Color broadcasting timeline

[David Roper]

Aside from possibly a test pattern?

I'm sure the network never broadcast a single color program.

[holmesuser01]

Originally Posted by alespn

Concerning the Cinderella show, it was remade around 64 or 65 on CBS with their old TK 41 cameras, I'm told. It starred Leslie Ann Warren, I believe replacing Julie Andrews. It must have been one of their first live color shows since they stopped around '58. I saw it on either PBS or the Disney Channel some time ago. Definately looked like TK41 color.

The copyright notice on Rodgers And Hammerstein's Cinderella is 1964.

I've got it on a DVD. Watched it last night in memory of Celeste Holm, who played the fairy godmother.

Pretty sure it was not a live show.

[W3XWT]

When WDTV was Pittsburgh's sole TV station, I'm sure it must've carried something in color off of NBC-TV or CBS-TV on at least a hire basis...

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by David Roper

Aside from possibly a test pattern?

I'm sure the network never broadcast a single color program.

David, I agree. DuMont only broadcast a color test pattern on an unused UHF channel in New York City. I believe they also broadcast this same TP on their NYC O&O WABD-TV after sign off. http://www.ggninfo.com/PIX/TP-Dumont-color.JPG

[alespn]

Didn't mean to imply the show was live... I ment it was a live-on-tape show, as opposed to film.

[Einar72]

Originally Posted by W3XWT

I guess the next question, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned... Did the DuMont network or any DuMont O&O's originate or broadcast anything in color?

Found something:

http://www.dumonthistory.tv/a13.html

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by Einar72

Found something:

http://www.dumonthistory.tv/a13.html

This lists milestones in the history of DuMont's O&O in Pittsburgh. While being owned by DuMont, WDTV carried shows from all 4 networks. The reference in the history: "October 13, 1954:
Today was the big day. We are to broadcast our first colorcast (Westinghouse "Best of Broadway") at 10 PM tonight ... The color program went out on air, but we had no color on our receiver (due to an equipment failure) ... However, out in the field, we received nothing but very good comments. All said that our color was better than Johnstown's, when viewed side by side. We will have some more color programs on Monday night. (Striner)"

This refers to WDTV carrying the Westinghouse sponsored program "Best of Broadway" a CBS network show that was telecast from New York in color. It was also seen here in Los Angeles live & in color at 7PM. WDTV w/their new color capable transmitter was transmitting a color feed from CBS. The color program mentioned
for the next monday Oct. 18, 1954 was the CBS program Studio One, also sponsored by Westinghouse, seen live in color coast to coast. It aired at 7PM here in Los Angeles. Source: TV Guide So.Ca. ediion.

-Steve D.

[holmesuser01]

Originally Posted by alespn

Didn't mean to imply the show was live... I ment it was a live-on-tape show, as opposed to film.

It looks to me like it was done on a very cramped set at Television City in Los Angeles. It was shot in segments, and edited. There are several edits that are not the best. Live on tape would be just that. Run from start to finish and record it.

Still, it's an ambitious effort. It's very entertaining from start to finish, and the music score is lovely.

I've actually seen a kinescope B/W 16mm print of this production. Could see the 2" tape banding in the recorded TV signal.

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by Einar72

Found something:
http://www.dumonthistory.tv/a13.html

"...We made a antenna, then used a conical to pick up WJAC..."

What's a conical?

Phil Nelson

[Charlie]

This has been very interesting. So, CBS was indeed broadcasting "some" color programming in 54... just not as much as NBC. Then, after a while, CBS color programming slowed down to a crawl until the mid-60's.

I had also wondered about Dumont... but had figured they weren't on the color bandwagon at all.

[KentTeffeteller]

1965 was really the year Color network programming caught on with ABC and CBS, I am glad to know about the earlier attempts at colorcasting. Wonder how well the Chromacoder worked in practice.

[David Roper]

You need to update your 'facts' as they don't square with what is known and largely already covered in this thread. 1) ABC began colorcasting in 1962 and had several weekly color series on the air during three early-mid 1960s TV seasons in which CBS had none.

2) The 'old CBS system' was practically stillborn, all use of it for broadcasting having ceased in October of 1951 and the few sets that were sold for its use were recalled. The closed-circuit use (primarily medical) continued past 1954 because compatibility was a non-issue for that purpose. There was no immediate need to replace the privately used field sequential equipment.

[John Hafer]

OK, maybe this shows my age but I grew up in the 1950's. I have TV Guides from every year from 1953 to 1966 and a fall of 1956 issue showed CBS was colorcasting 4 shows per week. ABC started in the fall of 1962 (Flintstones, Jetsons and Sunday Movie Special). For the fall of 1963, ABC had Wagon Train, The Greatest Show on Earth, and Flintstones. For the fall of 1964, they regressed, Wagon Train went back to B&W and only Flinstones, Jonny Quest, and the Sunday Movie were in color with a some specials and a Sunday Golf program (filmed). The fall of 1965 was the start of both ABC and CBS regular colorcasting.

As far as Cinderella on CBS. It was taped at CBS (yes TK-41 cameras) and was originally colorcast on CBS on February 22, 1965. CBS also showed two rebroadcasts of Fred Astaire (originally from NBC from 1958 and 1959) in the winter/spring of 1965. I also remember CBS filmed a couple of Lassie episodes in color in the early 1960s.

I think part of the reason for CBS did not colorcast was that they did not have much color broadcast equipment. I have a TV Guide episode from 1964 that states CBS was installing over a million dollars of color equipment at their new broadcast center being built at the time.

Growing up in Syracuse NY, we did have more color in that our local CBS station had local color film equipment, as well as our local ABC and NBC stations, all by 1964.

I followed color broadcast progression from the late 1950s and we bought our first color TV in December 1963.

Hope this info helps.

[David Roper]

Sure does. Original material like your '56 TV Guide is the best possible kind of source. I'm surprised that there were that many weekly color shows (four is many relative to zero) on CBS at the time; this would seem to coincide with a very temporary surge in the number of color set offerings by a number of manufacturers in 1956-57.

[W.B.]

The thing that finally tipped CBS to going color, by all accounts, was when Philips first developed the Plumbicon tube and introduced the Norelco PC-60 color studio camera in 1964-65. Here, the network could go color without giving any aid to the "hated" rival RCA which owned NBC. It was precisely because of this rivalry that, from the time CBS's own incompatible "field sequential" color system crashed and burned in 1951 up to that point, CBS only grudgingly and very sparingly, from 1954 through 1959, mounted occasional color productions - and, from 1959 through '65, hardly any (except for those colorcasts from early 1965 that were mentioned).

It was also in relation to CBS's "anybody but RCA" equipment replacement policy, that when the antiquated RCA TK-26 film chains (acquired in the mid-to-late 1950's and used for very infrequent color showings such as annual airings of The Wizard of Oz) came up for replacement in 1965-66, the "Eye Network" went with the General Electric PE-240 chains for their New York Broadcast Center and Hollywood Television City outposts. (Just can't tell whether it was the PE-240-A or PE-240-B variant - which of those two had the rounded, curved edges on the camera heads, as seen not only on Dennis Degan's photos from 1978, but also pics taken in the mid-to-late 1960's by Gordon Laubach seen here (alt. link here)?