Why even in 1976-1982 color tv where still expensive for people from USA?

[nasadowsk]

It was just a more expensive technology than a B&W set.

Realistically, most people bought color at that time, only the very poor, or old people (who didn't want color, for whatever reason). As a 2nd set, B&W was good for the kids or the kitchen, though. Lot of those little tv/radio B&W sets were sold for that purpose.

If I recall, 1976 was the point where color set sales in the US exceeded 50% of all TV sales. But remember that there were already multiple TV households, and also, the US was going through economic headaches at the time too - money was tight in the 70's.

You also had households like my parents, where the main TV was a color set, but the color crapped out on it due to whatever (bad tube? We never did get it fixed), but we kept it till it died anyway.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

It was just a more expensive technology than a B&W set.

Realistically, most people bought color at that time, only the very poor, or old people (who didn't want color, for whatever reason). As a 2nd set, B&W was good for the kids or the kitchen, though. Lot of those little tv/radio B&W sets were sold for that purpose.

If I recall, 1976 was the point where color set sales in the US exceeded 50% of all TV sales. But remember that there were already multiple TV households, and also, the US was going through economic headaches at the time too - money was tight in the 70's.

You also had households like my parents, where the main TV was a color set, but the color crapped out on it due to whatever (bad tube? We never did get it fixed), but we kept it till it died anyway.

According to wikipedia the year color sales exceeded monochrome was in 1972. I thought it was during the color boom of '67, but was wrong too.

One could potentially obtain a used color set cheaper than a comparable new monochrome set by the early to mid 60's, the catch being it probably needed work, and once fixed would cost some money to maintain unless you knew enough to fix it yourself. By the late 60's one could probably find a working used color set cheaper than a comparable new monochrome set.

Tube color sets did tend to have noticeably lower reliability than tube monochrome. Many thrifty TV owners/families avoided color till solid state because they did not want to pay for maintenance....There were adds my several makers trying to convince monochrome buyers that their new chassis was as reliable as monochrome.