1961 NBC "Tinted" Color Programming?

[holmesuser01]

When I worked for an independent TV station... Remember those? No affiliation with a network of anykind?

Our home-made video switcher that we used for broadcast would hang up sometimes, and leave the chroma turned on while we were broadcasting a black and white film. We'd get some really interesting color artifacts, depending on the age of the camera tubes in our film chain.

There was a key on the switcher to kill chroma. It worked when it wanted to... Those were the days.

We eventually bought a brand new Grass Valley brand switcher, and we thought it would be installed overnight. Didnt happen that way, either.

I remember NBC going color, but I dont remember ever hearing of B/W shows being tinted for broadcast.