<P> In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed stations to broadcast advertisements beginning in July 1941, but required public service programming commitments as a requirement for a license . By contrast, the United Kingdom chose a different route, imposing a television license fee on owners of television reception equipment to fund the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which had public service as part of its Royal Charter . </P> <P> WRGB claims to be the world's oldest television station, tracing its roots to an experimental station founded on January 13, 1928, broadcasting from the General Electric factory in Schenectady, NY, under the call letters W2XB . It was popularly known as "WGY Television" after its sister radio station . Later in 1928, General Electric started a second facility, this one in New York City, which had the call letters W2XBS and which today is known as WNBC . The two stations were experimental in nature and had no regular programming, as receivers were operated by engineers within the company . The image of a Felix the Cat doll rotating on a turntable was broadcast for 2 hours every day for several years as new technology was being tested by the engineers . </P> <P> On November 2, 1936, the BBC began transmitting the world's first public regular high - definition service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London . It therefore claims to be the birthplace of TV broadcasting as we know it today . </P> <P> With the widespread adoption of cable across the United States in the 1970s and 80s, terrestrial television broadcasts have been in decline; in 2013 it was estimated that about 7% of US households used an antenna . A slight increase in use began around 2010 due to a switchover to digital terrestrial television broadcasts, which offer pristine image quality over very large areas, and offered an alternate to CATV for cord cutters . </P>

When was regular television broadcasting first introduced to the public