The Netherlands had its first TV broadcast 75 years ago

Seventy-five years ago today, the Dutch had their first opportunity to watch a television broadcast: a performance of the play De Toverspiegel, live from a studio in Bussum.

The Royal Family watched the 90-minute production from the Soestdijk Palace.

Concerns about television’s corrupting influence on society and a focus on post-war reconstruction meant that the Netherlands entered the television era only in 1951, later than the United Kingdom or the United States.

The BBC had begun broadcasting in 1936.

The country had around 500 television sets at the time. Radio was the much more widely consumed medium, with around 250,000 devices in homes across the Netherlands.

A television set cost 785 guilders, about a third of the average annual salary, putting the luxury good far out of reach for most of the country.

Media historian Huub Wijfjes told the NOS that initial television broadcasts simply copied whatever was on the radio. “TV took a dominant position and reached its peak in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The medium displaced radio,” he said.

By 1956, there were 75,000 television sets in the country.

On the website for the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, you can watch the early broadcasts.