Television's Development Articles | Television

By: Beverly Clarke

Television is developed
1926

John Logie Baird (1888-1946) applied for a patent for a mechanical television in 1923. He ran

successful experiments in transmitting images in 1926, and in 1930 he worked with the British

Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to begin mechanical television broadcasting. He also tried,

rather unsuccessfully, to mass-market his television transmitter.


n 1923 Vladimir Zworykin (1889-1982) also applied for a patent. His was for a television

camera that converted optical images into electrical pulses. About six years later he had

developed a receiver and in 1930 demonstrated his system at RCA.


Meanwhile, in Japan, Kenjiro Takayanagi was developing electronic television, too. He was

ahead of Zworykin, but better publicity gave Zworykin the nickname "father of television."

Takayanagi transmitted an image electronically in 1926, with a 40-line resolution and film

running at 14 frames per second.


In 1932 the BBC ventured the first regularly broadcast programs using Baird's mechanical

equipment, though it had been broadcasting special events and other sporadic transmissions

since 1927. The first special-purpose television station was built in Germany in 1935 in

preparation for the Berlin Olympic Games the following year. That Olympic year, NBC

experimented with electronic broadcast from the top of the Empire State Building. The first

live journalistic event covered by television was the 1937 coronation of Britain's King

George VI. That year, the BBC began the first regular, high-quality broadcasting service

using an electronic system.


By 1949, David Sarnoff of RCA had developed a color television tube, but the idea didn't

become practical until Bell Labs developed a color system that could transmit signals a

black-and-white set could still pick up. It was introduced around 1954 and remains in use

today in the United States and Japan.


In the 1990s, high-definition television sets came on the market, with more than 1,000 lines

per screen instead of the usual 525 or 625. And in December 1996, the FCC adopted a new

technical standard for transmitting television through a digital signal. This allows more of

the broadcast bandwidth to be used, enabling high-definition television signals and multiple

programs, audio, or data channels to be broadcast from one source simultaneously. The old

(analog) channels are slated to go off the air by 2009, at which time the government could

auction them for other telecommunications purposes.