1937 in television

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The year 1937 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1937.

Events

• January 19 – BBC Television broadcasts The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas from its London station, the first play written for television.
• February 6 – The BBC Television service discontinues the Baird system in favour of the Marconi-EMI 405 lines system.
• March 9 – Experimental broadcasting from Shabolovka Ulitsa television center, in Moscow (USSR).
• May – Gilbert Seldes becomes the first television critic, with his Atlantic Monthly magazine article, the "Errors of Television".
• May 12 – The BBC use their outside broadcast unit for the first time, to televise the coronation of George VI. A fragment of this broadcast is one of the earliest surviving examples of British television – filmed off-screen at home by an engineer with an 8 mm cine camera. A brief section of this footage was used in a programme during the week of the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II, and this latter programme survives in the BBC's archives.
• May 14 – The BBC broadcasts a thirty-minute excerpt of Twelfth Night, the first known instance of a Shakespeare play televised. Among the cast are Peggy Ashcroft and Greer Garson.
• May 15 – RCA demonstrates projection television, with images enlarged to 8 by 10 feet, at the Institute of Radio Engineers convention.
• June 21 – Wimbledon Championships (tennis) first televised by the BBC.
• July 10 – High definition television with 455 lines is first shown in France at the International Exposition, Paris.
• September – High definition television broadcasts are sent from a new 30 kW (peak power) transmitter below the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
• November 9 – Bell Telephone Laboratories transmits television signal of 800 kHz bandwidth on a coaxial cable laid between New York and Philadelphia.
• November 11 (Armistice Day) – BBC Television devotes the evening to a broadcast of Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff (1928, set on the Western Front (World War I) in 1918), the first full-length television adaptation of a stage play. Reginald Tate plays the lead, Stanhope, a rôle he has performed extensively in the theatre.
• December 31 – By this time, 2,121 television sets have been sold in England.
• CBS announces their efforts to develop television broadcasts.

Debuts

• April 17 – The Disorderly Room (UK) premieres on the BBC Television Service (1937 & 1939).
• April 24 – For The Children (UK), the BBC's first programme for children, debuts (1937–1939; 1946–1950).
• April 30 – Sports Review (UK), the first regular sports programme, debuts on the BBC (1937–1939).

Television shows

Series	Debut	Ended
Picture Page (UK)	October 8, 1936	1939
	1946	1952
Starlight (UK)	November 3, 1936	1939
	1946	1949
Theatre Parade (UK)	1936	1938
The Disorderly Room (UK)	April 17, 1937	August 20, 1939
For The Children (UK)	April 24, 1937	1939
	July 7, 1946	1950
Sports Review (UK)	April 30, 1937	1939

Births

• February 1 – Garrett Morris, actor and comedian, Saturday Night Live
• April 22 – Jack Nicholson, actor
• June 1 – Morgan Freeman, actor
• June 2 – Sally Kellerman, actress
• June 3 – Edward Winter, American actor and director (d. 2001)
• July 12 – Bill Cosby, actor and comedian
• August 8 – Dustin Hoffman, actor
• November 21 – Ingrid Pitt, actress (died 2010)
• December 21 – Jane Fonda, actress
• December 29 – Barbara Steele, actress