The purpose of this chapter is to establish a relationship between the history of television and the history shown on television. The representation of television history in relevant works of television historiography, which has rarely been discussed, might appear to have nothing to do with the often problematic representation of history on and through television (Knopp and Quandt 1988; Sobchack 1996; Roberts 2001). However, the clarification of their relationship is interesting if two additional ideas are taken into consideration. The first idea is that the representation of history is always, at the same time, a relation of production: history is not only the object but also the product of historiography. Like their historical context, historical facts are also constructed. The means of their construction – that is, themedia of historiography – thus enable certain historical perspectives while simultaneously setting the conditions for their use. As with all representations, the representation of history and the media through which it is represented influence what is observed and described during the process of observation and description (Engell and Vogl 2001; Crivellari and Grampp 2004). This applies to the representation of television history as well as the representation of history on and through television.

The second idea is merely a working hypothesis. While it will be applied here exclusively to television, it could presumably be extended to other forms of historiography as well.