A television signal coding system is designed to avoid any increase in the volume of information transmitted resulting from transmission of unnecessary picture elements, while at the same time reducing the volume of address information required. The picture elements are compared one by one between successive frames, and the magnitude of the frame-to-frame differences is compared with a predetermined threshold value to determine whether the change is significant or not. A predetermined number of consecutive picture elements forms a unit region. A line of horizontal scan is divided into regions, each including a predetermined number of unit regions, and for each of such regions the decision is made as to whether it includes at least one significant unit region or not. Each of the significant regions is further divided, and for each of the resulting divisions the decision is made as to whether it is significant or not. In this manner, each scanning line is divided step by step until a train of significant unit regions is obtained. The code resulting from the several divisions is used as the address information.