‘World Television Day is not so much a celebration of the tool, but rather the philosophy which it represents. Television represents a symbol for communication and globalization in the contemporary world.’ – United Nations
Television has the power to inform, entertain the masses and through advertising – the means to market products for us to buy. We as individuals have the power to change the channels!
It has become part of our shared experience. We can talk about the latest episode of a popular show with friends at work, in the playground, at college, in the bar, even on the phone to friends. We watch it together as a family, as a couple, with a group of friends for a sports match or alone. It can allow us to connect with the world around us and bring something happening on the far side of the world right into our living rooms. The wonder of nature, protests, music festivals, famine, war…
‘Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America – not on the battlefields of Vietnam.’ – Marshall McCluhan (Canadian philosopher of Media Theory)
…and scientific achievements such as the televised moon landing in 1969.
Perhaps this gallery will help rekindle a memory or enlighten and remind you of the power, reach and responsibility of television in our lives –
Feet up of person watching the Macy’s fourth of July fireworks on TV. Photo: Joan Slatkin/UIG 
Media at political rally. Photo: Kurt Wittman/UIG 
Early television shop selling colour (Colour) sets in the USA 1960’s. Photo: Photo12/UIG 
News media satellite trucks. Photo: Kurt Wittman/UIG 
Father Reading Newspaper while Two Children Watch Television, Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, 1950. Photo: GHI Vintage/UIG 
Bar Impero. Asmara. Eritrea. Photo: Giovanni Mereghetti/UIG 
Men Watching Television. Yemen. Arabian Peninsula. Photo: Giovanni Mereghetti/UIG 
White House, Oval Office, January 29, 1964 — LBJ watching the Saturn rocket launch on TV. Photo: Abbie Rowe/GG Vintage Images 
Still life of TV remote Controls. Photo: Joan Slatkin/UIG 
USA/Vietnam: ‘War Comes to the Living Room’. An American couple watching film footage of the Tet Offensive on a television in their living room, Warren K Leffler, 1968. Photo: Pictures from History/UIG 
People see VAT-Free discounts on home appliances, computers and video games as citizens all across Colombia take advantage of the first VAT-Free day of 2022 to buy clothes and electronics without a charge of 19% taxation over selected products, in Bogota, Colombia on March 11, 2022. Photo: Sebastian Barros/Long Visual Press/UIG 
Tesvisio, 1957-1965, the first television channel in Finland. Tesvisio’s cameraman at work. Photo: HUM Images/UIG 
Overcrowded government tower-block accommodation in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Planet One Images/UIG 
18.11.1950 Television exhibition at Stockmann department store in Helsinki. Photo: HUM Images/UIG 
Tibetan woman – rural village en route to Gyangtse. Photo: Planet One Images 
Ajax against Dukla Prague, excitement in the living room at the TV, 1 March 1967. Photo: Sepia Times/UIG 
City street in central Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, festooned with cables and satellite dishes. Photo: Planet One Images/UIG 
Panelled living room with console television at Christmas time, circa possibly 1960s. Photo: HUM Images/UIG 
A specially designed television receiver made by R. N. Fitton Ltd. Made to fit into the corner of a room, 1949. Photo: Universal History Archive/UIG 
Clothes put to dry up hanging on a TV antenna, Laos, on the Mekong river. Photo: Giulio Paletta/UIG
And if TV is a turn-off for you, remember these words –
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx
All images in this article and on the Kaleidoscope blog site are available for licensing. Please contact UIG at info@universalimagesgroup.com