You might find this video interesting in this regard. It’s a recording of the SMTPE DC section meeting a few months ago on the ongoing discussion of getting rid of fractional frame rates. It starts with a long background on the origins of the fractional rates.
As is fairly well known it was a fix for audio carrier and frequency separation. What is fascinating is that there were two equally valid choices, one which went in favor of frame rate and one which went in favor of audio. In today’s complex pipelines you would have of course optimized for the even frame rate. But as Merrill Weiss reasons, back then there was no recorded signal. Everything went straight from camera to airwaves, so there was much less concern about the implications of an odd frame rate. Thus you can’t blame them for creating what is a ginormous mess these days.
Great watch. I was on the Zoom call as I know one of the other speakers from a different weekly meeting where we had batted around this question quite a bit already.