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I remember it well...
I believe at JFK's inaugural address, the principle camera on the president was a b&w pool feed to all three networks. Certainly, NBC could have sent a color mobile unit to D.C. but why go to the expense? In 1961 the % of homes with color sets was still tiny. And there was not nearly enough color equipment to cover all the festivities. This is why the pool coverage was used. To spread the cost and maximize the available network equipment which was still mainly RCA TK-10 era b&w camera equip. Had NBC chose to use color for portions of the event, it would have been a simple matter to microwave the color signal, as they did with the b&w to WRC-TV, the NBC D.C. station and feed it live to the Network or record it to available color video tape machines as easily as they actually recorded it to b&w vtr's. As for the asassination coverage in Nov. 1963. That was also in b&w. Exception were live cutins from the NBC affiliate in Dallas, WBAP-TV which had live color capability at the time. There was also a memorial concert from Chicago, on NBC, that was telecast in color. I believe the first color telecast of a major event from the White House was the marriage ceremony of Pres. Johnson's daughter in 1964 on NBC.
-Steve D.
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