In the 1950s, when the Western European countries were planning to establish colour television, they were faced with the problem that the already existing American NTSC standard wouldn't fit the 50 Hz AC frequency of the European power grids. In addition to that NTSC demonstrated several weaknesses, including colour tone shifting under less-than-ideal transmission conditions. For these reasons the development of the SECAM and PAL standards began. The goal was to provide a colour TV standard with a picture frequency of 50 fields per second (50 hertz), and sporting a better colour picture than NTSC.

PAL was developed by Walter Bruch at Telefunken in Germany. The format was first unveiled in 1963, with the first broadcasts beginning in the United Kingdom and Germany in 1967.[1] Telefunken was later bought by the French electronics manufacturer Thomson. Thomson also bought the Compagnie Générale de Télévision where Henri de France developed SECAM, historically the first European colour television standard. Thomson nowadays also co-owns the RCA brand for consumer electronics products, which created the NTSC colour TV standard before Thomson became involved.

The term PAL is often used informally to refer to a 625-line/50 Hz (576i, principally European) television system, and to differentiate from a 525-line/60 Hz (480i, principally North American/Central American/Japanese) NTSC system. Accordingly, DVDs are labelled as either PAL or NTSC (referring informally to the line count and frame rate) even though technically the European discs do not have PAL composite colour. This usage may lead readers to believe that PAL defines image resolution, even though it doesn't. The PAL colour system can be used in conjunction with any resolution and frame rate, and various such combinations exist. NTSC, by contrast does define the video line and frame format.