Today marks the 97th anniversary of a pivotal moment in broadcast history: on February 25, 1928, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) the precurser to today’s FCC issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, D.C., kicking off the era of television as we know it. This milestone, granted to inventor Charles Francis Jenkins, authorized experimental station W3XK to transmit “radiovision” signals—crude, flickering images that laid the groundwork for the TV revolution. Nearly a century later, the event stands as a testament to the ingenuity that birthed a medium now central to global culture.
Jenkins, a prolific inventor with over 400 patents, had been tinkering with television since the early 1920s. His system used a mechanical scanning method—rotating disks with lenses, known as a Nipkow disk—to transmit silhouettes and simple pictures over radio waves. On June 13, 1925, he’d publicly demonstrated this “radiovision” in D.C., beaming a windmill image five miles away. But it was the FRC’s 1928 license that gave his work official sanction, assigning W3XK the frequency of 6420 kHz (later adjusted to visual bands around 2-3 MHz). On July 2, 1928, Jenkins broadcast the first scheduled TV transmissions—silhouette films of a dancer and a toy airplane—at 48 lines of resolution to a handful of local enthusiasts.
The FRC, created in 1927 to regulate the chaotic airwaves, saw Jenkins’ license as a leap beyond radio. W3XK’s early broadcasts, airing three nights a week by 1929, reached about 20 homemade receivers in the D.C. area, with Jenkins mailing programming schedules to viewers. “It was primitive—shadowy figures on a 2-inch screen—but it was magic,” historian Susan Murray wrote in Television’s Early Years. Jenkins envisioned a future of “radio movies” in every home, a dream fueled by his $10 “Radiovisor” kit for hobbyists. Though rival Philo Farnsworth’s electronic TV would soon eclipse mechanical systems, Jenkins’ license marked the U.S.’s first step into regulated television.
The anniversary has fans and tech buffs reflecting online. “97 years since Jenkins got TV license #1—imagine going from silhouettes to 4K!” one X user posted. Another mused, “Charles Jenkins doesn’t get enough credit—1928 was the real start of TV.” By 1931, W3XK expanded to five nights weekly, but Jenkins’ company folded in 1933 amid the Depression and competition from RCA’s superior tech. He sold his patents for $250,000—a bittersweet end to a visionary’s run.
Today, as streaming and smart TVs dominate, Jenkins’ 1928 license feels like ancient history. Yet it’s a cornerstone—recognized by the FCC’s own archives—that sparked a medium reshaping entertainment, news, and society. Ninety-seven years on, that first flicker from W3XK still glows in the story of how we see the world.
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