ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how, towards the end of the 1930s, television was shaped to fit into domestic space. Taking into account a variety of events in addition to the radio fairs – the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris, the displays at Selfridges and at the Ideal Home Exhibition in London, and RCA’s pavilion at the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair – it illustrates how television was projected as a private medium, whose promotion nevertheless relied on public events. Even in national-socialist Germany, where collective viewing rooms were meant to compensate for the absence of commercially available television sets, a prominent public-private venture promoted the launching of a standardized domestic receiver.
