March 14th, 1952
Television transmissions in Scotland first began on 14 March 1952 when Britain’s sole state broadcaster of the time, the BBC, started broadcasting from the transmitting station at Kirk o’Shotts using the 405-line television system.
These early transmissions offered no significant separate content; all BBC programming came direct from London with only very occasional Scottish variation made using an outside broadcast unit. With time, BBC television in Scotland gradually accrued some limited rights to “opt out” of the UK network, particularly after the entry of the Independent Television (ITV) network into the picture, but it was well over 60 years before the corporation allowed an autonomous BBC television channel for the country when it finally launched a still relatively limited BBC Scotland TV service in February 2019.
