Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton FRS was a Scottish consulting electrical engineer, who provided the theoretical basis for the electronic television, two decades before the technology existed to implement it. He began experimenting around 1903 with the use of cathode ray tubes for the electronic transmission and reception of images. Campbell described the theoretical basis for an all electronic method of producing television in a 1908 letter to Nature. Campbell-Swinton's concept was central to the cathode ray television because of his proposed modification of the cathode ray tube that allowed its use as both a transmitter and receiver of light. The cathode-ray tube was the system of electronic television that was subsequently developed in later years, as technology caught up with Campbell-Swinton's initial ideas. Other inventors would use Campbell-Swinton's ideas as a starting-point to realise the cathode ray tube television as the standard, workable form of all electronic television that it became for decades after his death. It is generally considered that the original credit for the successful theoretical conception of using a cathode ray tube device for imaging should belong to Campbell-Swinton.

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set, rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than "radio broadcasting", which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers.