Top 10 facts about television

The television was invented in 1926

AUGUST 11 is the feast day of St Clare of Assisi, who in 1958 was proclaimed patron saint of television.

 

1. It is said that when St Clare was too ill to attend Mass, she had been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room as if broadcast by television.

2. The average UK viewer watches three hours and 52 minutes of television a day on a TV set, and just three minutes and 30 seconds on other devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptops.

3. Ninety-five per cent of UK households have a television set.

4. The average person in the UK has 29 hours of TV recorded and saved on digital hard drives.

5. Although the television was not invented by John Logie Baird until 1926, the first recorded use of the word ‘television’ in English was in 1907.

6. The abbreviation TV for television was first seen in 1948.

7. “Television? The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of this device.” (C.P. Scott, 1936.)

8. “It will be of no importance in your lifetime or mine,” (Bertrand Russell in 1958 on television.)

9. The first couple shown in bed together on prime-time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

10. St Clare died on August 11, 1253 aged 59. She was canonised only two years later.