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Early Color Television In the early 1950s, two competing color TV systems emerged. CBS proposed a system which transmitted an image in each of the three primary colors sequentially. A wheel with segments of red, green, and blue rotated in front of the camera, while a similar wheel rotated in front of the television screen, synchronized to the one at the camera. The advantage of the system was that it was inexpensive. Eventually, the wheel at the receiver could be replaced with a tri-color picture tube when the cost of these tubes came down. Unfortunately, the system was not compatible with the black and white standard. The other system was proposed by RCA, and was eventually adopted by the FCC. It used no mechanical parts, and was compatible with black and white sets. Read a 1950 article about the controversy. For a few months in 1951, test broadcasts were done using the CBS system. Some manufacturers, such as Admiral, made adaptors for the CBS standard. See newspaper articles and advertisements. Here is a CBS announcement of the first New York demonstration of color television. In late 1953, the FCC adopted the RCA compatible system. The first color television sets for this system were sold in 1954. They used a 15 inch screen. Later that year, 19 inch sets were made, and by 1955 all sets were made with a 21 inch picture tube. Several manufacturers made 15 and 19 inch sets, most in very small quantities. See newspaper articles or advertisements, or a 1953 Time Magazine article. One of the earliest color broadcasts using the RCA system was in December, 1953. An excellent history of the development of color television was published in the Proceedings of the IEEE in 1999. The most comprehensive website on early color history is by Ed Reitan. See his history of CBS color. The first set was made by Westinghouse, and sold for $1295. RCA introduced the CT-100 a few weeks later, at a price of $1000. GE sold its 15 inch set for $1,000, Sylvania's cost $1,150. Emerson rented color sets for $200 for the first month and $75/month thereafter. By the summer of 1954 there was already a shakeout. A headline in the New York Times said "Set Buying Lags - Public Seen Awaiting Larger Screens, Lower Prices". Motorola and CBS promised a 19 inch screen at $995. In 1955, Raytheon introduced a 21 inch set for $795 and CBS offered a trade-in of up to $400 for their black and white sets towards the purchase of a $895 21 inch color model. By the end of 1957 only 150,000 color sets had been sold. Color sales were slow until the mid 1960s, when the reliability of sets improved, prices came down, and more color programming became available. Read these Time Magazine articles from 1956 and 1958.
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