Russian television broadcasting turns 80 Sat.

MOSCOW (Itar-Tass) - Television broadcasting in Russia
marks an anniversary on Saturday. Exactly 80 years ago today, on October
1, 1931 in Moscow there began regular experimental television
transmissions of still images.
The first such transmission took place inside the building of the
Moscow radio engineering center in Nikolskaya Street.
"The images transmitted by optical-mechanical television were received
in many cities, including Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, and even Tomsk,"
recalls the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network, whose
general directorate is now located in the same building. In those years
television broadcasting began to develop almost simultaneously in many
countries.
In 1938 regular transmissions of the electronic television signal
began. Reliable reception of the signal transmitted from the antenna of
the famous Shukhov Tower was available only within a radius of 60
kilometers. TV sets in the capital at that time numbered 30 pieces, but by
1941 their number increased to 400. Further development of network
television broadcasting in the country continued after World War II.
"At that time the question of creating a single network television
across the country was not raised yet, as there were no technical
capabilities. At the early stages in various cities there emerged amateur
studios," said the RTRBN. The first step toward creating such a network
was made in 1955, when in the city of Kalinin, today's Tver, the first
relay facility went operational. It was receiving the television signal by
cable from Moscow. Then, television centers began to crop up across the
country, and with time they gained powerful support from the space
satellite resource. As a result, by the mid-1980s the country had
developed a powerful unified system of television broadcasting, with a
potential audience of 240 million viewers, and the number of television
sets grew to 90 million, including 18 million color ones.
Nowadays television has become the main source of information for the
Russians. According to polls, a tiny two percent do not watch TV. On the
Russian media market there are about 200 terrestrial television stations
and 500 cable television operators.
A revolution in television broadcasting followed in the late 20th
century with the advent of digital technology.
"In television, a new era began, just as it did in the 1930s of last
century, when electronic television replaced the optical-mechanical one,"
the RTRBN said. Digital technologies can improve image quality, increase
the number of available channels, as well as provide some additional
features, including access to the Internet via the TV. According to the
federal program for the development of broadcasting in 2009-2015 Russia is
to complete the transition to digital broadcasting by 2015.