Television history

The history of television the series of scientific

discoveries, technological advances and industrial
bets that resulted in television. Includes innovations
in the design, conception, manufacture and
distribution of televisions. The development of
television programming stations that feed them with
programming until today was also involved.

This technology has been incorporated into our

homes throughout the world. For this reason, no one
today needs an explanation of what television is.
However, few know that a television operates as a
terminal for receiving information sent by cable,
satellite or Hertzian waves, which provides a
specific pattern of points of light that are displayed
on the screen (the pixels). This generates an image
and a sensation of its movement, accompanied by a
synchronized sound sequence.

Origins of television
The history of television begins with the invention
of the Nipkow disk in 1884: a device consisting of a
metal disk and a light source, which was used to
project the light projected by objects onto sheets of
selenium.
It was a first attempt to capture moving images,
although it was not carried out correctly in practice.
But it corresponds to the development of the first
television systems at the beginning of the 20th
century.
The first successful television experience occurred
in 1925, when Scotsman John Logie Baird managed
to synchronize two Nipkow records, attached to the
same axis. Using one as a transmitter and one as a
receiver, he correctly transmitted the image of a
mannequin's head at 14 frames per second.
The experience was replicated before the Royal
Institution in London in 1926. In 1927 Baird
managed to transmit the same image over 438
miles, using a telephone cable. In 1928 he did it
again, this time from London to New York, through
the airwaves.
This technology was used in the first television
transmissions. The name that had already begun to
appear since the beginning of the 20th century,
when the Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi
during the first International Congress of Electricity.

evolution of television
The first marketable television reception apparatus
was created in 1926 and was the work of the
Scotsman Baird. It consisted of a mechanical
device, as we have explained before. This format
was marketed between 1928 and 1934 in the United
States, the United Kingdom and the USSR.
These were radios that featured a neon tube behind
a Nipkow record, which produced an image the size
of a postage stamp, magnified twice its size by a
lens. Since 1929, the 240-line mechanical scan,
which substantially improved the performance of
the device.
In 1931 Vladimir Zvorykin invented the iconoscope
in the RCA laboratories. It was an electronic tube
that made it possible to replace all other television
systems, thanks to an electronic mosaic made up of
thousands of independent photoelectric cells in
three thin layers. This advance revolutionized the
industry and allowed the appearance of electric
television.
Later, in 1934, the cathode ray tube (CRT) system
appeared, which achieved better resolutions and
speeds. This was the work of Telefunken in
Germany, and soon had versions in the main world
powers. Before World War II, about 19,000 sets had
been sold in the UK and about 1,600 in Germany.

The first television broadcast

The very first television broadcast was made by
Baird himself in his laboratory, but it was only for
promotional or demonstration purposes. In 1927 the
BBC produced the first programming broadcasts,
which were not broadcast on a regular schedule. In
1930, the first simultaneous transmission of audio
and black and white images was made.
In 1931, the first television station was created in
Germany, at the home of Manfred von Ardenne.
Regular broadcasts began in Paris in 1932, although
the quality of the image did not exceed 60 lines and
it was in black and white.
To receive the first television broadcasts with
scheduled programming, it would be necessary to
wait until 1936 in England, or 1939 in the United
States. The first regular electronic TV transmissions
occurred in 1937 in France and England.

The golden age of television

In the mid-20th century, televisions and recording
studios proliferated.
In the middle of the 20th century, the golden age of
this medium took place, when it began to spread
throughout the world and various broadcast stations
emerged in each of the countries of the world. In
1953 Eurovisión was created to connect the stations
of European countries via microwave, and in 1960
Mundovisión was created, in an attempt to do the
same on a global scale.
In this period, TV arrived in Latin America and
became extremely popular. Consequently, the first
national broadcasters in each country were founded
and what would later become large private
television consortiums, such as Televisa, were born.