site.btaUPDATED "Attention, We Are on Air": 65 Years Since Start of Professional Television in Bulgaria

The words "Attention, we are on air" mark the beginning of professional television in Bulgaria. The first broadcast of Bulgarian television was made on November 7, 1959, on occasion of an anniversary of the October Revolution. The TV broadcast, which was hosted by Borislav Petrov, was the debut of the news section entitled "News". 

The first television broadcast on the Balkan Peninsula was made already in 1954 by a team of Bulgaria's State Polytechnic (today's Technical University), headed by prof. Kiril Kirkov and prof. Sazdo Ivanov. The broadcasts were twice a week, with the transmitter operating on a second channel. The television equipment consisted of a camera and an old film machine. In April 1958, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party decided to build and operate television facilities in Bulgaria. 

The work on the establishment and broadcasting of Bulgarian TV programmes began in 1951 on the initiative of the Physics Department of the Mechanical-Electrical Engineering Institute in Sofia (also part of today's Technical University), headed by prof. Sazdo Ivanov. 

An experimental television centre was set up at the Institute, which carried out laboratory television transmission by cable in 1952, and regular television broadcasts began on the eve of May 1, 1954. Bulgarian television was officially inaugurated on December 26, 1959, and November 7, when the first professional programme was broadcast, is considered the birthday of the Bulgarian National Television (BNT).

The BTA Home News Bulletin covered the first professional telecast:

Sofia Television Station Begins Test Transmissions

Sofia, November 7, 1959 (BTA) - The Sofia Television Station began its first transmissions today. During the day, many residents of the capital city watched on their TV set screens the festive demonstration of Sofia’s working people on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the evening, the station aired its first test studio television programme. The images and sounds were beamed from Freedom Park, where the Radio Relay and Television Station is towering high into the skies as one of Sofia’s most impressive buildings. Sitting on a natural hill, the thirteen-floor building and the antenna mast that surmounts it for a total height of over 100 metres marks a new success of Bulgarian designers and builders. By means of the sophisticated devices and equipment installed here, hundreds of wireless calls will be put through between Sofia and the country’s other administrative and industrial centres. The television station proper occupies four floors and is equipped with video and audio transmitters, a telecine machine, outside broadcast gear using a production truck, TV cameras in the studio, and a number of other appliances (…)