By 1939, approximately how many TV viewers were there?

• A. 50,000
• B. 500,000
• C. 5,000
• D. 50

Answer: (A)

Television was still a new, limited technology in the 1930s, so the audience was small. The BBC began regular service in 1936 with a limited broadcast area and expensive sets, meaning only a relatively small number of households could actually watch. By 1939, estimates put the number of TV viewers at about fifty thousand, reflecting the slow take-up and constrained coverage of early TV.

The other figures don’t fit the era: half a million viewers would require a much larger market and production capability than existed before the war, while five thousand or even fifty viewers would understate the extent of early adopters and the number of sets already in use.