Timeline for TV in Norway

Copyright ©: Eivind A.C. Eikenes, 2020

Index page (Norwegian)
 Return to „Tidslinje for fjernsynet i Norge”

Year
 Occurrence
1931
 Mechanical TV (30 lines) was demonstrated at an exhibition in Oslo, October 17th till 25th.
Several European countries transmitted mechanical TV. Ref.: http://www.earlytelevision.org/european_stations_1932.html
1937
 Electronic TV (375 lines Telefunken) was demonstrated at an exhibition in Oslo, January 15th till 27th.
1947
 A French TV-system (819 lines) was demonstrated for NRK and the press, December 3rd.
1950
 A Norwegian TV-receiver was presented in October.
1953
 A Norwegian TV-receiver was in production.
1954
 NRK begins TV test-broadcasts (625 lines) January 12th with a live programme.
1955
 November 5th til 15th:
November 12th:
 TV was demonstrated at an exhibition in Oslo.
NRK's first live TV-broadcast from „Store Studio”.
1956
 January 8th:
February 11th and 12th:
February 26th:
 NRK had a live TV outdoor-broadcast.
NRK had live TV outdoor-broadcasts from the European Speedskating Championship in Oslo.
NRK had a live TV outdoor-broadcast from the Holmenkollen ski jump competition.
1957
 February 2nd and 3rd:
June 25th:
 NRK had live TV outdoor-broadcasts from the World Speedskating Championship in Oslo.
„Stortinget” (The Norwegian parliament) agrees to introduce TV in Norway.
1958
 March 1st till 9th:
December 2nd:
 NRK had live TV outdoor-broadcasts from the 1958 Ice Hockey World Championships in Oslo.
NRK's „Dagsrevyen” (NRK-TV's news broadcast) was launched.
1959
 February 14th and 15th:
 NRK had live outdoor-broadcasts from the World Speedskating Championship in Oslo.
1960
 NRK television service was launched August 20th ending the test-period.
1961
 NRK broadcasted a live transmission from Moscow of the celebration April 14th of the Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin after his spaceflight in Vostok1.
BBC had been working on 405 lines NTSC colour TV since 1954 (Ref.: Radio Times August 17, 1961. Vol. 152: No. 1971. North of England Edition, August 19 – 25 (page 5).
1962
 NRK broadcasted live July 23rd the Telstar1 satellite-transmission.
1967a
 NRK broadcasted June 25th „Vår verden” (Our world), a TV-broadcast live from 19 countries on 4 continents.
1967b
 Colour-TV is launched in Europe:
UK: BBC2 July 1st (PAL I)
BRD: ARD and ZDF August 25th (PAL B/G)
Netherlands: NPO1 og NPO2 September 21st (PAL B/G)
France: ORTF2 October 1st (SECAM L).
Both PAL and Secam were launched in 1967.
Both PAL and Secam have 625 lines.
It is possible for NRK to broadcast in color TV-programmes received in color live from abroad (PAL B/G). Both NTSC and SECAM were converted to PAL before transmission.
Till December 31st 1971 NRK-TV removed the colour signal from any TV-programme which was not live from abroad.
1968
 NRK had these live broadcasts in colour:

February
April 6th
May 18th
October 11th
October
December 10th
December 21st
December 27th
 The Olympic Games in Grenoble.
European Song Contest, London.
The FA Cup Final from Wembley: Everton – West Bromwich Albion.
The launch of Apollo 7.
The Olympic Games in Mexico.
The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm.
The launch of Apollo 8.
The landing of Apollo 8 in the Pacific Ocean.
1969
 NRK had these live broadcasts in colour:

January 1st:
March 3rd:
March 13th:
March 29th:
March 30th:
April 26th:
May 28th:
July 1st:
July 16th:
July 20th:
July 21st:
July 24th:
November 14th:
November 19th.
November 20th.
November 21st.
November 24th:
November 29th:


December 10th:
 The Vienna New Year's Concert.
The launch of Apollo 9.
The landing of Apollo 9 in the Pacific Ocean.
European Song Contest, Madrid.
The Icehockey World Championships, Stockholm: Czechoslovakia – Sweden.
The FA Cup Final from Wembley: Leicester City – Manchester City.
The 1969 European Cup Final in Madrid: Ajax Amsterdam – Milan.
The investiture of the Prince of Wales in Caernarvon.
The launch of Apollo 11.
Apollo 11 at the Moon,
The Moon Landing.
The landing of Apollo 11 in the Pacific Ocean.
The launch of Apollo 12.
The second Moon Landing.
The launch from the Moon.
The voyage home from the Moon.
The landing of Apollo 12 in the Pacific Ocean.
The first „Tippekampen” (Football-match of the week on the Norwegian football betting coupon) from ITV. The match was: Wolverhampton Wanderers – Sunderland.
For decades NRK, during the British footballseason, had „Tippekampen” on the programme-schedule.
For a complete survey of the matches: http://www.sportforalle.no/hovedkampen.html
0
The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm.

The sum total of „Tippekampen” in colour from GB in 1971, was 4.
1970
 NRK had these live broadcasts in colour:

January 1st:
March 27th:
April 11th:
April 17th:
May/June:
June 18th:
September 20th:
October 19th:
 The Vienna New Year's Concert.
The Icehockey World Championships, Stockholm: Soviet Union – Czechoslovakia.
The FA Cup final from Wembley: Chelsea – Leeds United.
The landing of Apollo 13 in the Pacific Ocean.
The Football World Championships in Mexico.
The UK General Election.
„Riksdagsvalget” (the General Election) in Sweden.
The Norwegian Telecommunications Administration („Televerket”) launched the Philips PM5544 test card in colour.

There were 13 „Tippekampen” in colour from GB in 1970.
1971a
 NRK had these live broadcasts in colour:

January 1st:
January 1st:
January 31st:
February 5th:
February 6th:
February 9th:
April 3rd:
May 8th:
June 2nd:
July 26th:
July 30th:
July 31th:
August 1st:
August 2nd:
August 5th:
August 7th:
 The Vienna New Year's Concert.
The New Year's Ski Jumping in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The launch of Apollo 14.
The third Moon Landing.
The second Moon walk, the launch from the Moon and the docking with Apollo 14.
The landing of Apollo 14 in the Pacific Ocean.
European Song Contest, Dublin.
The FA Cup final from Wembley: Arsenal – Liverpool.
Europacup final from Wembley: Panathinaikos, Athen – Ajax, Amsterdam.
The launch of Apollo 15.
The fourth Moon Landing.
The first Moon Walk.
The second Moon Walk.
The third Moon Walk and the departure from the Moon.
The astronaut Alfred M. Worden's space walk.
The landing of Apollo 15 in the Pacific Ocean.

There were 14 „Tippekampen” in colour from GB in 1971.
1971b
 December 10th:
December 31st:		 NRK's first live production in colour: The Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo. This production was shown in B/W in Norway and in colour outside Norway.
NRK's first regular colour television programme: HRH King Olav V's New Year's Eve speech.
1972
 NRK launched broadcasting TV in colour, January 1st.
1983
 The information service „NRK Tekst-TV” (The Norwegian Ceefax/Oracle/Teletext) was launched February 2nd.
1990
 NRK launched NICAM-stereo.
1992
 The commercial Norwegian TV-station TV2 was launched September 5th.
1994
 In February NRK tested 3D-TV during the Winter Olympics at Lillehammer (5 – 10 minutes a day).
1996
 NRK2 was launched August 31st.
2003
 The internet-page „NRK Nett-TV” was launched. The page streams video.
2006
 NRK launched the 16:9 format September 16th.
NRK began to phase in HE-AAC Stereo.
2007
 The commercial Norwegian TV-station TV2 Nyhetskanalen (News channel) was launched January 15th.
Digital TV (DVB-T) was launched in the county of Rogaland, September 1st.
NRK3 was launched September 3rd.
NRK Super was launched December 1st.
2008
 Analogue TV was switched off in the county of Rogaland, March 4th.
2009
 The transition to digital TV (DVB-T) in Norway was completed by switching off the analogue TV signals in the county of Finnmark, December 1st.
2010
 NRK launched broadcasts in HD-quality, February 12th.
2012
 NRK launched tv-broadcasts in 5.1 (surround) sound, June 20th.
NRK Nett-TV was renamed NRK TV.
2014
 NRK TV streams NRK's radio- and tv-channels live as well as video- and sound-recordings.
2020
 The digital TV-systems are DVB (European), ATSC (USA), ISDB-T (Japan) and DTMB (China) Ref.: Wikipedia

On Early TV-history:                http://www.earlytelevision.org/european_stations_1932.html
                                                  http://www.tvhistory.tv/index.html
                                                  http://www.zarkovision.de/
                                                  https://www.univie.ac.at/pluslucis/PlusLucis/012/s2126.pdf
                                                  https://www.digitalfernsehen.de/ratgeber/digital-tv/die-geschichte-des-fernsehens-wie-alles-begann-teil-1-549592/
                                                  http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/special/television/television01.htm
On TV-standards:                     Andrew Emmerson: Lines, frames and frequencies. A brief history of television line standards.
On PAL, SECAM and NTSC: http://www.paradiso-design.net/TVsystems_worldwide.html
                                                 The PAL–SECAM Colour Television Controversy
Colour Great Britain:               (BBC2 1967)  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bs2df
                                                 (BBC1 and ITV 1969) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-50435661
            Western Germany:       (ARD og ZDF 1967) https://www.swrfernsehen.de/marktcheck/hintergrund/Bunte-Revolution-50-Jahre-Farbfernsehen-in-Deutschland,article-swr-5092.html
            Austria:                        (ORF 1969) https://www.wienerzeitung.at/themen/100-jahre-republik/100-jahre-republik-chronik/936636-Als-die-Farbe-in-unser-Fernsehen-kam..html
            France:                         (ORTF2 1967) https://telesatmedias.com/le-passage-a-la-couleur-1er-oct-1967/
            Switzerland:                 (SRG 1968) https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2018/10/when-colour-television-came-to-switzerland
            USA:                            (CBS 1951) https://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/colour60s
On Test Cards:                          The Test Card Circle: http://www.testcardcircle.org.uk/ARTICLES.HTML
                                                  MHP The Test Card Gallery: http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/testcard/index.html
                                                  Alles über das Testbild: http://www.tv-testbild.com/
                                                  Generation Testbild: https://generationtestbild.wordpress.com/testbild-der-film/
                                                  Philips PM5544: https://frank.pocnet.net/other/sos/Philips_PM5544_PM3400_Publication.pdf
                                                  A survey on the Test Cards used by the NRK may be found here. (The text is in Norwegian)

Test card
EBU / Philips Test Card G. This rendering is scaled down a bit to fit this page. If you follow the link below, you may find the full version of this test card.
Note the markings for the formats 4:3 (1.33:1) and 14:9 (1.56:1).
http://www.channel6.dk/mainsite/EN/Page421.html

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