<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> A television set or television receiver, more commonly called a television, TV, TV set, or telly, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers for the purpose of viewing television . Introduced in the late 1920s in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode ray tubes . The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes . The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media in the 1970s, such as Betamax, VHS and later DVD . It was also the display device for the first generation of home computers (e.g., Timex Sinclair 1000) and video game consoles (e.g., Atari) in the 1980s . In the 2010s flat panel television incorporating liquid - crystal displays, especially LED - backlit LCDs, largely replaced cathode ray tubes and other displays . Modern flat panel TVs are typically capable of high - definition display (720p, 1080i, 1080p) and can also play content from a USB device . </P> <P> Mechanical televisions were commercially sold from 1928 to 1934 in the United Kingdom, United States, and Soviet Union . The earliest commercially made televisions were radios with the addition of a television device consisting of a neon tube behind a mechanically spinning disk with a spiral of apertures that produced a red postage - stamp size image, enlarged to twice that size by a magnifying glass . The Baird "Televisor" (sold in 1930--1933 in the UK) is considered the first mass - produced television, selling about a thousand units . </P> <P> In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated the first TV system that employed a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan . This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver . His research toward creating a production model was halted by the US after Japan lost World War II . </P>

When was the first tv sold to the public