1951

Colour Experiments Fail

1951 | June 25 – The first colour #television transmissions began in the United States with CBS broadcasting a one-hour program called Premiere, featuring Ed Sullivan and other CBS stars, carried on a five-station east coast CBS-TV hookup. Unfortunately, only 30 sets were equipped to receive the colour broadcasts. Because of technical incompatibilities with the new CBS colour standard, all existing black-and-white receivers could not pick up the colour programming, even in black-and-white, and colour sets went blank during television’s many hours of black-and-white broadcasting. The experiment was a failure and colour transmissions were stopped in October.

The CBS colour receiver and their first transmission, “Premiere”