When was tv common in US?

Answer 1

Television was invented in 1900 and was first shown at the Paris Exhibition that same year. But this was a crude experimental version, very different from what we have today.

Over the next 30 years great technical advances took place in the television industry, pioneered in the US by Philo Farnsworth, Ernest Frederik Werner Alexanderson, Leslie Flory, Charles Jenkins, Ulisis Sanabria, and Vladimir Zworykin. In 1939 FDR was the first president to be televised in the US and the television set went on sale for consumers April 21th of the same year.

But in 1942 television was banned commercially, limiting broadcasting to very few hours a week in scattered locations across the US, and continued for the duration of WW2.

Post WW2 television sets were priced from about $100-$400 and were in b/w with colour sets still being tested. By the end of 1959 approx. 67,145,000 B/W televisions had been sold in the US.

In 1954 colour televisions were put on the market priced at $1000 and sales were estimated at 75,000. Unfortunately only about 5,000 were sold and colour TV was named the "flop of 1954". But by 1955 20,000 colour sets were sold and rose rapidly from there. Shows like The Mickey Mouse Club, As The World Turns, and The Twilight Zone all went on the air during the last 5 years of the 50's.

In 1964 1,000,000 colour Television sets were sold in the US and about 42,000,000 homes have TV (approx. 87% of homes).

By 2000 98% of households had Television.