On 20th January BBC Four showed two programmes about the invention of television.
JLB: The Man Who Saw the Future. A profile of John Logie Baird, presented by his son, Malcolm.
The Birth of Television. Leslie Mitchell traces the invention of television from early experiments to the first OB in 1937, the coronation of George VI.
If you missed these programmes then catch-up with them on BBC iPlayer.
26th January 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of the first ’true’ television image by John Logie Baird. A group of AP TV Society members will be meeting up at Bar Italia, 22 Frith Street, where on the first floor JLB had his laboratories in the mid 1920’s.
Later the same evening the Cinema Museum will be holding a book launch of Professor John Wyver’s new book on the early years of British television, “Magic Rays of Light”. It was published on 8th January by the BFI/Bloomsbury press. Some images for the book are from the Alexandra Palace Television Society Archive holdings. They were originally taken by Desmond Campbell when he was the “Father of Television Lighting” at Alexandra Palace.
2nd November 2026 will mark the 90th anniversary of the start of the service from Alexandra Palace . It’s amazing to think of the technological advances that took place in the intervening ten years from JLB’s experiments to the start of the BBC’s high-definition (by 1936’s standards) in 1936.
Find out more about the early experiments 1924-1929 @ https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/birth-of-tv/early-experiments
