In the early years of television, Vladimir Zworykin was considered its inventor, at least publicly. His loudest champion was his boss David Sarnoff, the president of RCA and the "father of television," as he was and is widely regarded. Modern historians agree that Philo Farnsworth, a self-educated prodigy who was the first to transmit live images, was television's technical inventor. But Farnsworth's contributions have gone relatively unnoticed, since it was Sarnoff, not Farnsworth, who put televisions into living rooms and, even more importantly, who successfully borrowed from the radio industry the paradigm of advertiser-funded programming, a paradigm still dominant today. In contrast, Farnsworth lacked business sway and was unable to realize his dream of television as an educational tool. Perhaps Sarnoff simply adapted his business ideas from other industries such as newspapers, for instance, replacing the revenue from subscriptions and newsstand purchases with that of television set sales, but Sarnoff promoted himself as a visionary. Some critics argue that Sarnoff's construct has damaged programming content. Others contend that it merely created a democratic platform allowing audiences to choose the programming they desire.