First day of BBC television

Last updated

The world's first scheduled, high-definition (as then defined; meaning 240-line) television programmes were broadcast on 2 November 1936 by the British Broadcasting Corporation. They had been preceded by a number of low-definition BBC test broadcasts, as well as a 180-line Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk service, from Berlin, since March 1935.

Contents

Background

Blue plaque at Alexandra Palace Alexandra palace plaque.jpg
Blue plaque at Alexandra Palace

The British Broadcasting Corporation, already an established radio broadcaster since the mid-1920s, [1] [2] began making experimental television broadcasts in 1929. [3] Low definition (30-line) television transmissions under government license commenced in August 1936. [4]

The BBC Television Service officially launched on 2 November 1936. [5] [6] This is often described as the world's first regular high definition television service. [7] [8] [9] [10] [nb 1] Programming included short ad-hoc performances by musicians, with the duration limited as "lookers in" (as viewers were called) were found to experience eye strain through looking at the small screens then in use. [11] [12]

Line-up

The BBC's official publication, The Radio Times , listed the opening one-hour schedule – the first ever, on a dedicated TV channel – starting at 3 pm, as: [5]

From 9 pm to 10 pm, pre-recorded films and more news were screened. [5] The films included Television Comes to London, a pre-made fifteen-minute documentary about the launch, shot on 35mm film. [11] It was the BBC's first television documentary. [11]

Opening

The first person heard and seen was the announcer, Leslie Mitchell. [11]

According to advance publicity in The Radio Times, the opening was then to be: [13]

by Major the Right Hon. G.C. Tryon, M.P., H.M. Postmaster-General

Mr. R.C. Norman (Chairman of the BBC) and the Right Hon. the Lord Selsdon, K.B.E. (Chairman of the Television Advisory Committee) will also speak.

Variety

The Radio Times billed the Variety performers as: [5]

however, in the event The Lai Founs did not appear. [11]

Dixon performed a specially commissioned song, "Television", written by James Dyrenforth and Kenneth Leslie-Smith. [11] The event made Buck and Bubbles (Buck Washington and John W. Bubbles) the first black people to appear on television. [11]

The musicians were billed as The BBC Television Orchestra, led by Boris Pecker and conducted by Hyam Greenbaum. [5] The producer was listed as Dallas Bower. [5]

Technology

The broadcast was made from a converted wing of Alexandra Palace ("Ally Pally") in London, [5] using the 240-line Baird intermediate film system, [11] on the VHF band.

BBC television initially used two systems on alternate weeks: the Baird system and the 405-line Marconi-EMI system. The decision to use the Baird system for the first week was made on a coin toss. [11] The use of the two formats made the BBC's service the world's first regular high-definition television service; it broadcast from Monday to Saturday between 15:00 and 16:00, and 21:00 and 22:00. [14]

Alexandra Palace housed two studios (one for each system), various scenery stores, make-up areas, dressing rooms, offices, and the transmitter itself.

Notes

  1. ↑ The first regular electronic television service in Germany began in Berlin on 22 March 1935, as Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk. Broadcasting from the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, it used a 180-line system, and was on air for 90 minutes, three times a week.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Television</span> Telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Logie Baird</span> Scottish inventor, known for first demonstrating television

John Logie Baird was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly demonstrated colour television system and the first viable purely electronic colour television picture tube.

The year 1936 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1936.

The year 1935 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1935.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Television</span> Television service of the British Broadcasting Corporation

BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TF1</span> French television channel

TF1 is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network.

Gerald Cock MVO was a British broadcasting executive, who initially worked for BBC Radio, before being made the corporation's very first Director of Television, in effect the very first Controller of the television channel initially known as the BBC Television Service but later renamed BBC1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crystal Palace transmitting station</span> Telecommunications site in Bromley, England

The Crystal Palace transmitting station, officially known as Arqiva Crystal Palace, is a broadcasting and telecommunications site in the Crystal Palace area of the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is located on the site of the former television station and transmitter operated by John Logie Baird from 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intermediate film system</span>

The intermediate film system was a television process in which motion picture film was processed almost immediately after it was exposed in a camera, then scanned by a television scanner, and transmitted over the air. This system was used principally in Britain and Germany where television cameras were not sensitive enough to use reflected light, but could transmit a suitable image when a bright light was shone through motion picture film directly into the camera lens. John Logie Baird began developing the process in 1932, borrowing the idea of Georg Oskar Schubert from his licensees in Germany, where it was demonstrated by Fernseh AG in 1932 and used for broadcasting in 1934. The BBC used Baird's version of the process during the first three months of its then-"high-definition" television service from November 1936 through January 1937, and German television used it during broadcasts of the 1936 Summer Olympics. In both cases, intermediate film cameras alternated with newly introduced direct television cameras.

The 405-line monochrome analogue television broadcasting system was the first fully electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting. The number of television lines influences the image resolution, or quality of the picture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Shoenberg</span> Russian-British engineer and entrepreneur

Sir Isaac Shoenberg was a British electronic engineer born in Belarus who was best known for his role in the history of television. He was the head of the EMI research team that developed the 405-line, the first fully electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting when it was introduced with the BBC Television Service in 1936. It was later adopted by other TV organizations around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of television</span> Development of television

The concept of television is the work of many individuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first practical transmissions of moving images over a radio system used mechanical rotating perforated disks to scan a scene into a time-varying signal that could be reconstructed at a receiver back into an approximation of the original image. Development of television was interrupted by the Second World War. After the end of the war, all-electronic methods of scanning and displaying images became standard. Several different standards for addition of color to transmitted images were developed with different regions using technically incompatible signal standards. Television broadcasting expanded rapidly after World War II, becoming an important mass medium for advertising, propaganda, and entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Television systems before 1940</span>

A number of experimental and broadcast pre World War II television systems were tested. The first ones were mechanical based and of very low resolution, sometimes with no sound. Later TV systems were electronic.

The Fernseh AG television company was registered in Berlin on July 3, 1929, by John Logie Baird, Robert Bosch, Zeiss Ikon and D.S. Loewe as partners. John Baird owned Baird Television Ltd. in London, Zeiss Ikon was a camera company in Dresden, D.S. Loewe owned a company in Berlin and Robert Bosch owned a company, Robert Bosch GmbH, in Stuttgart. with an initial capital of 100,000 Reichsmark. Fernseh AG did research and manufacturing of television equipment.

Charles Samuel Franklin, who published as C. S. Franklin, was a noted British radio pioneer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBC Television Orchestra</span>

The BBC Television Orchestra (1936–1939) was a broadcast orchestra founded in 1936 by conductor, violinist and composer Hyam Greenbaum and led by Boris Pecker. Greenbaum's wife Sidonie Goossens was the first solo harpist with the Orchestra in that year.

441-line is the number of scan lines in some early electronic monochrome analog television systems. Systems with this number of lines were used with 25 interlaced frames per second in France from 1937 to 1956, Germany from 1939 to 1943, Italy from 1939 to 1940, as well as by RCA in the United States with 30 interlaced frames per second from 1938 to 1941. Broadcasts were planned in Finland for 1940, but eventually cancelled due to World War II. Some experiments with similar systems were carried out on the USSR in the 1930s and Japan in 1939.

This is a list of events related to British television in 1936.

This is a timeline of the history of the BBC Television Service, from events preceding its launch in 1936 until its renaming as BBC One in 1964 upon the launch of BBC Two.

375-line corresponds to two different electronic television systems, both using 375 scan lines. One system was used in Germany after 1936 along with the 180-line system, being replaced in a few years by the superior 441-line system. It was also tested in Italy around the same time.

References

  1. ↑ "100 years of radio since Marconi's big breakthrough". Ofcom. 15 June 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  2. ↑ Linfoot, Matthew. "History of the BBC: The origins of BBC Local Radio". bbc.com. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
  3. ↑ "History of the BBC: 1920s". bbc.com. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
  4. ↑ "A new service: 1935-36". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Variety". The Radio Times . No. 683. 30 October 193. p. 88. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  6. ↑ "Opening Night: November 1936". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  7. ↑ Burns, R. W. (1998). Television: An International History of the Formative Years. IET. ISBN   978-0-85296-914-4.
  8. ↑ Burns, R. W. (1986). British Television: The Formative Years. IET. ISBN   978-0-86341-079-6.
  9. ↑ Newcomb, Horace (2014). Encyclopedia of Television. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-135-19472-7.
  10. ↑ "The History of Television (or, How Did This Get So Big?)". www.cs.cornell.edu. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Television's Opening Night: How the Box Was Born (Documentary). BBC Four. 19 May 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  12. ↑ laurence marcus. "THE HISTORY OF THE BBC: THE FIRST TV ERA". Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  13. ↑ "Variety". The Radio Times . No. 683. 30 October 1936. p. 88. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  14. ↑ Burns, R.W. (1998). Television: An International History of the Formative Years. London: The Institution of Electrical Engineers. p. ix. ISBN   978-0-85296-914-4.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.