In front of the box

This is a Philips TX400. The first commercial television set produced by Philips, it was soon nicknamed ‘the dog kennel’.

The screen has a diameter of 22 centimetres (8.6 inch). Compare that to your smartphone!

Philips started developing its own television set before World War II, but had to shelve the project when war broke out.

After the war, the very first television broadcast in the Netherlands took place on 18 March 1948 from Philips’ Physical Laboratory, or NatLab for short. However, this broadcast was watched by only 400 viewers, all of whom had been given a television set by Philips.

On 1 November 1950, viewers watched the first television broadcast in a public place. The venue was Poort van Kleef, a café on the market square in Eindhoven, the town where Philips was based. A crowd of people gathered to stare at this little screen together.

This television has a cathode-ray tube. The image is created by firing an electron beam at a fluorescent screen. The electrons are deflected by a magnetic field.

The image is black and white and the screen is rounded. To make the image appear more rectangular, a kind of passe-partout is fitted in front of the screen.

This television gave viewers a choice of four channels. As the years went by, the set was adapted to accommodate up to ten channels.

On Tuesday evening, 2 October 1951, the first evening of television was broadcast to viewers across the Netherlands. All over the country, groups of people crowded round in front of these small screens.

The nation’s press described it as a memorable evening. Public opinion on the broadcast was largely positive.

But journalists also wrote about the dangers of this new invention: ‘Now it is no longer only at work where man faces the threat of being replaced by machine. But also in his leisure time...’

The quality of the programming was the main concern: ‘There are still many difficulties to be overcome. The programmes have to be appealing...’