The history of television comprises the work of numerous engineers and inventors

in several countries over many decades.

The first practical demonstrations of television, however, were developed using
electromechanical methods to scan, transmit, and reproduce an image. As electron
ic camera and display tubes were perfected, electromechanical television gave wa
y to all-electronic systems in nearly all applications.
Contents [hide]
1 Electromechanical television
2 Electronic television
3 Color television
4 Broadcast television
4.1 Overview
4.2 United Kingdom
4.3 United States
4.4 Mexico
4.5 Canada
4.6 Czechoslovakia
4.7 France
4.8 Germany
4.9 Italy
4.10 Soviet Union (USSR)
4.11 Japan
5 Technological innovations
6 Television sets
7 Television inventors/pioneers
8 Television museums
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Electromechanical television[edit]
Main article: Mechanical television
The Nipkow disk. This schematic shows the circular paths traced by the holes, th
at may also be square for greater precision. The area of the disk outlined in bl
ack shows the region scanned.
The first known photograph of a moving image produced by Baird's "televisor", ci
rca 1926 (The subject is Baird's business partner Oliver Hutchinson)
Soviet Mechanical scan TV-set (about 1931-38)
The beginnings of mechanical television can be traced back to the discovery of t
he photoconductivity of the element selenium by Willoughby Smith in 1873, the in
vention of a scanning disk by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884 and John Logie Baird'
s demonstration of televised moving images in 1926.
As a 23-year-old German university student, Nipkow proposed and patented the fir
st electromechanical television system in 1884.[1] Although he never built a wor
king model of the system, variations of Nipkow's spinning-disk "image rasterizer
" for television became exceedingly common, and remained in use until 1939.[2] C
onstantin Perskyi had coined the word television in a paper read to the Internat
ional Electricity Congress at the International World Fair in Paris on August 25
, 1900. Perskyi's paper reviewed the existing electromechanical technologies, me
ntioning the work of Nipkow and others.[3] However, it was not until 1907 that d
evelopments in amplification tube technology, by Lee de Forest and Arthur Korn a

mong others, made the design practical.[4]

The first demonstration of the instantaneous transmission of images was by Georg
es Rignoux and A. Fournier in Paris in 1909. A matrix of 64 selenium cells, indi
vidually wired to a mechanical commutator, served as an electronic retina. In th
e receiver, a type of Kerr cell modulated the light and a series of variously an
gled mirrors attached to the edge of a rotating disc scanned the modulated beam
onto the display screen. A separate circuit regulated synchronization. The 8x8 p
ixel resolution in this proof-of-concept demonstration was just sufficient to cl
early transmit individual letters of the alphabet. An updated image was transmit
ted "several times" each second.[5]
In 1911, Boris Rosing and his student Vladimir Zworykin created a television sys
tem that used a mechanical mirror-drum scanner to transmit, in Zworykin's words,
"very crude images" over wires to the "Braun tube" (cathode ray tube or "CRT")
in the receiver. Moving images were not possible because, in the scanner, "the s
ensitivity was not enough and the selenium cell was very laggy".[6]
On March 25, 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demo
nstration of televised silhouette images in motion, at Selfridge's Department St
ore in London.[7] AT&T's Bell Telephone Laboratories transmitted halftone still
images of transparencies in May 1925. On June 13 of that year, Charles Francis J
enkins transmitted the silhouette image of a toy windmill in motion, over a dist
ance of five miles from a naval radio station in Maryland to his laboratory in W
ashington, D.C., using a lensed disk scanner with a 48-line resolution.[8][9]
However, if television is defined as the live transmission of moving images with
continuous tonal variation, Baird first achieved this privately on October 2, 1
925. But strictly speaking, Baird had not yet achieved moving images for his sca
nner worked at only five images per second, below the threshold required to give
the illusion of motion, usually defined as at least 12 images per second. By Ja
nuary, he had improved the scan rate to 12.5 images per second.[citation needed]
Then on January 26, 1926 Baird gave what is widely recognized as being the worl
d's first demonstration of a working television system, to members of the Royal
Institution and a newspaper reporter from The Times, at his laboratory in 22 Fri
th Street, Soho, London.[10] Unlike later electronic systems with several hundre
d lines of resolution, Baird's vertically scanned image, using a scanning disk e
mbedded with a double spiral of lenses, had only 30 lines, just enough to reprod
uce a recognizable human face.
In 1927, Baird transmitted a signal over 438 miles (705 km) of telephone line be
tween London and Glasgow. In 1928, Baird's company (Baird Television Development
Company/Cinema Television) broadcast the first transatlantic television signal,
between London and New York, and the first shore-to-ship transmission. He also
demonstrated an electromechanical color, infrared (dubbed "Noctovision"), and st
ereoscopic television, using additional lenses, disks and filters. In parallel,
Baird developed a video disk recording system dubbed "Phonovision"; a number of
the Phonovision recordings, dating back to 1927, still exist.[11] In 1929, he be
came involved in the first experimental electromechanical television service in
Germany. In November of the same year, Baird and Bernard Natan of Path establishe
d France's first television company, Tlvision-Baird-Natan. In 1931, he made the fi
rst outdoor remote broadcast, of the Epsom Derby.[12] In 1932, he demonstrated u
ltra-short wave television. Baird's electromechanical system reached a peak of 2
40-lines of resolution on BBC television broadcasts in 1936 though the mechanica
l system did not scan the televised scene directly. Instead a 17.5mm film was sh
ot, rapidly developed and then scanned while the film was still wet. On November
2, 1936 the BBC began transmitting the world's first public television service
from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London[13] following alternate dail
y test broadcasts of the Baird and Marconi systems to the Radio Show at Olympia
at the end of August. It therefore claims to be the birthplace of television bro

adcasting as we know it today. The intermediate film system was discontinued wit
hin three months in favour of a 405-line all-electronic system developed by Marc
oni-EMI.[14]
Herbert E. Ives and Frank Gray of Bell Telephone Laboratories gave a dramatic de
monstration of mechanical television on April 7, 1927. The reflected-light telev
ision system included both small and large viewing screens. The small receiver h
ad a two-inch-wide by 2.5-inch-high screen. The large receiver had a screen 24 i
nches wide by 30 inches high. Both sets were capable of reproducing reasonably a
ccurate, monochromatic moving images. Along with the pictures, the sets also rec
eived synchronized sound. The system transmitted images over two paths: first, a
copper wire link from Washington to New York City, then a radio link from Whipp
any, New Jersey. Comparing the two transmission methods, viewers noted no differ
ence in quality. Subjects of the telecast included Secretary of Commerce Herbert
Hoover. A flying-spot scanner beam illuminated these subjects. The scanner that
produced the beam had a 50-aperture disk. The disc revolved at a rate of 18 fra
mes per second, capturing one frame about every 56 milliseconds. (Today's system
s typically transmit 30 or 60 frames per second, or one frame every 33.3 or 16.7
milliseconds respectively.) Television historian Albert Abramson underscored th
e significance of the Bell Labs demonstration: "It was in fact the best demonstr
ation of a mechanical television system ever made to this time. It would be seve
ral years before any other system could even begin to compare with it in picture
quality."[15]
Meanwhile in the Soviet Union, Lon Theremin had been developing a mirror drum-bas
ed television, starting with 16 lines resolution in 1925, then 32 lines and even
tually 64 using interlacing in 1926, and as part of his thesis on May 7, 1926 he
electrically transmitted and then projected near-simultaneous moving images on
a five foot square screen.[9] By 1927 he achieved an image of 100 lines, a resol
ution that was not surpassed until 1931 by RCA, with 120 lines.[citation needed]
On December 25, 1925, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a television system with a
40-line resolution that employed a Nipkow disk scanner and CRT display at Hamam
atsu Industrial High School in Japan. This prototype is still on display at the
Takayanagi Memorial Museum in Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu Campus. His researc
h in creating a production model was halted by the US after Japan lost World War
II.[16]
Electronic television[edit]
Main article: Video camera tube
In 1908 Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, fellow of the Royal Society (UK), publi
shed a letter in the scientific journal Nature in which he described how "distan
t electric vision" could be achieved by using a cathode ray tube (or "Braun" tub
e, after its inventor, Karl Braun) as both a transmitting and receiving device,[
17][18] apparently the first iteration of the electronic television method that
would dominate the field until recently. He expanded on his vision in a speech g
iven in London in 1911 and reported in The Times[19] and the Journal of the Rntge
n Society.[20][21] In a letter to Nature published in October 1926, Campbell-Swi
nton also announced the results of some "not very successful experiments" he had
conducted with G. M. Minchin and J. C. M. Stanton. They had attempted to genera
te an electrical signal by projecting an image onto a selenium-coated metal plat
e that was simultaneously scanned by a cathode ray beam.[22][23] These experimen
ts were conducted before March 1914, when Minchin died,[24] but they were later
repeated by two different teams in 1937, by H. Miller and J. W. Strange from EMI
,[25] and by H. Iams and A. Rose from RCA.[26] Both teams succeeded in transmitt
ing "very faint" images with the original Campbell-Swinton's selenium-coated pla
te. Although others had experimented with using a cathode ray tube as a receiver
, the concept of using one as a transmitter was novel.[27] By the late 1920s, wh
en electromechanical television was still being introduced, several inventors we
re already working separately on versions of all-electronic transmitting tubes,

including Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin in the United States, and Klmn Ti
hanyi in Hungary.
On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth's image dissector camera tube transmitted its f
irst image, a simple straight line, at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San
Francisco.[28][29] By September 3, 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system su
fficiently to hold a demonstration for the press.[29] In 1929, the system was fu
rther improved by elimination of a motor generator, so that his television syste
m now had no mechanical parts.[30] That year, Farnsworth transmitted the first l
ive human images with his system, including a three and a half-inch image of his
wife Elma ("Pem") with her eyes closed (possibly due to the bright lighting req
uired).[31]
Meanwhile, Vladimir Zworykin was also experimenting with the cathode ray tube to
create and show images. While working for Westinghouse Electric in 1923, he beg
an to develop an electronic camera tube. But in a 1925 demonstration, the image
was dim, had low contrast and poor definition, and was stationary.[32] Zworykin'
s imaging tube never got beyond the laboratory stage. But RCA, which acquired th
e Westinghouse patent, asserted that the patent for Farnsworth's 1927 image diss
ector was written so broadly that it would exclude any other electronic imaging
device. Thus RCA, on the basis of Zworykin's 1923 patent application, filed a pa
tent interference suit against Farnsworth. The U.S. Patent Office examiner disag
reed in a 1935 decision, finding priority of invention for Farnsworth against Zw
orykin. Farnsworth claimed that Zworykin's 1923 system would be unable to produc
e an electrical image of the type to challenge his patent. Zworykin received a p
atent in 1928 for a color transmission version of his 1923 patent application,[3
3] he also divided his original application in 1931.[34] Zworykin was unable or
unwilling to introduce evidence of a working model of his tube that was based on
his 1923 patent application. In September 1939, after losing an appeal in the c
ourts and determined to go forward with the commercial manufacturing of televisi
on equipment, RCA agreed to pay Farnsworth US$1 million (the equivalent of $13.8
million in 2006) over a ten-year period, in addition to license payments, to us
e Farnsworth's patents.[35][36]
The problem of low sensitivity to light resulting in low electrical output from
transmitting or "camera" tubes would be solved with the introduction of charge-s
torage technology by Klmn Tihanyi beginning in 1924.[37] His solution was a camera
tube that accumulated and stored electrical charges ("photoelectrons") within t
he tube throughout each scanning cycle. The device was first described in a pate
nt application he filed in Hungary in March 1926 for a television system he dubb
ed "Radioskop".[38] After further refinements included in a 1928 patent applicat
ion,[37] Tihanyi's patent was declared void in Great Britain in 1930,[39] and so
he applied for patents in the United States. Although his breakthrough would be
incorporated into the design of RCA's "iconoscope" in 1931, the U.S. patent for
Tihanyi's transmitting tube would not be granted until May 1939. The patent for
his receiving tube had been granted the previous October. Both patents had been
purchased by RCA prior to their approval.[40][41] Charge storage remains a basi
c principle in the design of imaging devices for television to the present day.[
38]
Development continued around the world. At the Berlin Radio Show in August 1931,
Manfred von Ardenne gave a public demonstration of a television system using a
CRT for both transmission and reception. However, Ardenne had not developed a ca
mera tube, using the CRT instead as a flying-spot scanner to scan slides and fil
m.[42] Philo Farnsworth gave the world's first public demonstration of an all-el
ectronic television system, using a live camera, at the Franklin Institute of Ph
iladelphia on August 25, 1934, and for ten days afterwards.[43][44]
In 1933 RCA introduced an improved camera tube that relied on Tihanyi's charge s
torage principle.[45] Dubbed the Iconoscope by Zworykin, the new tube had a ligh

t sensitivity of about 75,000 lux, and thus was claimed to be much more sensitiv
e than Farnsworth's image dissector.[citation needed] However, Farnsworth had ov
ercome his power problems with his Image Dissector through the invention of a co
mpletely unique "multipactor" device that he began work on in 1930, and demonstr
ated in 1931.[46][47] This small tube could amplify a signal reportedly to the 6
0th power or better[48] and showed great promise in all fields of electronics. A
problem with the multipactor, unfortunately, was that it wore out at an unsatis
factory rate.[49]
In Britain the EMI engineering team led by Isaac Shoenberg applied in 1932 for a
patent for a new device they dubbed "the Emitron",[50][51] which formed the hea
rt of the cameras they designed for the BBC. On November 2, 1936, a 405-line bro
adcasting service employing the Emitron began at studios in Alexandra Palace, an
d transmitted from a specially built mast atop one of the Victorian building's t
owers. It alternated for a short time with Baird's mechanical system in adjoinin
g studios, but was more reliable and visibly superior. This was the world's firs
t regular high-definition television service.[52]
The original American iconoscope was noisy, had a high ratio of interference to
signal, and ultimately gave disappointing results, especially when compared to t
he high definition mechanical scanning systems then becoming available.[53][54]
The EMI team under the supervision of Isaac Shoenberg analyzed how the iconoscop
e (or Emitron) produces an electronic signal and concluded that its real efficie
ncy was only about 5% of the theoretical maximum.[55][56] They solved this probl
em by developing and patenting in 1934 two new camera tubes dubbed super-Emitron
and CPS Emitron.[57][58][59] The super-Emitron was between ten and fifteen time
s more sensitive than the original Emitron and iconoscope tubes and, in some cas
es, this ratio was considerably greater.[55] It was used for an outside broadcas
ting by the BBC, for the first time, on Armistice Day 1937, when the general pub
lic could watch in a television set how the King lay a wreath at the Cenotaph.[6
0] This was the first time that anyone could broadcast a live street scene from
cameras installed on the roof of neighbor buildings, because neither Farnsworth
nor RCA could do the same before the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by

RCA in 1939
On the other hand, in 1934, Zworykin shared some patent rights with the German l
icensee company Telefunken.[61] The "image iconoscope" ("Superikonoskop" in Germ
any) was produced as a result of the collaboration. This tube is essentially ide
ntical to the super-Emitron.[citation needed] The production and commercializati
on of the super-Emitron and image iconoscope in Europe were not affected by the
patent war between Zworykin and Farnsworth, because Dieckmann and Hell had prior
ity in Germany for the invention of the image dissector, having submitted a pate
nt application for their Lichtelektrische Bildzerlegerrhre fr Fernseher (Photoelec
tric Image Dissector Tube for Television) in Germany in 1925,[62] two years befo
re Farnsworth did the same in the United States.[63] The image iconoscope (Super
ikonoskop) became the industrial standard for public broadcasting in Europe from
1936 until 1960, when it was replaced by the vidicon and plumbicon tubes. Indee
d it was the representative of the European tradition in electronic tubes compet
ing against the American tradition represented by the image orthicon.[64][65] Th
e German company Heimann produced the Superikonoskop for the 1936 Berlin Olympic
Games,[66][67] later Heimann also produced and commercialized it from 1940 to 1
955,[68] finally the Dutch company Philips produced and commercialized the image
iconoscope and multicon from 1952 to 1958.[65][69]
American television broadcasting at the time consisted of a variety of markets i
n a wide range of sizes, each competing for programming and dominance with separ
ate technology, until deals were made and standards agreed upon in 1941.[70] RCA

, for example, used only Iconoscopes in the New York area, but Farnsworth Image
Dissectors in Philadelphia and San Francisco.[71] In September 1939, RCA agreed
to pay the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation royalties over the next t
en years for access to Farnsworth's patents.[72] With this historic agreement in
place, RCA integrated much of what was best about the Farnsworth Technology int
o their systems.[71]
In 1941, the United States implemented 525-line television.[73][74] The world's
first 625-line television standard was designed in the Soviet Union in 1944, and
became a national standard in 1946.[75] The first broadcast in 625-line standar
d occurred in 1948 in Moscow.[76] The concept of 625 lines per frame was subsequ
ently implemented in the European CCIR standard.[77]
Color television[edit]
Main article: Color television
Title card for NBC, promoting their broadcast "in RCA color".
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of televis
ion and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in
color video.
In its most basic form, a color broadcast can be created by broadcasting three m
onochrome images, one each in the three colors of red, green and blue (RGB). Whe
n displayed together or in rapid succession, these images will blend together to
produce a full color image as seen by the viewer.
One of the great technical challenges of introducing color broadcast television
was the desire to conserve bandwidth, potentially three times that of the existi
ng black-and-white standards, and not use an excessive amount of radio spectrum.
In the United States, after considerable research, the National Television Syst
ems Committee[78] approved an all-electronic system developed by RCA which encod
ed the color information separately from the brightness information and greatly
reduced the resolution of the color information in order to conserve bandwidth.
The brightness image remained compatible with existing black-and-white televisio
n sets at slightly reduced resolution, while color televisions could decode the
extra information in the signal and produce a limited-resolution color display.
The higher resolution black-and-white and lower resolution color images combine
in the eye to produce a seemingly high-resolution color image. The NTSC standard
represented a major technical achievement.

Television antenna on a rooftop

Although all-electronic color was introduced in the U.S. in 1953,[79] high price
s and the scarcity of color programming greatly slowed its acceptance in the mar
ketplace. The first national color broadcast (the 1954 Tournament of Roses Parad
e) occurred on January 1, 1954, but during the following ten years most network
broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white
. It was not until the mid-1960s that color sets started selling in large number
s, due in part to the color transition of 1965 in which it was announced that ov
er half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that f
all. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later.
Early color sets were either floor-standing console models or tabletop versions
nearly as bulky and heavy, so in practice they remained firmly anchored in one p
lace. The introduction of GE's relatively compact and lightweight Porta-Color se
t in the spring of 1966 made watching color television a more flexible and conve
nient proposition. In 1972, sales of color sets finally surpassed sales of black
-and-white sets. Also in 1972, the last holdout among daytime network programs c

onverted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.

Color broadcasting in Europe was not standardized on the PAL format until the 19
60s, and broadcasts did not start until 1967. By this point many of the technica
l problems in the early sets had been worked out, and the spread of color sets i
n Europe was fairly rapid.
By the mid-1970s, the only stations broadcasting in black-and-white were a few h
igh-numbered UHF stations in small markets, and a handful of low-power repeater
stations in even smaller markets such as vacation spots. By 1979, even the last
of these had converted to color and by the early 1980s B&W sets had been pushed
into niche markets, notably low-power uses, small portable sets, or use as video
monitor screens in lower-cost consumer equipment, in the television production
and post-production industry.

Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is av
ailable.
Broadcast television[edit]
Further information: Timeline of the introduction of television in countries
Overview[edit]
Programming is broadcast by television stations, sometimes called "channels", as
stations are licensed by their governments to broadcast only over assigned chan
nels in the television band. At first, terrestrial broadcasting was the only way
television could be widely distributed, and because bandwidth was limited, i.e.
, there were only a small number of channels available, government regulation wa
s the norm.
In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed stations to bro
adcast advertisements beginning in July 1941, but required public service progra
mming commitments as a requirement for a license. By contrast, the United Kingdo
m chose a different route, imposing a television license fee on owners of televi
sion reception equipment to fund the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), whi
ch had public service as part of its Royal Charter.
United Kingdom[edit]
The first British television broadcast was made by Baird Television's electromec
hanical system over the BBC radio transmitter in September 1929. Baird provided
a limited amount of programming five days a week by 1930. During this time, Sout
hampton earned the distinction of broadcasting the first-ever live television in
terview, which featured Peggy O'Neil, an actress and singer from Buffalo, New Yo
rk.[80] On August 22, 1932, BBC launched its own regular service using Baird's 3
0-line electromechanical system, continuing until September 11, 1935. On Novembe
r 2, 1936 the BBC began broadcasting a dual-system service, alternating between
Marconi-EMI's 405-line standard and Baird's improved 240-line standard, from Ale
xandra Palace in London, making the BBC Television Service (now BBC One) the UK'
s first regular high-definition television service. The government, on advice fr
om a special advisory committee, decided that Marconi-EMI's electronic system ga
ve the superior picture, and the Baird system was dropped in February 1937. TV b
roadcasts in London were on the air an average of four hours daily from 1936 to
1939. There were 12,000 to 15,000 receivers. Some sets in restaurants or bars mi
ght have 100 viewers for sport events (Dunlap, p56). The outbreak of the Second
World War caused the BBC service to be abruptly suspended on September 1, 1939,
at 12:35 pm, after a Mickey Mouse cartoon and test signals were broadcast,[81] s
o that transmissions could not be used as a beacon to guide enemy aircraft to Lo
ndon.[citation needed] It resumed, again from Alexandra Palace on June 7, 1946 a
fter the end of the war, began with a live programme that opened with the line "
Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh??" and
was proceeded by the same Mickey Mouse cartoon broadcast on the last day before

the war.[81] At the end of 1947 there were 54,000 licensed television receivers,
compared with 44,000 television sets in the United States at that time.[82]
The first transatlantic television signal was sent in 1928 from London to New Yo
rk[83] by the Baird Television Development Company/Cinema Television, although t
his signal was not broadcast to the public. The first live satellite signal to B
ritain from the United States was broadcast via the Telstar satellite on July 23
, 1962.
The first live broadcast from the European continent was made on August 27, 1950
.
United States[edit]
WNBT (later WNBC) schedule for first week of commercial TV programming in the Un
ited States, July 1941
American family watching TV, 1958
The first regularly scheduled television service in the United States began on J
uly 2, 1928, fifteen months before the United Kingdom. The Federal Radio Commiss
ion authorized C. F. Jenkins to broadcast from experimental station W3XK in Whea
ton Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. For at least the first eighteen month
s, 48-line silhouette images from motion picture film were broadcast, although b
eginning in the summer of 1929 he occasionally broadcast in halftones.[84][85]
Hugo Gernsback's New York City radio station began a regular, if limited, schedu
le of live television broadcasts on August 14, 1928, using 48-line images. Worki
ng with only one transmitter, the station alternated radio broadcasts with silen
t television images of the station's call sign, faces in motion, and wind-up toy
s in motion.[86][87] Speaking later that month, Gernsback downplayed the broadca
sts, intended for amateur experimenters. "In six months we may have television f
or the public, but so far we have not got it."[88] Gernsback also published Tele
vision, the world's first magazine about the medium.
General Electric's experimental station in Schenectady, New York, on the air spo
radically since January 13, 1928, was able to broadcast reflected-light, 48-line
images via shortwave as far as Los Angeles, and by September was making four te
levision broadcasts weekly. It is considered to be the direct predecessor of cur
rent television station WRGB. The Queen's Messenger, a one-act play broadcast on
September 11, 1928, was the world's first live drama on television.[89]
Radio giant RCA began daily experimental television broadcasts in New York City
in March 1929 over station W2XBS, the predecessor of current television station
WNBC. The 60-line transmissions consisted of pictures, signs, and views of perso
ns and objects.[90] Experimental broadcasts continued to 1931.[91]
General Broadcasting System's WGBS radio and W2XCR television aired their regula
r broadcasting debut in New York City on April 26, 1931, with a special demonstr
ation set up in Aeolian Hall at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street. Thousands
waited to catch a glimpse of the Broadway stars who appeared on the six-inch (15
cm) square image, in an evening event to publicize a weekday programming schedu
le offering films and live entertainers during the four-hour daily broadcasts. A
ppearing were boxer Primo Carnera, actors Gertrude Lawrence, Louis Calhern, Fran
ces Upton and Lionel Atwill, WHN announcer Nils Granlund, the Forman Sisters, an
d a host of others.[92]
CBS's New York City station W2XAB began broadcasting their first regular seven-d
ay-a-week television schedule on July 21, 1931, with a 60-line electromechanical

system. The first broadcast included Mayor Jimmy Walker, the Boswell Sisters, K
ate Smith, and George Gershwin. The service ended in February 1933.[93] Don Lee
Broadcasting's station W6XAO in Los Angeles went on the air in December 1931. Us
ing the UHF spectrum, it broadcast a regular schedule of filmed images every day
except Sundays and holidays for several years.[94]
By 1935, low-definition electromechanical television broadcasting had ceased in
the United States except for a handful of stations run by public universities th
at continued to 1939. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) saw television
in the continual flux of development with no consistent technical standards, he
nce all such stations in the U.S. were granted only experimental and non-commerc
ial licenses, hampering television's economic development. Just as importantly,
Philo Farnsworth's August 1934 demonstration of an all-electronic system at the
Franklin Institute in Philadelphia pointed out the direction of television's fut
ure.
On June 15, 1936, Don Lee Broadcasting began a one month-long demonstration of h
igh definition (240+ line) television in Los Angeles on W6XAO (later KTSL, now K
CBS-TV) with a 300-line image from motion picture film. By October, W6XAO was ma
king daily television broadcasts of films. RCA and its subsidiary NBC demonstrat
ed in New York City a 343-line electronic television broadcast, with live and fi
lm segments, to its licensees on July 7, 1936, and made its first public demonst
ration to the press on November 6. Irregularly scheduled broadcasts continued th
rough 1937 and 1938.[95] Regularly scheduled electronic broadcasts began in Apri
l 1938 in New York (to the second week of June, and resuming in August) and Los
Angeles.[96][97][98][99] NBC officially began regularly scheduled television bro
adcasts in New York on April 30, 1939 with a broadcast of the opening of the 193
9 New York World's Fair. By June 1939, regularly scheduled 441-line electronic t
elevision broadcasts were available in New York City and Los Angeles, and by Nov
ember on General Electric's station in Schenectady. From May through December 19
39, the New York City NBC station (W2XBS) of RCA broadcast twenty to fifty-eight
hours of programming per month, Wednesday through Sunday of each week. The prog
ramming was 33% news, 29% drama, and 17% educational programming, with an estima
ted 2,000 receiving sets by the end of the year, and an estimated audience of fi
ve to eight thousand. A remote truck could cover outdoor events from up to 10 mi
les (16 km) away from the transmitter, which was located atop the Empire State B
uilding. Coaxial cable was used to cover events at Madison Square Garden. The co
verage area for reliable reception was a radius of 40 to 50 miles (80 km) from t
he Empire State Building, an area populated by more than 10,000,000 people (Lohr
, 1940).
The FCC adopted NTSC television engineering standards on May 2, 1941, calling fo
r 525 lines of vertical resolution, 30 frames per second with interlaced scannin
g, 60 fields per second, and sound carried by frequency modulation. Sets sold si
nce 1939 which were built for slightly lower resolution could still be adjusted
to receive the new standard. (Dunlap, p31). The FCC saw television ready for com
mercial licensing, and the first such licenses were issued to NBC- and CBS-owned
stations in New York on July 1, 1941, followed by Philco's station WPTZ in Phil
adelphia.
The first official, paid advertising to appear on American commercial television
occurred on the afternoon of July 1, 1941 over New York station WNBT (now WNBC)
before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.
The announcement for Bulova watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4
.00 to $9.00 (reports vary), displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like
a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulo
va Watch Time", was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern w
hile the second hand swept around the dial for one minute.[100][101]
After the U.S. entry into World War II, the FCC reduced the required minimum air

time for commercial television stations from 15 hours per week to 4 hours. Most
TV stations suspended broadcasting; of the ten original television stations onl
y six continued through the war.[102] On the few that remained, programs include
d entertainment such as boxing and plays, events at Madison Square Garden, and i
llustrated war news as well as training for air raid wardens and first aid provi
ders. In 1942, there were 5,000 sets in operation, but production of new TVs, ra
dios, and other broadcasting equipment for civilian purposes was suspended from
April 1942 to August 1945 (Dunlap).

The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indiana
polis
By 1947, when there were 40 million radios in the U.S., there were about 44,000
television sets (with probably 30,000 in the New York area).[82] Regular network
television broadcasts began on NBC on a three-station network linking New York
with the Capital District and Philadelphia in 1944; on the DuMont Television Net
work in 1946, and on CBS and ABC in 1948.
Following the rapid rise of television after the war, the Federal Communications
Commission was flooded with applications for television station licenses. With
more applications than available television channels, the FCC ordered a freeze o
n processing station applications in 1948 that remained in effect until April 14
, 1952.[102]
By 1949, the networks stretched from New York to the Mississippi River, and by 1
951 to the West Coast. Commercial color television broadcasts began on CBS in 19
51 with a field-sequential color system that was suspended four months later for
technical and economic reasons. The television industry's National Television S
ystem Committee (NTSC) developed a color television system based on RCA technolo
gy that was compatible with existing black and white receivers, and commercial c
olor broadcasts reappeared in 1953.
Mexico[edit]
The first testing television station in Mexico signed on in 1935. When KFMB-TV i
n San Diego signed on in 1949, Baja California became the first state to receive
a commercial television station over the air. Within a year, the Mexican govern
ment would adopt the U.S. NTSC 525-line B/W 60-field-per-second system as the co
untry's broadcast standard. In 1950, the first commercial television station wit
hin Mexico, XHTV in Mexico City, signed on the air, followed by XEW-TV in 1951 a
nd XHGC in 1952. Those three were not only the first television stations in the
country, but also the flagship stations of Telesistema Mexicano which was formed
in 1955. That year, Emilio Azcrraga Vidaurreta, who had signed on XEW-TV, entere
d into a partnership with Rmulo O'Farrill who had signed on XHTV, and Guillermo G
onzlez Camarena, who had signed on XHGC. The earliest 3D television broadcasts in
the world were broadcast over XHGC in 1954. Color television was introduced in
1962, also over XHGC-TV. One of Telesistema Mexicano's earliest broadcasts as a
network, over XEW-TV, on June 25, 1955, was the first international North Americ
an broadcast in the medium's history, and was jointly aired with NBC in the Unit
ed States, where it aired as the premiere episode of Wide Wide World, and the Ca
nadian Broadcasting Corporation. Except for a break between 1969 1973, every comme
rcial television station in Mexico, with exceptions in the border cities, was ex
pected to affiliate with a subnetwork of Telesistema Mexicano or its successor,
Televisa (formed by the 1973 merger of Telesistema Mexicano and Television Indep
endiente de Mexico). This condition would not be relaxed for good until 1993, wh
en Imevision was privatized to become TV Azteca (now known simply as Azteca).
Canada[edit]
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) adopted the American NTSC 525-line B
/W 60 field per second system as its broadcast standard. It began television bro

adcasting in Canada in September 1952. The first broadcast was on September 6, 1

952 from its Montreal station CBFT. The premiere broadcast was bilingual, spoken
in English and French. Two days later, on September 8, 1952, the Toronto statio
n CBLT went on the air. This became the English-speaking flagship station for th
e country, while CBFT became the French-language flagship after a second English
-language station was licensed to CBC in Montreal later in the decade. The CBC's
first privately owned affiliate television station, CKSO in Sudbury, Ontario, l
aunched in October 1953 (at the time, all private stations were expected to affi
liate with the CBC, a condition that was relaxed in 1960 61 when CTV, Canada's sec
ond national English-language network, was formed).
Czechoslovakia[edit]
First mass-produced Czechoslovak television set Tesla 4001A (1953).
Kamzk TV Tower, Bratislava, Slovakia (built: 1975)
In former Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia and Czech Republic) the first experimenta
l television sets were produced in 1948. In the same year the first TV- transmis
sion was performed. The first regular TV public transmission started on 1 May 19
53. The state-owned TV-centers were in Prague, Bratislava, Brno and Ostrava. In
1961 more than a million citizens had a television set. In 1970, The Czechoslova
k television had three channels: Czech, Slovak and a bilingual Federal Channel.
In 1973, color broadcasting started.
France[edit]
The first experiments in television broadcasting began in France in the 1930s, a
lthough the French did not immediately employ the new technology.
In November 1929, Bernard Natan established France's first television company, Tlv
ision-Baird-Natan. On April 14, 1931, there took place the first transmission wi
th a thirty-line standard by Ren Barthlemy. On December 6, 1931, Henri de France c
reated the Compagnie Gnrale de Tlvision (CGT). In December 1932, Barthlemy carried ou
t an experimental program in black and white (definition: 60 lines) one hour per
week, "Paris Tlvision", which gradually became daily from early 1933.
The first official channel of French television appeared on February 13, 1935, t
he date of the official inauguration of television in France, which was broadcas
t in 60 lines from 8:15 to 8:30 pm. The program showed the actress Batrice Bretty
in the studio of Radio-PTT Vision at 103 rue de Grenelle in Paris. The broadcas
t had a range of 100 km (62 mi). On November 10, George Mandel, Minister of Post
s, inaugurated the first broadcast in 180 lines from the transmitter of the Eiff
el Tower. On the 18th, Susy Wincker, the first announcer since the previous June
, carried out a demonstration for the press from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Broadcasts bec
ame regular from January 4, 1937 from 11:00 to 11:30 am and 8:00 to 8:30 pm duri
ng the week, and from 5:30 to 7:30 pm on Sundays. In July 1938, a decree defined
for three years a standard of 455 lines VHF (whereas three standards were used
for the experiments: 441 lines for Gramont, 450 lines for the Compagnie des Comp
teurs and 455 for Thomson). In 1939, there were about only 200 to 300 individual
television sets, some of which were also available in a few public places.
With the entry of France into World War II the same year, broadcasts ceased and
the transmitter of the Eiffel Tower was sabotaged. On September 3, 1940, French
television was seized by the German occupation forces. A technical agreement was
signed by the Compagnie des Compteurs and Telefunken, and a financing agreement
for the resuming of the service is signed by German Ministry of Post and Radiod
iffusion Nationale (Vichy's radio). On May 7, 1943 at 3:00 evening broadcasts. T
he first broadcast of Fernsehsender Paris (Paris Tlvision) was transmitted from ru
e Cognac-Jay. These regular broadcasts (51/4 hours a day) lasted until August 16

, 1944. One thousand 441-line sets, most of which were installed in

spitals, picked up the broadcasts. These Nazi-controlled television
rom the Eiffel Tower in Paris were able to be received on the south
land by R.A.F. and BBC engineers,[103] who photographed the station
on image direct from the screen.

soldiers' ho
broadcasts f
coast of Eng
identificati

In 1944, Ren Barthlemy developed an 819-line television standard. During the years
of occupation, Barthlemy reached 1015 and even 1042 lines. On October 1, 1944, t
elevision service resumed after the liberation of Paris. The broadcasts were tra
nsmitted from the Cognacq-Jay studios. In October 1945, after repairs, the trans
mitter of the Eiffel Tower was back in service. On November 20, 1948, Franois Mit
terrand decreed a broadcast standard of 819 lines; broadcasting began at the end
of 1949 in this definition. France was the only European country to adopt it (o
thers were to choose 625 lines).
Germany[edit]
Electromechanical broadcasts began in Germany in 1929, but were without sound un
til 1934. Network electronic service started on March 22, 1935, on 180 lines usi
ng telecine transmission of film, intermediate film system, or cameras using the
Nipkow Disk. Transmissions using cameras based on the iconoscope began on Janua
ry 15, 1936. The Berlin Summer Olympic Games were televised, using both all-elec
tronic iconoscope-based cameras and intermediate film cameras, to Berlin and Ham
burg in August 1936. Twenty-eight public television rooms were opened for anybod
y who did not own a television set. The Germans had a 441-line system on the air
in February 1937, and during World War II brought it to France, where they broa
dcast from the Eiffel Tower.
After the end of World War II, the American Armed Forces Radio Network provided
US TV programming to the occupation forces in Germany via US TV receivers origin
ally designed to operate at 525 lines and 60 fields. For operation in Germany, t
he vertical frequency was changed to the European mains frequency standard of 50
Hz to avoid power line wiggles. The horizontal frequency moved from 15,750 Hz t
o 15,625 Hz a 0.5 microsecond change in the length of a line. US TV receivers th
us modified needed only an adjustment to the vertical hold control to display a
625 line (= 576 visual lines + 49 lines of non-visual synch and burst data), 50
field scan, which became the German standard. This AFN system, however, was not
identical to Germany's later PAL standard. PAL, invented by Walter Bruch, operat
ed at 576 lines while the modified American sets displayed only the standard NTS
C 486 visual lines. Effectively, the sets displayed even less, namely 243 visibl
e lines due to display-internal deinterlacing. This involved alternately discard
ing one field and applying line doubling on the result. Also, the PAL-specific Y
UV color system was not invented until the 1960s.
Italy[edit]
In Italy, the first experimental tests on television broadcasts were made in Tur
in since 1934. The city already hosted the Center for Management of the EIAR (la
tely renamed as RAI) at the premises of the Theatre of Turin. Subsequently, the
EAIR established offices in Rome and Milan. On July 22, 1939 comes into operatio
n in Rome the first television transmitter at the EIAR station, which performed
a regular broadcast for about a year using a 441-line system which was developed
in Germany. In September of the same year, a second television transmitter was
installed in Milan, making experimental broadcasts during major events in the ci
ty.
The broadcasts were suddenly ended on May 31, 1940, by order of the government,
allegedly because of interferences encountered in the first air navigation syste
ms. Also, the imminent participation in the war is believed to have played a rol
e in this decision. EIAR transmitting equipment was relocated to Germany by the
German troops. Lately, it was returned to Italy.

The first official television broadcast began on January 3, 1954 by the RAI.
Soviet Union (USSR)[edit]
The Soviet Union began offering 30-line electromechanical test broadcasts in Mos
cow on October 31, 1931, and a commercially manufactured television set in 1932.
The first experimental transmissions of electronic television took place in Mosc
ow on March 9, 1937, using equipment manufactured and installed by RCA. Regular
broadcasting began on December 31, 1938. It was quickly realized that 343 lines
of resolution offered by this format would have become insufficient in the long
run, thus a specification for 441-line format was developed in 1940, superseded
by a 625-line standard in 1944. This format was ultimately accepted as a nationa
l standard.
The experimental transmissions in 625-line format started in Moscow from Novembe
r 4, 1948. Regular broadcasting began on June 16, 1949. Details for this standar
d were formalized in 1955 specification called GOST 7845-55, basic parameters fo
r black-and-white television broadcast. In particular, frame size was set to 625
lines, frame rate to 25 frames/s interlaced, and video bandwidth to 6 MHz. Thes
e basic parameters were accepted by most countries having 50 Hz mains frequency
and became the foundation of television systems presently known as PAL and SECAM
.
Starting in 1951, broadcasting in the 625-line standard was introduced in other
major cities of the Soviet Union.
Color television broadcast started in 1974, using SECAM color system.[75]
Japan[edit]
In 1979, the Japanese state broadcaster NHK first developed consumer high-defini
tion television with a 5:3 display aspect ratio.[104] The system, known as Hi-Vi
sion or MUSE after its Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding for encoding the s
ignal, required about twice the bandwidth of the existing NTSC system but provid
ed about four times the resolution (1080i/1125 lines). Satellite test broadcasts
started in 1989, with regular testing starting in 1991 and regular broadcasting
of BS-9ch commenced on November 25, 1994, which featured commercial and NHK tel
evision programming.
Sony first demonstrated a wideband analog high-definition television system HDTV
capable video camera, monitor and video tape recorder (VTR) in April 1981 at an
international meeting of television engineers in Algiers. The HDVS range was la
unched in April 1984, with the HDC-100 camera, HDV-100 video recorder and HDS-10
0 video switcher all working in the 1125-line component video format with interl
aced video and a 5:3 aspect ratio.
Technological innovations[edit]
The first national live television broadcast in the U.S. took place on September
4, 1951 when President Harry Truman's speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Confe
rence in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T's transcontinental cable and mi
crowave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets.[105][106][107
]
The first live coast-to-coast commercial television broadcast in the U.S. took p
lace on November 18, 1951 during the premiere of CBS's See It Now, which showed
a split-screen view of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City and the Golden Gate
Bridge in San Francisco. In 1958, the CBC completed the longest television netwo
rk in the world, from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Victoria, British Columbia. Reporte
dly, the first continuous live broadcast of a "breaking" news story in the world
was conducted by the CBC during the Springhill mining disaster, which began on
October 23 of that year.

The development of cable and satellite television in the 1970s allowed for more
channels and encouraged businessmen to target programming toward specific audien
ces. It also enabled the rise of subscription television channels, such as Home
Box Office (HBO) and Showtime in the U.S., and Sky Television in the U.K.
Television sets[edit]
Main articles: Television set and analog television
With his 1884 patent of the Nipkow disc, German technician Paul Nipkow is regard
ed as the inventor of the TV set.
In television's electromechanical era, commercially made television sets were so
ld from 1928 to 1934 in the United Kingdom,[108] United States, and the Soviet U
nion.[109] The earliest commercially made sets sold by Baird in the UK in 1928 w
ere radios with the addition of a television device consisting of a neon tube be
hind a mechanically spinning disk (the Nipkow disk) with a spiral of apertures t
hat produced a red postage-stamp size image, enlarged to twice that size by a ma
gnifying glass. The Baird "Televisor" was also available without the radio. The
Televisor sold in 1930 1933 is considered the first mass-produced set, selling abo
ut a thousand units.[110]
The first commercially made electronic television sets with cathode ray tubes we
re manufactured by Telefunken in Germany in 1934,[111][112] followed by other ma
kers in France (1936),[113] Britain (1936),[114] and America (1938).[115][116] T
he cheapest of the pre-World War II factory-made American sets, a 1938 image-onl
y model with a 3-inch (8 cm) screen, cost US$125, the equivalent of US$2,020 in
2013. The cheapest model with a 12-inch (30 cm) screen was $445 ($7,200).[117]
An estimated 19,000 electronic television sets were manufactured in Britain, and
about 1,600 in Germany, before World War II. About 7,000 8,000 electronic sets we
re made in the U.S.[118] before the War Production Board halted manufacture in A
pril 1942, production resuming in August 1945.

RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946 1947
Television usage in the United States skyrocketed after World War II with the li
fting of the manufacturing freeze, war-related technological advances, the gradu
al expansion of the television networks westward, the drop in set prices caused
by mass production, increased leisure time, and additional disposable income. In
1947, Motorola introduced the VT-71 television for $189.95, the first televisio
n set to be sold for under $200, finally making television affordable for millio
ns of Americans. While only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television set in 1946
, 55.7% had one in 1954, and 90% by 1962.[119] In Britain, there were 15,000 tel
evision households in 1947, 1.4 million in 1952, and 15.1 million by 1968.

Typical 1950s United States television set

For many years different countries used different technical standards. France in
itially adopted the German 441-line standard but later upgraded to 819 lines, wh
ich gave the highest picture definition of any analogue TV system, approximately
double the resolution of the British 405-line system. However this is not witho
ut a cost, in that the cameras need to produce four times the pixel rate (thus q
uadrupling the bandwidth), from pixels one-quarter the size, reducing the sensit
ivity by an equal amount. In practice the 819-line cameras never achieved anythi
ng like the resolution that could theoretically be transmitted by the 819 line s
ystem, and for color, France reverted to the 625-line CCIR system used by most E
uropean countries.

With advent of color television most Western European countries adopted PAL stan
dard. France, Soviet Union and most Eastern European countries adopted SECAM. In
North America the original NTSC 525-line standard was augmented to include colo
r transmission with slight slowing down of frame rate.
Throughout the 1960s, television sets used exclusively vacuum tube electronics.
This resulted in relatively heavy and unreliable TVs. In addition, vacuum tubes
were poorly suited to color television, as it required a large amount of tubes w
hich caused further reliability problems. Because vacuum tubes only allowed for
very simple NTSC/PAL filtering, the picture quality of early color sets was rath
er poor. The tint control that is still found on NTSC televisions originally was
meant to correct the color burst phase's drifting when channels were changed. I
n addition, the large number of vacuum tubes required for color prevented the us
e of it in portable TVs.
By the early 1970s, solid-state electronics appeared and quickly displaced vacuu
m tubes in color TVs (black and white sets generally continued to be tube-based)
. This allowed for significantly more reliable TVs and better picture quality. 1
971 was the first year that sales of color TVs in the US exceeded B&W ones. In o
ther countries, color was slower to arrive and did not become common in Western
Europe until the 1980s.
By 1965, the FCC began requiring UHF tuners in all TVs sold in the United States
. In 1971, there were 170 UHF stations in the country, mostly low-power ones tha
t carried local programming. Previously, UHF support from TV manufacturers was s
poradic. Most sets did not come factory-equipped with them, and often merely inc
luded an empty slot in the cabinet where an optional UHF tuner could be installe
d.
During the 1970s, electronic tuners began appearing in high-end TVs in place of
traditional dials, and they would gradually become standard along with remote co
ntrols. Remotes had first appeared in the 1950s with Zenith's Space Command Cont
rol, but these were mechanical devices that emitted a high-pitched audio frequen
cy that the TV detected. The first electronic remote controls did not appear unt
il the 1980s.
1980s TV developments mainly centered on the above-mentioned features. Electroni
c television tuners also went hand-in-hand with the rise of cable television. An
alog comb filters, first introduced in the '70s on high-end sets, gradually beca
me more common. Black-and-white TVs virtually disappeared from the American mark
et except for 5-inch, battery-powered models.
1983 marked the widespread commercial availability of the first LCD TV sets: the
Seiko wristwatch TV (the receiver was in a separate unit, connected by a thin c
able that ran down the wearer's sleeve)[120] and the pocket-size Casio TV-10. Bo
th were black-and-white receivers with low-resolution displays that suffered fro
m poor contrast and serious pixel lag problems. Improved pocket-size units, incl
uding the first color sets, soon followed.[121] Hitachi has been credited with t
he first trade-shown prototype, exhibited in Berlin in 1977.[122]
In the 1990s, three-line digital comb filters appeared on high-end TVs. In addit
ion, composite video and S-Video inputs began appearing to support devices like
video games and VCRs.
Analog broadcast television in the United States ended on June 12, 2009 in favor
of Digital terrestrial television (DTV) or digital-only broadcasting.
Google to launch Android TV[123] in June 2014: A report by GigaOm says that Goog
le will unveil the Android TV platform at the I/O 2014 developer conference, sch
eduled for June 25 and 26. Citing multiple sources familiar with Google's plans,

the report says that Android TV will be a platform that will allow TV and set-t
op box makers to deliver online streaming content to televisions. Google TV, unv
eiled at I/O 2010, also operated on the same principle, but focussed on combing
apps with paid TV content. However, Android TV will only focus on bringing strea
ming services and Android games to TVs.
GigaOm's sources say that Google has been in talks with streaming service provid
ers. Netflix and Hulu Plus are reported to have already come on board for the la
unch. The internet titan may also announce a few hardware partners for Android T
V at the event, who will roll out their products in the markets in the next few
months. What will differentiate Android TV from Google TV will be an easy-to-und
erstand interface. Google has reportedly worked on keeping the UI simple; these
efforts have been centred on a system that is being called 'Pano' internally.