Early Colour

[sampson159]

that screen shot is amazing.like technicolor at home!

[Joel Cairo]

Sadly though, neither the Sullivan show nor "What's My Line?" from that evening were preserved-- CBS was unable to come up with a compatible way to kinescope them!

(Color photos from the WML? program do exist, however-- one of them is on the cover of the "soundtrack" LP that was issued by Dot Records.)

- Kevin

[David Roper]

The producers of What's My Line began archiving their own kinescope copies of the broadcasts in early 1953 after they learned such kinescopes were routinely destroyed by CBS. A black & white kinescope of that night's WML was did exist, but is now lost to some unspecified mishap.

[Joel Cairo]

Sorry, but WML? producer Gil Fates' notes indicate that no kinescope was made of the show that evening (September 19, 1954). And as it happened, this program was also notable for being Steve Allen's final show as a regular member of the panel.

For the record, there were **two** Mystery Guests presented to the panel that night-- Gina Lollobrigida and Robert Young. The program aired live from Studio 72, which was one of the few CBS facilities that was outfitted for color broadcasting.

- Kevin

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by rpm1200

I recognized those pictures from this 1997 American Heritage of Invention and Technology magazine article: http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/color_wars.pdf
(They are used on the front and back covers of the magazine.)

What is not mentioned in the article is that RCA tried very hard but could not successfully make a 21 inch color CRT. The article does not point out where the 21 inch color CRT came from. It did not come from RCA.

CBS, in 1954, invented and patented the CBS Colortron which is the 19 inch tube that made the 205 possible.

RCA very quietly bought a manufacturing license from CBS and made a 21 inch version of the CBS Colortron. RCA and other manufacturers continued to pay royalties to CBS for the rights to build the 21AXP22 through 1967.

Also, Sarnoff was so firmly determined to make color television compatible that he overlooked the unintended consequence of his desire:
People with B&W sets could watch color programs without spending $$$$ to
see it. The result of compatibility is that the uptake for color dragged on for 20 years before all the networks were broadcasting full time in color and the sales of color sets took over 10 years to reach the goal Sarnoff had set in 1954.
RCA was gone by the late 1980s.
CBS is still here.
I wonder, who really won the color war?

[sampson159]

RCA was gone by the late 1980s.
CBS is still here.
I wonder, who really won the color war?

i agree and that was a brilliant statement!

[Joel Cairo]

Originally Posted by cbenham

Also, Sarnoff was so firmly determined to make color television compatible that he overlooked the unintended consequence of his desire:
People with B&W sets could watch color programs without spending $$$$ to
see it. The result of compatibility is that the uptake for color dragged on for 20 years before all the networks were broadcasting full time in color and the sales of color sets took over 10 years to reach the goal Sarnoff had set in 1954.

If I 'm not mistaken, B&W compatibility was not necessarily a result of any grand vision that the General may have had... I think it was (at least an unstated) requirement from the Federal regulators that were going to approve the new standard. Maybe it's just hindsight, but it would seem logical that any system that allowed for cross-viewing would have an edge, given that it was inclusive of the families that had already made the then-considerable investment in purchasing B&W TV sets.

- Kevin