The television was demonstrated in Singapore at the British Radio Exhibition by the British Radio and Accessories Manufacturers’ Association in August 1952 over a span of 16 days. At the time, a small group of sceptics were convinced that Singapore did not have the infrastructure that was needed to introduce television on its shores. In addition, they believed that it was uneconomical for such a small area to adopt television in the midst of its meteoric rise in entertainment. Citizens would have to wait another 11 years before Television Singapura, Singapore’s first television station, launched on 15^th February 1963.

 “Television histories in Asia: nation-building, modernization and marketization”, the introductory chapter of Television Histories in Asia: Issues and Context (2015), highlights the importance of conducting distinctive case studies on Asian countries rather than generalising the region’s television history. Written by Dr Jinna Tay (NUS Department of Communications and New Media) and Emeritus Professor Graeme Turner (University of Queensland, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities), who also edited the book, the chapter recognises the former dominance of Anglo-American television in Asia but emphasises that local television in Asian countries today is a complex product of their unique political, social, and economic conditions.

Since the early 2000s, the field of media studies has started looking outside of Western media to understand television industries beyond the British and North American centre. While some aspects of media expansion in Asia have been examined, such as the spread of Korean pop-culture in east-Asian media, there is still a large gap in studies conducted on the television histories of countries in the region. This chapter details three common historical processes that have influenced the development of television in Asian countries.

Firstly, nation-building is identified as a recurrent motive in several Asian countries’ case studies for creating broadcasting programmes. For instance, in Singapore, Mediacorp is noted as a medium to communicate ideas of national identity and inculcate nationalistic sentiments among its audience. Secondly, the pursuit of modernisation through the material possession of a television is seen as yet another common trait. Historically, televisions were seen as status symbols. In countries like China, owning a television would equate to the acceptance of globalisation. Lastly, the process of marketisation is reflected in the capitalist nature of television itself. On the individual level, having the option to purchase a television meant an increase in consumer choice and inadvertently, a rise in consumerist behaviours. For the state, engaging in media production for television was a means to form a global presence by participating in external media markets.

Even though these three commonalities have been noticed in the television histories of some Asian countries, the authors  emphasize that there is a diversity of factors that set apart the nations’ distinct media systems. Overall, they observe that the history of television in Asia is closely related to the history of states’ development and progress towards modernisation.