Timeline of the introduction of television in countries

A map showing when television was introduced in each country.      1930 to 1939      1940 to 1949      1950 to 1959      1960 to 1969      1970 to 1979      1980 to 1989      1990 to 1999      No data

This is a list of when the first publicly announced television broadcasts occurred in the mentioned countries. Non-public field tests and closed circuit demonstrations are not included.

Year	Countries
1928	United States (Mechanical television) 1
1929	United Kingdom (Mechanical), 2  Germany (Mechanical) 3
1931	France (Mechanical),  Soviet Union (Mechanical) 14
1935	Germany (Intermediate film; semi-electronic)
1936	Germany (Electronic television),  United Kingdom (Electronic),  United States (Electronic) 15
1937	Danzig (Electronic),  France (Electronic), 19  Poland (Mechanical) 16
1938	Soviet Union (Electronic) 18
1939	Japan (Electronic), 4  Italy (Electronic) 5  Poland (Electronic) 16
1941	United States (Commercial)
1944	France (Returned)
1946	Canada,  Soviet Union (Commercial),  United Kingdom (Returned), 17  Nicaragua
1948	Czechoslovakia 6
1949	Cuba,  France (Commercial),  West Germany,  East Germany
1950	Mexico,  Brazil,  Switzerland
1951	Argentina,  Denmark, 12  Netherlands,  Japan (Returned),  Poland (Returned)
1952	Dominican Republic,  Poland (Commercial)
1953	Alaska,  Belgium, 28  Philippines,  Venezuela
1954	Colombia,  Hawaii,  Morocco,  Norway,  Puerto Rico,  Monaco,  Italy (Returned)
1955	Luxembourg,  Thailand
1956	Australia,  Romania, Algeria,  Austria,  Cyprus,  Guam,  Guatemala,  Iraq,  South Korea,  Spain,  Sweden,  Uruguay,  Yugoslavia
1957	Chile,  Finland,  Hong Kong, 7  Hungary,  Kuwait,  Portugal,  Saudi Arabia
1958	Bermuda,  Costa Rica, Greenland,  El Salvador,  People's Republic of China, 8  Iran,  Peru
1959	Bulgaria,  Haiti,  Honduras,  India,  Lebanon,  Nigeria,  Ecuador
1960	Albania,  Netherlands Antilles,  New Zealand,  Panama,  Southern Rhodesia,  United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria)
1961	Ireland,  Northern Rhodesia,  U.S. Virgin Islands
1962	Côte d'Ivoire,  Republic of the Congo,  Kenya,  Malta, 21  Indonesia,  Sierra Leone,  Republic of China, 9  Trinidad and Tobago,  Cambodia,  Gibraltar, 22  Sudan
1963	Bolivia, French Polynesia,  Gabon,  Malaysia,  North Korea,  Singapore,  Jamaica,  Uganda ,  Upper Volta
1964	American Samoa,  Barbados, East Pakistan,  Ethiopia, Guadeloupe,  Liberia, Martinique, Mauritius,  North Yemen, West Pakistan,  Réunion,  Suriname
1965	Ghana,  New Caledonia,  Paraguay,  Senegal,  South Vietnam
1966	Congo-Kinshasa,  Greece,  North Vietnam,  Tunisia,  Iceland,  Israel 23
1967	Djibouti, French Guiana,  Mongolia,  Saint Pierre and Miquelon,  Madagascar,  Saint Lucia
1968	Turkey,  Jordan,  Equatorial Guinea,  Libya
1969	24  Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands,  United Arab Emirates
1970	Qatar
1972	St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla
1973	Bahrain,  Niger,  Tanzania,  Togo,  British Virgin Islands
1974	Central African Republic,  Grenada, 25 Mozambique,  Oman
1975	Angola,  Brunei,  Dominica,  Tuvalu,  South Yemen, Wallis and Futuna Islands
1976	South Africa
1977	Bahamas, 25  Guinea, East Timor
1978	Afghanistan,  Benin,  Liechtenstein,  Lesotho,  Maldives,  Swaziland
1979	Mali,  Mauritania,  Sri Lanka,  Somalia
1980	Burma,  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
1981	Belize, Macau, South West Africa
1983	Andorra,  Antigua and Barbuda,  Cameroon,  Laos,  Nepal,  Seychelles,  Vatican City 26
1984	Burundi,  Cape Verde,  Chad,  Comoros,  Tonga,  Faroe Islands
1986	Mayotte,  Niue,  Papua New Guinea
1987	Sweden (commercial),  Norway (commercial),  Denmark (commercial)
1989	Cook Islands,  San Marino,  Western Samoa
1991	Cayman Islands,  Falkland Islands, 27  Fiji, 28  Guyana,  Nauru,  São Tomé and Príncipe
1992	Botswana,  Rwanda,  Solomon Islands,  Vanuatu
1993	Eritrea 29
1995	Gambia,  Guinea-Bissau,  Kiribati,  Saint Helena,  Turks and Caicos Islands
1999	Malawi,  Bhutan

[edit] Notes and citations

1. See WRGB History, How Television Came to Boston: The Forgotten Story of W1XAY, W3XK: America's first television station, and "WRNY to Start Daily Television Broadcasts," New York Times, August 13, 1928, p. 13.
2. See J.L. Baird: Television in 1932
3. See Museum of Broadcast Communications: Germany
   and Berlin 1936: Television in Germany
4. See The Evolution of TV: A Brief History of TV Technology in Japan: “Can you see me clearly?”; Public TV Image Experiments.
5. See Early Television in Italy
6. See [1]; Czechoslovakia became two separate states, namely the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1993.
7. Television was introduced in Hong Kong when it was a British crown colony. Hong Kong is now a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.
8. This is the year when television was introduced in Mainland China. At that time, the People's Republic of China did not administer Hong Kong and Macau.
9. This is the year when television was introduced in territories under its administration. After the Chinese Civil War, the government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan and other islands, and Mainland China was controlled by the People's Republic of China.
10. See Mongolia, multimedia memories, and me
11. Television came to Fiji part-time for the 1991 Rugby World Cup. It arrived full-time in 1994.
12. See History of DR
13. See International Federation of Television Archives: Albania.
14. R. W. Burns, Television: An International History of the Formative Years. IET, 1998, p. 488. ISBN 0-85296-914-7.
15. See The Birth of Live Entertainment and Music on Television, November 6, 1936, and 1937 RCA Publicity Photographs. "Eighty-seven video programs were telecast by NBC last year," "Where Is Television Now?", Popular Mechanics, August 1938, p. 178. Regularly scheduled electronic broadcasts began in April 1938 in New York (to the second week of June, and resuming in August) and Los Angeles. "Telecasts Here and Abroad," The New York Times, April 24, 1938, Drama-Screen-Radio section, p. 10; "Early Birds," Time, June 13, 1938; "Telecasts to Be Resumed," The New York Times, Aug. 21, 1938, Drama-Screen-Radio section, p. 10; Robert L. Pickering, "Eight Years of Television in California," California — Magazine of the Pacific, June 1939.
16. See The Warsaw Voice: What's On? and Historia Przemysłowego Instytutu Telekomunikacji przez II wojną światową (in Polish).
17. Off from 1939 to 1946 for the Second World War.
18. Service existed only in Moscow and Leningrad until 1950. The Soviets introduced television broadcasting in the Ukraine (1951), Latvia (1954), Armenia and Estonia (1955), Georgia (1956), and Lithuania (1957).
19. Television service existed in the Bahamas prior to 1977. Before then, they were received from the United States.
20. Although 180-line cathode ray tube receivers were manufactured in France in 1936, a mechanical scanning camera was still used at the transmitter in Paris until 1937.
21. Television broadcasts had also been received from Argentina.
22. Despite the Vatican receiving a television service of its own in 1983, the Vatican (being inside the city of Rome) has been able to receive Italian broadcasts since 1954, which is still the case today.
23. The Israeli Ministry of Education in cooperation with the Rothschild Fund started limited broadcasts to schools in March 1966. A public state-owned TV channel started broadcasting in May 1968. Broadcasts were black and white (with a few exceptions) until the early 1980s.
24. All of the countries that established their first commercial television station after 1988 have been listed. This is according to statistics from sources including the CIA World Factbook.
25. Malta and San Marino had also received television broadcasts from Italy.
26. Gibraltar had also received television broadcasts from Spain.
27. Grenada had also received television broadcasts from Trinidad and Tobago since 1962.
28. Flemish-languageBRT used the Belgian 625-line standard and French-language RTB used the Belgian 819-line standard (abandoned in 1963). Early Belgian sets were very expensive because they could receive 4 different standards: Belgian 625, European 625, Belgian 819, French 819. Later a 5th standard was added with the French 625-line standard.

[edit] See also

• Oldest television station
• Timeline of the introduction of color television in countries

[edit] External links

• Start of television services