Fifty years ago on Sunday (September 30) the first experimental broadcast of a new system of communication -- television-- was carried out in the United Kingdom.

SYNOPSIS: Development of the principle had been going on since before 1900. In 1926, in England, the first true television pictures were shown.

Baird's system was mechanical, and the results were crude. But it was the start of television as a practical technology and his system did stimulate further research -- based on an electronic system. By 1936 that system, the basis of modern television, had been developed. Three years later this factory in the United States was making sites. Five Stations were transmitting then. In 1941 regular broadcasting began in the United States.

But it was from the United Kingdom that the world's first television broadcasting system began in November 1936 -- using an electronic system that lasted until 1964. Since those early days, the use of television as a means of communication has expanded rapidly. Live broadcasts in colour can now be broadcast, using satellites, around the world. In August 1936 though, the distance for this demonstration broadcast was small, just across London to an exhibition.

The early British broadcasts reached about 100 sets; now, the world total is almost 400 million. Audiences to have grown. An estimated 1,000 million people watched the last two Olympic Games.