Television first came to Calcutta in 1975. The inauguration was on 9th August. Initially the programs were in one channel for limited time in the morning and in the evening. In those days, the only TV channel was aired from Doordarshan (means distance viewing in Bengali), a Govt. funded organization. TV became popular in sports frenzy city, when the local senior division football league matches were used to be shown live or when cricket test matches were live telecasted.

In June, 1984, Calcutta TV ( Doordarshan) entered the world of colour transmission. The DD(Doordarshan) centre is located at Golf Green near Tollygunge. Now the TV centre has programs in Bengali, news in Bengali, English, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali.

From the mid nineties, cable television channels mushroomed and started telecasting round the clock programs in different languages. The viewers can enjoy international channels like BBC, CNN, CNBC along with a long list of local channels and other regional channels. The channel list gets updated with new ones all the time.