Technicolor in the Parlor

By Hugh Garner
(May 29, 1954, Saturday Night Magazine)

If you are one of those people who are putting off buying a television set until color TV is on the market, don't. Dr. Allen B. Dumont, television pioneer and head of Dumont Laboratories recently stated: "The FCC decision (to allow compatible color telecasting) is ahead of the industry's ability to deliver commercially practical color television equipment and programs in any appreciable quantity for several years. Meantime nobody should deprive himself of the enjoyment of television on black and white receivers, which will always be able to receive both color and black and white programs."

Last October RCA announced that color broadcast equipment for television stations in 57 American cities was in production by their company, and that delivery would commence before the end of last year. S.I. Weaver Jr., President of NBC said on April 23, "The time to start color television is this fall". He recommended to American advertisers that they utilize color with their present shows if they can get the facilities. He wound up his argument for immediate use of color telecasting by saying, "We hope to have one such (color) program a week from NBC programmed on a once a month basis, replacing regular programming. The kind of programming we will do in color this fall will sell color sets just as our program innovations in 1949 and 1950 sold black and white sets."

Dr. Frank Stanton, President of CBS says that, "Color television is in a locked-in situation because of the interdependence of the problems of the manufacturer, the broadcaster, and the advertiser". He goes on to say that in his opinion the key to the lock is in the size and efficiency of the picture tube and the price of the receiver.

Though advertising and transmission costs may act as deterrents to the acceptance of color TV in the immediate future, the big stumbling block at the present time is the price of color receivers. A recent widely advertised dealer-showing of color receivers in New York, which was attended by thousands, resulted in the sale of only one color TV set. On Feb 28 of this year Westinghouse ran an advertisement in the New York Times offering immediate delivery of the 15-inch color sets for $1295; out of sixty stores featuring these sets not one reported a single sale. Besides the high price of color receivers, other factors holding up sales are the small size of the picture on present-day sets, and the few color telecasts available to set owners - at the present less than two hours per week.

Of the few hundred color sets manufactured during the first quarter of this year, all will have 15-inch tubes, giving only a 12 1/2-inch picture, not a very worthy replacement for black and white sets featuring a 21-inch screen. This cause of buyer resistance will tend to be over come later this year when both CBS and RCA will begin manufacturing 19-inch color tubes, with the aim of bringing them up to 21-inch probably during 1955.

Dr. Alfred R. Oxenfeldt, American economic consultant, believes that by 1959 there will be 17,800,000 color sets in the United States. He breaks down their purchase as follows: 1955, 1 million sets, at $700 each; 1956, 2 1/2 million sets at $540; 1957, 4 million sets, at $ 400; and in 1985 and 1959, 5 million sets, at $350. During this same period the industry will make 15 million conventional black and white sets. Although RCA estimates that the industry will make between 75,000 and 100,000 color sets this year, black and white sets will greatly outsell them.

Last September private Canadian broadcasting interests in Toronto approached the CBC Board of Governors with the proposal that they be given permission to erect immediately color television broadcasting facilities. In part, their proposal was worded as follows: "In regard to (color) programming, the following would result. Immediately Canadian receivers converted to color, a color service would be available to them. Meanwhile these color telecasts would provide the sharper and more effective photography which color programming provides, ever on a screen adaptable to black and white alone.... These proposals provide an admirable means of enlightened co-operation between the state service and private enterprise, with evident benefits to the tax payer, the television viewer, as well as the stated objectives of Government television policy." These proposals were ignored by the CBC Board of Governors.

To those Canadians unfortunate enough to be dependent on the outlets of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for their television entertainment, the color outlook lacks even the faintest trace of any hue: it stays black. Melwyn Breen, Press and Information representative for the CBC Television division, says that the Government corporation has no immediate plans for broadcasting color programs, and that color TV, as far as the Canadian network is concerned is at least five years in the future.

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