June 25, 1951

The first colour television transmissions begin in the US 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 cannot pick up the colour programming, even in black-and-white, and colour sets go blank during television’s many hours of black-and-white broadcasting. The experiment is a failure and colour transmissions are stopped in October.

June 25, 1951

The first colour television transmissions begin in the US 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 cannot pick up the colour programming, even in black-and-white, and colour sets go blank during television’s many hours of black-and-white broadcasting. The experiment is a failure and colour transmissions are stopped in October.