Television @ 100 years
Television as we know it is one hundred years old this month – January 2026. From grainy black-and-white to crystal clear 4K, TV has been on a journey over the last century.
Who invented television?
The invention of TV was a complicated affair, with a number of people from across the globe laying claim to the imaging invention.
In America, received wisdom would crown Philo Farnsworth as the father of the television, while German researcher Paul Nipkow could lay a very fair claim, with Scotsman John Logie Baird serving as the UK’s chosen champion.
In 1884, Nipkow came up with a system for sending images along wires using a spinning disk, which became known as a ‘Nipkow disk’. While he referred to his invention as an electric telescope, it was – in function – an early variation of mechanical television.
Nipkow never built a working mechanical set, however, with this honour going to Scottish inventor John Logie Baird.
Logie Baird built on Nipkow’s work, as well as research done by fellow Scotsman Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, to produce the first demonstration of the transmission of a moving image. Farnsworth’s claim to the throne lies in the fact that Logie Baird’s invention was mechanical, while the TV we know and love today is electronic – an innovation first pioneered by Farnsworth in the late 1920s.
When was television invented?
John Logie Baird gave the first demonstration of a moving image transmitted by television on 26 January 1926. Having successfully completed a trial run on 2 October 1925, Baird took his invention public, exhibiting the first television images to around 40 members of The Royal Institution. The invention, then known as the ‘televisor’, first transmitted an image of a ventriloquist dummy, before moving onto an image of a human face.
Baird built what was to become the world’s first working television set using items that included an old hatbox and a pair of scissors, some darning needles, a few bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and sealing wax and glue that he purchased. (Wikipedia)
What was the first ever TV broadcast?
The first images to be transmitted by television were of a dark-haired ventriloquist’s dummy known as Stooky Bill, who made his debut on 2 October 1925.
The world’s first ever regular television service was launched by the BBC, on 2 November 1936. Only initially available to those in the London area, those early transmissions reached around 100 people on first broadcast.
What is the most viewed television programme of all time in the UK?
The most viewed television broadcast is England’s victory over Germany in the 1966 Men’s Football World Cup final, which brought in 32.3 million viewers.
Princess Diana’s funeral comes in as the runner-up, with 32.1 million viewers, while a Royals documentary, the Apollo 13 splashdown and the Euro 2020 Final round out the top five.
This content was taken from the following article on BBC Bitesize
Adoption of Children Act 1926
