The Story So Far

The idea of a machine able to broadcast both sound and vision goes back to 1875. But it wasn't until 1926 that a Scottish engineer turned the idea into a practical reality. Now, his invention dominates the modern media. This is its story.

John Logie Baird produced the first television pictures just eight years after the First World War. They were in black and white and were not very clear, but he had proved that the principle worked. Early sets made in the years of Baird's breakthrough cost as much as a small car and not many were sold. Soon, though, his original system was improved and in 1936 Britain's first regular TV programme went on the air. "Here's Looking At You" was broadcast by the BBC from north London's Alexandra Palace studios twice a day for a weekly budget of one thousand pounds. But Great Britain wasn't the only country producing programmes. Other European nations, including Germany, were also involved in the early days of television. As, of course, was America — and it's there that the real TV revolution began after World War Two.

US television boomed in the late '40s. Commercial stations began to open in almost every city, and national networks made programmes which were seen from coast to coast. One of the American networks — CBS — even developed a colour service as early as 1951. Two years later, TV took another important step when it covered its first major international event — the coronation of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. It was the first time that a worldwide audience of millions had seen history take place in their own homes.

By the end of the decade, TV culture was rapidly becoming a fact of life on both sides of the Atlantic. Even so, it was still a very young medium — lots of people didn't have sets — and many experts thought it wouldn't last. That all changed in the '60s and 70s, though, as television started to satisfy the public's desire, not just for entertainment, but also for rapid, accurate information. As more and more sets were

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