Television arrived twice: once as a mechanical curiosity with a spinning disc, and again as an electronic system that actually worked. These questions cover both, plus the habits broadcasting built up afterwards.
Almost everything odd about television comes from a decision made early and then never revisited. The shape of the old screen, the reason daytime drama is called soap opera, the pattern that used to sit on screen all morning: each was a practical fix that outlived its reason. This quiz runs from the first demonstrations in the 1920s through the arrival of colour and the scheduling conventions that came with a broadcast day. The facts are the settled kind, not viewing figures or ratings, which change every week.
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
Play it insteadAnswer: D. John Logie Baird
Why: Baird's system was mechanical, scanning the image with a spinning perforated disc, and the BBC used it for its earliest television transmissions. It was dropped in 1937 once electronic systems proved capable of a much sharper picture.
Answer: C. Philo Farnsworth
Why: Farnsworth's image dissector scanned the picture electronically, with no moving parts at all. He had sketched the principle as a teenager on a farm, reportedly after looking at a field ploughed in parallel rows.
Answer: B. Soap manufacturers sponsored the original radio serials
Why: Procter and Gamble and its competitors funded daytime radio serials aimed at women at home, and the nickname followed the format onto television. Several of those companies produced the programmes themselves rather than simply buying the advertising.
Answer: A. Checking picture quality when no programmes were being broadcast
Why: The geometric pattern let engineers and viewers set focus, contrast and picture geometry, and it filled hours of an otherwise empty schedule. The BBC's Test Card F, introduced in 1967, was the first designed for setting up colour.
Answer: D. A single episode made to test whether a series should be commissioned
Why: Broadcasters pay for one episode first to judge the casting, the tone and the audience reaction before funding a whole run. Pilots are often reshot or partly recast before the series proper goes out.
Answer: C. The time after which programmes unsuitable for children may be shown
Why: The watershed falls at nine in the evening, and material broadcast before it has to suit a general audience. It applies to scheduled broadcasting rather than on-demand services, which rely on age controls instead.
Answer: B. Recorded audience laughter added to a comedy soundtrack
Why: Charles Douglass built a keyboard-operated machine of stored laughs that dominated American comedy from the 1950s onward. Many of the laughs he used had been recorded from live audiences years earlier and were reused for decades.
Answer: A. A licence fee paid by households
Why: The licence fee is the reason BBC channels in the UK carry no commercial advertising. It began in the 1920s as a licence for owning a radio receiver, well before television broadcasting existed.
Answer: D. 1950s
Why: NBC began regular colour transmissions in 1954 after the NTSC colour standard was approved, though sets were expensive and colour programming stayed thin for another ten years. Britain did not start colour broadcasting until 1967.
Answer: C. The shape of the older television screen, four units wide by three high
Why: It was the standard television shape until 16:9 took over with digital broadcasting. Cinema deliberately moved to much wider formats in the 1950s to offer audiences something television could not.
Harmony is not a matter of taste alone. Simple ratios, overtones, and the compromise hiding inside every piano.
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