Introduction of Television to the United States Media Market, 1946-1960

This study catalogs the introduction of television to media markets in the United States. The file titled, "TV Station Diffusion by DMA, 1946-1960," lists the name and the start date of the first commercial television station in each Nielsen media market (DMA) in the United States. This dataset uses the 2002/2003 definitions of Nielsen media markets. The file titled, "TV Set Diffusion by United States County, 1950-1960," lists by county the number of households that own television sets for the years 1950 and 1953-1960. This study also includes a file titled, "Crosswalk -- County to DMA," that matches each county to its respective DMA(s).