Today the major stars of film, popular music and TV are known and recognised throughout the world. A century ago all those mediums were in their infancy and their stars known only to a few and recognised by fewer. Thomas Edison who invented the phonograph and the Kinetescope, the first moving picture camera - would recognise the ancestors of the machines that captivate our leisure hours - though he might be surprised by their sophistication. One of the greatest changes has been the way in which music is now universal and constant, rather than something to be enjoyed after work or as an entertainment. Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, a rotating wax cylinder and a needle. It made music more accessible in the home, because listeners needed no training to have music on demand. Coin-operated phonographs (forerunners of the jukebox) appeared before 1900, and by the Great War the top singers of the day - like Enrico Caruso- were recording their favourite songs. Once radio was capable of broadcasting long distances popular songs and artists multiplied, as the working classes created their own favourites. Sinatra and Presley were preferred over the classics. The technology of recorded music was constantly being updated and refined: the 78 rpm shellac disc was superseded by the vinyl disc, the Sony Walkman helped refine the cassette and the DAT tape, the advent of digital sound brought in compact discs, mini discs and now DVDs. The combination of high spec, low-cost computing power, the Internet and digital recording has created the fastest technological change. Music now exists in cyber space waiting for a download. The first coin-operated Kinetoscopes, which ran 15m of film in an endless loop past a magnifying screen were introduced in New York, London, Berlin, and Paris in 1894. By the Great War there were small movie theatres - nickelodeons - all over America and Europe. The period between the wars belonged to the movies, silents, then talkies but its greatest rival was already under development once John Logie Baird had invented the television. In 1928 the first television drama, 'The Queen's Messenger,' was broadcast on experimental equipment in Schenectady, New York. TV was a mass medium but like radio it sat at home. There are now close to a billion homes round the world with their own sets, which make television the most important and influential communications media in the world. TV rights, especially for sport, are an essential part of financing any global event. In other ways sport has hardly changed. Many of the problems that bedevil football now, were equally apparent 70 years ago. Radio and Television have brought sportsmen to play on a wider international stage - and they get paid much more. The games, apart from minor tinkering with the rules, remain the same. It is the technology that has changed and the choice of sports we watch has multiplied. Once a shared experience, leisure entertainment is becoming a strictly personalised one. In 1900 it might have been just a few folk gathered around a hand-cranked gramophone, or 30,000 watching Arsenal play but the experience was shared. Tomorrow it will be possible for an individual to enjoy completely unique entertainment 24-hours a day from the individual mixes on his personal stereo to the specific camera angles chosen for the European Champions Cup matches on the digital box above his TV.