TELEVISION FACTS & FIGURES
What’s in a name?
Have you ever wondered where the word television came from? It comesfrom the Greek word
tele
, which means ‘far’ and the Latin word
videre
,which means ‘to see’ and it certainly lives up to its name, when you thinkabout it! Just think every time you turn on your television at home and youcan see instantly an event happening in anywhere in the world. Atelevision screen is like a magic window on the whole world through whichpeople anywhere in the world can see things, which are not normally partof their lives. Remember though, for every image you see on the televisionthere is a camera and someone else is deciding where it looks and what itshows.With the development of technology and the ability to post and streamvideo online as it happens, news producers can now share the mostintimate news stories in incredible detail globally, using media gatheredfrom a person’s cell phone. Indeed the very notion of a News Producer hasbecome a job that is able to be carried out by anyone with an internetconnection posting video online. But when was the first televisioninvented?
Television timeline….
1884In Germany a gentleman by the name of P. Nipkow patented theNipkow disc. It was used for transmitting an exact image of an objectonto a screen.1897Another German by the name of F Braun invented the cathode raytube, which later became the basis for the modern television set. Hepainted the inside end of a glass tube with fluorescent paint. Acathode, which is a type of electrode, was placed inside the tube. Itemitted electrons that made the paint inside glow! Not veryinteresting on its own you might say but…1920During this decade Professor Robert Jack of Otago University beganexperimenting with the new technology.1925A Russian by the name of V Zworykin patented the iconoscope. Thiswas an electronic device with a lens that focused an image on to ascreen inside a glass tube.1925J Baird of Great Britain gave the first demonstration of a television. Heused the Nipkow discs to transmit images on to a screen, unfortunatelythe images were very blurred.1936The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) began operating with thefirst clear black and white television service from London. Baird’ssystem for producing pictures had been dropped in favour of one thatwas developed by Marconi and EMI based on the cathode ray tube andthe iconoscope.1953The first successful transmission of colour television was made in theUnited States.
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