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This article is from the Antique Radios And Phonographs FAQ, by Hank van Cleef vancleef@netcom with numerous contributions by others.

42 Radio made in 1939 jack on the back labelled "television"

I just got an old radio that I think was made in 1939. But it has a
jack on the back labelled "television." It only has a volume
control/on-off switch and tuning control on the front. What's the deal
with the jack? How can a radio receive television, and why is a 1939
radio labelled like this when TV broadcasting didn't really begin until
after the war.

You are looking at a marketing ploy. The jack on the back is an
audio input jack, and if there is no switch for it, it is wired
permanently to the top of the volume control (detector output), so has
whatever signal the radio is receiving on it as well. Television was
"just around the corner" in the 1937-39 period and there were some
experimental stations broadcasting what is essentially NTSC video on
Channel 1 (48-54 Mhz) after 1936. Putting these jacks on the radios was
to convince the buying public that their new radio wouldn't be made
obsolete by television "next year." Commercial television actually
began in 1939, but WW II intervened, and the mass-marketing push for TV
did not begin until 1946-7.

 

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