WASHINGTONFrom the U.S. Census Bureau: Couch potatoes can trace their roots to Jan. 13, 1928, when three experimental television sets were installed in private homes in Schenectady, New York. Not that there was much to see, the test broadcast by General Electric and RCA being of a woman smoking, followed by a man playing a ukulele.

The first home receivers screens were only 1½ inches square; a far cry from today's theater-sized flat screens. And in another departure from 1928, the percentage of U.S. households with TV sets now has held steady for many years at over 98 percent. Even with heavy foreign competition, U.S. manufacturers ship close to $1.2 billion worth of TV sets annually.

The full story is available on WRGB-TV’s history page.