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In the austerity years after World War Two radio was still the most important medium of home entertainment although the Coronation of June 1953 and the launch of ITV in September 1955 with its more popular style of programming helped to give a boost to sales of television sets. These early television receivers were primitive by modern standards with small screens (a 21 inch set was considered to be a luxury in the 1950s), 405 line definition and consuming large amounts of electricity. However the skills of craftsmen were still used to make the walnut or teak cabinets which housed the cathode ray tube, valves, circuits and other working parts. Despite the drawbacks of these early black and white sets production rose rapidly from 28,000 units in 1947 to 2.8 million in 1959.
By the early 1960s there was a steady improvement in both picture quality and screen size and some sets, like the McMichael, even offered a combined television and radio receiver capable of picking up the new BBC FM radio channels. With the introduction of colour on BBC2 from July 1967 manufacturers had to respond to this new challenge although the high cost of sets, and the limited availability of programmes made in colour, had a deterrent effect. Only 30,000 colour televisions were made in 1967 and it was to take the introduction of colour services on BBC1 and ITV in 1969 to have a noticeable effect on sales.
The unreliability of early sets meant that there was a ready market for rented televsions and for some entrepreneurs this business made their fortune. One example was David Robinson (1904-1987) who in the late 1930s opened a radio and electrical shop in High Street Bedford and in the late 1940s opened similar shops in nearby towns like Kettering and Luton. Having observed the success of the BBC's television coverage of the Coronation in 1953 Robinson began renting out television sets from his shops. This was so successful that he began to expand his rental chain and by 1962 the firm of Robinson Rentals was making a profit of £1.5 million a year. Even more successful was Radio Rentals (begun in Brighton in 1932). When BBC Television resumed in 1946 Radio Rentals was one of the first companies to concentrate on the rental of television sets and by 1952 was the largest firm in the business. Other companies, like Rediffusion, concentrated their efforts on providing cable television in major cities where reception via an aerial was more difficult.
Since the introduction of colour television in 1967 progress in television and other forms of home entertainment has been even more rapid. Today's viewers and listeners have a multitude of radio and television choices, using digital and satellite technology, of ever-improving reliability and sophistication that was undreamt of forty years ago.
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