Eighty years ago, on the Loewe stand at the 8th Berlin Radio Show, Manfred von Ardenne (1907-1997) presented the world’s first fully-electronic television to the public. News that this sensational development was to be showcased at the upcoming Radio Show had already been published in the “New York Times” on 16 August 1931. This presentation by the renowned German manufacturer marked the dawn of the new era of electronic television.

The demonstration device allowed moving pictures to be transmitted fully electronically for the very first time. Manfred von Ardenne, who had had ties to Loewe and its founder, Dr Siegmund Loewe (1885-1962), since the company’s establishment in 1923, used only readily available components such as cathode ray tubes in his design. They were used both to record and play back the television picture. What made his experimental design so ingenious and visionary was his selection and optimisation of components which would subsequently allow the problem-free and continuous improvement of picture quality. By contrast, the mechanical television, which had been the main driver of television development until this point, was severely limited in this respect. As a result, it made sense to adopt cathode ray tubes for both transmission and reception purposes. And so the electronic television was born. Manfred von Ardennes's experimental design, also known as the Flying Spot Scanner, was particularly suited to the projection of slides and films and continued to be used for this purpose in Germany until around 1980. Other processes were used for live programmes.

Only two years after this first presentation, Loewe introduced the first electronic television suitable for mass production at the 1933 Radio Show. The Berliner Morgenpost newspaper had the following to say of this presentation: “Even crowd scenes are sharply portrayed – the sheen on the horses’ backs is glorious. And it is interesting to see how the public get caught up in it – they don’t just look, but stand spellbound, really experiencing what is playing on the glowing glass screen." Until 1936 Loewe also cooperated with British television pioneer John Logie Baird (1888-1946), who succeeded in making the first transatlantic television transmission from London to New York in 1928.

However, the television was only launched nationally in Germany in 1952. And Loewe once again led the way with its Iris model. The first Loewe colour televisions were launched along with the introduction of colour television. These were followed in 1981 by the first European stereo television and the development of the Art 1, which from 1985 heralded a new generation of design and technology-orientated televisions. In 1988, Loewe introduced its first flat-screen TV with the Spheros. In 2005, the company took the final step to becoming one of the leading suppliers of premium flat-screen TVs. The breakthrough came with the Individual - the first flat-screen TV with customised housing options, set-up solutions and inset colours. The Loewe Connect, introduced in 2008, made it possible to connect external devices to the flat-screen TV, thus ushering in a new era of multimedia digital television and establishing the smart TV trend.

The range today includes TVs, Blu-ray players, DVD recorders, hard disk recorders, multiroom systems, speakers and racks. The different products are increasingly becoming part of complete home entertainment systems in which individual components complement each other perfectly in terms of both technology and design.

80 years of electronic television – key dates:

14 December 1930          Manfred von Ardenne transmits a slide electronically for the first time

28 March 1931                Patent registered for television design with cathode ray tubes

23 April 1931                  First films transmitted for the specialist press

16 August 1931              “New York Times” announces first fully electronic public film transmission to take place at the 8th Berlin Radio Show

21 August 1931              Opening of the 8th Berlin Radio Show and first public demonstration of the fully electronic television at the Loewe stand

By Press Release

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