1937, from television + broadcast (n.). The verb is recorded from 1940.
Entries linking to telecast
television n.
1907, as a theoretical system to transmit moving images over telegraph or telephone wires; formed in English or borrowed from French télévision, from tele- + vision.
Television is not impossible in theory. In practice it would be very costly without being capable of serious application. But we do not want that. On that day when it will be possible to accelerate our methods of telephotography by at least ten times, which does not appear to be impossible in the future, we shall arrive at television with a hundred telegraph wires. Then the problem of sight at a distance will without doubt cease to be a chimera. ["Telegraphing Pictures" in Windsor Magazine, vol. xxvi, June-November 1907]
Other proposals for the name of a then-hypothetical technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote (1880) and televista (1904). The technology was developed in the 1920s and '30s. Nativized in German as Fernsehen. Shortened form TV is from 1948. Meaning "a television set" is from 1941. Meaning "television as a medium" is from 1927.
Television is the first truly democratic culture — the first culture available to everyone and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want. [Clive Barnes, New York Times, Dec. 30, 1969]
broadcast adj.
1767, "dispersed upon the ground by hand," in reference to seed, from broad (adj.) + past participle of cast (v.). The figurative sense of "widely spread" is recorded by 1785. As an adverb from 1832. The modern media use began with radio (1922, adjective and noun). As a verb, recorded from 1813 in an agricultural sense, 1829 in a figurative sense, 1921 in reference to radio.