Television has become such a part of our lives and yet, it is still a relatively new addition to our lives. Here, we take a look at a brief history of TV through the decades:
1920s
TV as we know it today started to take shape during this decade. One of the earliest pioneers of television was a Russian named Zworykin who developed the kinescope. This invention was able to record images onto motion picture film. John Logie Baird, in 1926 who also pioneered television technology gave a demonstration to the public in London. By 1928, the very first television channels started operating.
1930s
It would take another decade before television was really brought to the masses and this occurred during the 1939 New York World Fair with a televised address by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The NBC channel in America soon began doing nightly broadcasts.
1940s
Black and white televisions became more common during this decade and by the end of the 1940s, the finishing touches were being put into colour sets. Radio was still far more popular as not many families could afford a television set, TVs were still mostly something that rich families owned. During the Second World War, we see film being used for the first time to create propaganda shorts.
1950s
This is the decade where morning TV shows became a concept. In America, the 1950s saw the creation of one of the most loved and watched TV series in the form of ‘I Love Lucy’. The episode where Lucy goes into labour attracted half of the viewing audience of the homes that had sets. Elvis Presley appeared on television for the first in the mid 1950s, shooting him to instant fame.
1960s
The sixties saw a rise in more informative programmes and the first political debates to be televised. It was a pretty revolutionary decade for television. In 1963, extensive news coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy was televised, as was the Martin Luther King speech earlier in the same year. The end of the decade also saw mankind watching a man on the moon!
1970s
This was a big decade for superheroes and children’s television. The traditional family sitcoms became less popular and instead, a trend grew for younger, trendier audiences and cutting edge programming. Colour televisions also became the norm in the majority of households. By the end of the 1970s, video tape recorders were released, opening up a whole new world of in-home movie entertainment. To improve your TV watching, consider TV aerial installation Cheltenham by steveunettaerials.co.uk/our-services/aerial-services/tv-aerial-installation/tv-aerial-installation-cheltenham/
1980s
There were some amazing sitcoms and dramas filmed during the eighties, like Cheers, Dallas and the Golden Girls to name just a few. This decade also saw the biggest TV audience yet which occurred in 1981 with the televised Royal wedding of Diana Spencer to Prince Charles – 750 million viewers!
1990s
This decade saw the meteoric rise of the sitcom, giving us series like Frasier, Friends and Seinfeld, for example. The 90s also saw the release of DVDs as higher visual quality successor to the already fading VHS tapes.
