, so he was unable to broadcast the picture and sound simultaneously.
[[Image:Early television.jpg|thumb|left|In 1936 the first scheduled television broadcasts begins in the United Kingdom with the Unites United States following suit in 1939.]]
Other pioneers in the development of television include Philo Farnsworth and Vladimyr Zworykin. Zworkyin developed a series of electronic television camera tubes, all referred to as "iconoscopes." He worked for and was heavily backed by David Sarnoff and the Radio Corporation of America, and his devices are thus in the direct ancestry of commercial television as we know it today.