Editing Color television (section)

===North America===

====Canada====
Colour broadcasts from the United States were available to Canadian population centres near the border from the mid-1950s.<ref name="CBC goes colour">{{cite news
 |url=http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/media/canada-tunes-in-the-early-years-of-radio-and-tv/cbc-in-living-colour.html
 |title=CBC in Living Colour
 |newspaper=CBC News
 |date=5 September 1991
|location=Ottawa
 |author=CBC Staff
 |access-date=1 January 2014
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102194040/http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/media/canada-tunes-in-the-early-years-of-radio-and-tv/cbc-in-living-colour.html
 |archive-date=2 January 2014
|url-status=dead
 
}}
</ref> At the time that NTSC colour broadcasting was officially introduced into Canada in 1966, less than one percent of Canadian households had a colour television set.<ref name = "CBC goes colour"/> Colour television in Canada was launched on the [[CBC Television|Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]]'s (CBC) [[CBC Television|English language TV service]] on 1 September 1966.<ref name = "CBC goes colour"/> Private television broadcaster [[CTV Television Network|CTV]] also started colour broadcasts in early September 1966.<ref name = "Color is Expensive">
{{cite news
 | url          = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yWhkAAAAIBAJ&dq=introduction%20of%20colour%20television%20in%20canada&pg=3834%2C322129
 | title        = Color It Expensive
 | newspaper    = The Calgary Herald
 | page         = 4
 | date         = 1 September 1966
| location     = Calgary, Alberta
 | access-date   = 14 April 2012
}}
</ref>
The CBC's French-language service, [[Ici Radio-Canada Télé|Radio-Canada]], was broadcasting colour programming on its television network for 15 hours a week in 1968.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/listing_and_histories/src-radio-canada-network|title=SRC Radio-Canada Network – History of Canadian Broadcasting|website=www.broadcasting-history.ca|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226073947/http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/listing_and_histories/src-radio-canada-network|archive-date=26 December 2017}}</ref> Full-time colour transmissions started in 1974 on the CBC, with other private sector broadcasters in the country doing so by the end of the 1970s.<ref name = "CBC goes colour"/>

The following provinces and areas of Canada introduced colour television by the years as stated
*Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec (1966; Major networks only – private sector around 1968 to 1972)
*Newfoundland and Labrador (1967)
*Nova Scotia, New Brunswick (1968)
*Prince Edward Island (1969)
*Yukon (1971)
*Northwest Territories (including Nunavut) (1972; Major networks in large centers, many remote areas in the far north did not get colour until at least 1977 and 1978)

====Cuba====
Cuba in 1958 became the second country in the world to introduce color television broadcasting, with Havana's Channel 12 using the American [[NTSC]] standard and technology patented by RCA. But the color transmissions ended when broadcasting stations were seized in the [[Cuban Revolution]] in 1959, and did not return until 1975, using equipment acquired from Japan's [[NEC Corporation]], and [[SECAM]] equipment from the Soviet Union, adapted for the American NTSC standard.<ref>Roberto Diaz-Martin, "The Recent History of Satellite Communications in Cuba", [https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4217/ch19.htm Selection of a Color Standard] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171225231626/https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4217/ch19.htm |date=25 December 2017 }}, in ''Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communication'' (NASA SP-4217, 1997).</ref>

====Mexico====
[[Guillermo González Camarena]] independently invented and developed a field-sequential tricolor disk system in Mexico in the late 1930s, for which he requested a patent in Mexico on 19 August 1940, and in the United States in 1941.<ref name="US2296019">
{{cite web
 |author       = González Camarena, Guillermo
 |title        = Chromoscopic adapter for television equipment
 |url          = https://patents.google.com/patent/US2296019
 |work         = Patent No. US 2,296,019
 |version      = filed in Mexico 19 August 1940, filed in US 1941, patented 1942
 |publisher    = United States Patent Office
 |access-date  = 22 April 2017
|url-status   = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20170425205657/https://www.google.com/patents/US2296019
 |archive-date = 25 April 2017
|df           = mdy-all
}}</ref> González Camarena produced his color television system in his Gon-Cam laboratory for the Mexican market and exported it to the Columbia College of Chicago, which regarded it as the best system in the world.<ref name="Newcomb">
{{cite book
 | title = Encyclopedia of Television, second edition
 | author = Newcomb, Horace
 | volume = 1 A-C
 | publisher = Fitzroy Dearborn
 | year = 2004
 | isbn = 1-57958-411-X
 | page = 1484
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JUzIAgAAQBAJ&q=gon-cam+columbia+gonzalez+camarena
 }}</ref><ref name="Gon-Cam1">
{{cite journal
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RPIVAQAAMAAJ&q=gon-cam+columbia
 | title = Historia de la televisión en México
 | publisher = Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística
 | journal = Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística
 | volume = 97-99
 | date = 1964
 | page = 287
}}</ref> Goldmark had actually applied for a patent for the same field-sequential tricolor system in the US on 7 September 1940,<ref name="Goldmark1"/> while González Camarena had made his Mexican filing 19 days before, on 19 August.

On 31 August 1946, González Camarena sent his first color transmission from his lab in the offices of the Mexican League of Radio Experiments at Lucerna St. No. 1, in [[Mexico City]]. The video signal was transmitted at a frequency of 115&nbsp;MHz and the audio in the 40-metre band. He obtained authorization to make the first publicly announced color broadcast in Mexico, on 8 February 1963, of the program ''Paraíso Infantil'' on Mexico City's [[XHGC-TV]], using the NTSC system that had by now been adopted as the standard for color programming.

González Camarena also invented the "simplified Mexican color TV system" as a much simpler and cheaper alternative to the NTSC system.<ref name="Simplified-Mexican">
{{cite journal
 | url = http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics-World/60s/1964/Electronics-World-1964-07.pdf
 | title = Simplified Mexican Color TV
 | author = Leslie Solomon
 | journal = Electronics World
 | volume = 72
 | number = 1
 | date = July 1964
 | page = 48 and 71
}}</ref> Due to its simplicity, NASA used a modified version of the system in its Voyager mission of 1979, to take pictures and video of Jupiter.<ref>^ *Enrique Krauze – Guillermo Gonzalez-Camarena Jr. "50 años de la televisión mexicana" (50th anniversary of Mexican TV) – 1999 Mexican TV documentary produced by Editorial Clío & Televisa, broadcast in 2000</ref>

====United States====
[[File:RCA CT-100 screenshot.jpg|left|thumb|RCA [[CT-100]] at the [[SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention]] playing [[Superman (1940s animated film series)|''Superman'']]. The RCA CT-100 was the first mass-produced color TV set.<ref name="lancasteronline">{{cite web|url=https://lancasteronline.com/news/rca-pioneers-remember-making-the-first-color-tv-tube/article_2d5e6fb1-6c7d-55ce-82b8-255fe3c15497.html|website=lancasteronline.com|title=news/rca-pioneers-remember-making-the-first-color-tv-tube/article_2d5e6fb1-6c7d-55ce-82b8-255fe3c15497|date=7 June 2004 |access-date=9 January 2021}}</ref>]]

Although all-electronic color was introduced in the US in 1953,<ref>{{cite book |last=Butler |first=Jeremy G.|title=Television: Critical Methods and Applications |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7rWFRLVyvY0C&q=color+television+December+17+1953&pg=PA290 |year=2006 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=9781410614742 |page=290}}</ref> high prices and the scarcity of color programming greatly slowed its acceptance in the marketplace. The first national color broadcast (the 1954 [[Tournament of Roses Parade]]) occurred on 1 January 1954, but over the next dozen years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} In 1956, NBC's ''[[The Perry Como Show]]'' became the first live network television series to present a majority of episodes in color. The CBS television production of [[Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein musical)|Rodgers & Hammerstein's ''Cinderella'']] was broadcast live in color on 31 March 1957. It was their only musical written directly for television, and had the highest one-night number of viewers to date at 107 million.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://rodgersandhammerstein.com/production/cinderella/1957-live-television-broadcast/ | title=Cinderella - 1957 Live Television Broadcast | date=23 November 2020 }}</ref> CBS's ''[[The Big Record]]'', starring pop vocalist [[Patti Page]], in 1957–1958 became the first television show broadcast in color for an entire season. The production costs for these shows were greater than most movies were at the time, not only because of all the stars featured in the musical and on the hour-long variety extravaganza, but also due to the extremely high-intensity lighting and electronics required for the new [[RCA TK-41]] cameras,{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} which were the first practical color television cameras.

It was not until the mid-1960s that color sets started selling in large numbers, due in part to the color transition of 1965 in which it was announced that over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color that autumn. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}

[[NBC]]'s pioneering coast-to-coast color broadcast of the 1954 [[Tournament of Roses Parade]] was accompanied by public demonstrations given across the United States on prototype color receivers by manufacturers [[RCA]], [[General Electric]], [[Philco]], [[Raytheon]], [[Hallicrafters]], [[Hoffman Television|Hoffman]], [[Pacific Mercury]], and others.<ref>{{cite news |last=Gould |first=Jack |author-link=Jack Gould |title=Television in Review / Intra-Industry Row Over TV Color Credits Beginning to Assume Silly Proportions |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/01/01/83743685.html?pageNumber=19 |work=The New York Times |date=1 January 1954 |access-date=18 February 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Television in Review: N.B.C. Color |work=The New York Times |date=5 January 1954 |page=28}}</ref> Two days earlier, Admiral had demonstrated to its distributors the prototype of Admiral's first color television set planned for consumer sale using the NTSC standards, priced at $1,175 ({{Inflation|US|1175|1954|fmt=eq}}). It is not known when actual commercial sales of this receiver began. Production was extremely limited, and no advertisements for it were published in New York newspapers, nor those in Washington, DC.<ref>{{cite news |title=First Admiral Color TV |work=The New York Times |date=31 December 1953 |page=22}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Admiral's First Color TV Set |work=The Wall Street Journal |date=31 December 1953 |page=5}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kWAbAAAAIBAJ&pg=5574%2C5806019 |title=TV Firm Moves to Golden Triangle |work=The Pittsburgh Press |date=23 February 1954 |page=9}}</ref>

A color model from Admiral C1617A became available in the Chicago area on 4 January 1954<ref>{{cite news |title=Admiral introduces their first color set in Chicago |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |work=Pittsburgh Press |date=January 1954}}</ref> and appeared in various stores throughout the country, including those in Maryland on 6 January 1954,<ref>{{cite news |title=Invitation to see Admiral color set |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |work=The Cumberland News |date=January 1954}}</ref> San Francisco, 14 January 1954,<ref>{{cite news |title=Orders taken on a priority basis |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |date=January 1954}}</ref> Indianapolis on 17 January 1954,<ref>{{cite news |title=Admiral color set at dealer open house |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |work=The Indianapolis Star |date=January 1954}}</ref> Pittsburgh on 25 January 1954,<ref>{{cite news |title=Purchase price $1,175.00 installed with your existing antenna |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |work=The New Palladium |date=January 1954}}</ref> and Oakland on 26 January 1954,<ref>{{cite news |title=See your first color television at Maxwells |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |work=The Oakland Tribune |date=January 1954}}</ref> among other cities thereafter.<ref>{{cite web |title=Admiral C1617A Color TV |url=https://visions4netjournal.com/admiral-c1617a-color-tv/ |website=visions4netjournal.com|date=12 April 2018 }}</ref> A color model from [[Westinghouse H840CK15]] ($1,295, or {{Inflation|US|1295|1954|fmt=eq}}) became available in the New York area on 28 February 1954;<ref>{{cite news |title=Westinghouse display ad |work=The New York Times |date=28 February 1954 |page=57}}</ref> Only 30 sets were sold in its first month.<ref>"Color TV Reduced by Westinghouse", 2 April 1954, p. 36.</ref> A less expensive color model from RCA ([[CT-100]]) reached dealers in April 1954.<ref>RCA's manufacture of color sets began on 25 March 1954, and 5,000 Model CT-100s were produced. Initially $1,000, its price was cut to $495 in August 1954 (${{Formatprice|{{inflation|US|495|1954}}|0}} in today's dollars). "R.C.A. Halves Cost of Color TV Sets", ''The New York Times'', 10 August 1954, p. 21.</ref> Television's first prime time network color series was ''[[The Marriage (American TV series)|The Marriage]]'', a situation comedy broadcast live by NBC in the summer of 1954.<ref>"News of TV and Radio", ''The New York Times'', 20 June 1954, p. X11.</ref> NBC's [[anthology series]] ''[[Ford Theatre]]'' became the first network color-filmed series that October; however, due to the high cost of the first fifteen color episodes, Ford ordered that two black-and-white episodes be filmed for every color episode.<ref>After 15 episodes in color, Ford reduced costs by making only every third episode in color. "[https://books.google.com/books?id=nSEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10 Ford Cuts Back on Color Film]", ''Billboard'', 30 October 1954, p. 6.</ref> The first series to be filmed entirely in color was NBC's ''[[Norby (TV series)|Norby]]'',<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Eastman May Spot-Book 'Norby' Color|magazine=Billboard |author=no byline|date=26 March 1955|access-date=1 December 2019| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=liEEAAAAMBAJ&q=Norby+color+David+Wayne&pg=PA2}}</ref> a sitcom that lasted 13 weeks, from January to April 1955, and was replaced by repeats of ''Ford Theatre''{{'}}s color episodes.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Kodak to Sub Gems' 'Fords' for 'Norby' |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9R0EAAAAMBAJ&q=Norby+David+Wayne&pg=PA5 |magazine=Billboard |date=28 August 1954 |access-date=1 December 2019}}</ref>

Early color telecasts could be preserved only on the black-and-white [[kinescope]] process introduced in 1947. It was not until September 1956 that NBC began using color film to time-delay and preserve some of its live color telecasts.<ref>Albert Abramson, ''The History of Television, 1942 to 2000'', McFarland, 2003, p. 74. {{ISBN|978-0-7864-1220-4}}</ref> [[Ampex]] introduced a color videotape recorder in 1958, which NBC used to tape ''[[An Evening with Fred Astaire]]'', the oldest surviving network color videotape. This system was also used to unveil a demonstration of color television for the press. On 22 May 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the WRC-TV NBC studios in Washington, D.C., and gave a speech touting the new technology's merits. His speech was recorded in color, and a copy of this videotape was given to the Library of Congress for posterity.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/02/13/from-telegrams-to-instagram-a-look-at-presidents-and-technology/ |title=From telegrams to Instagram, a look at presidents and technology |author=Drew Desilver |date=February 13, 2015 |website=Pew Research |publisher= |access-date=October 29, 2023 |quote=Although Harry Truman’s 1949 inauguration was the first to be televised, Eisenhower proved to be the first real television president. His 1952 campaign introduced TV ads; on Jan. 19, 1955 he held the first presidential press conference to be covered by television as well as by radio and motion-picture newsreels; and in 1958 Eisenhower became the first president to appear on color TV.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Mascaro|first=Tom |author-link= |date=2012 |title=Into the Fray: How NBC's Washington Documentary Unit Reinvented the News |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vzZu1JDE5-sC&dq=library+of+congress+eisenhower+in+color+tv&pg=PA57 |location= |publisher=Potomac Books |page= |isbn=978-1597975575}}</ref>

The syndicated ''[[The Cisco Kid (TV series)|The Cisco Kid]]'' had been filmed in color since 1949 in anticipation of color broadcasting.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=MvYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA47 'Cisco Kid' for TV Via Pact With Ziv]", ''Billboard'', September 24, 1949, p. 47.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=MAsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA14 Ziv to Shoot All New Series in B & W and Color Versions]", ''Billboard'', 4 April 1953, p. 10.</ref> Several other syndicated shows had episodes filmed in color during the 1950s, including ''[[The Lone Ranger (TV series)|The Lone Ranger]]'', ''[[My Friend Flicka (TV series)|My Friend Flicka]]'', and ''[[Adventures of Superman (TV series)|Adventures of Superman]]''. The first was carried by some stations equipped for color telecasts well before NBC began its regular weekly color dramas in 1959, beginning with the Western series ''[[Bonanza]]''.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}

NBC was at the forefront of color programming because its parent company RCA manufactured the most successful line of color sets in the 1950s and, at the end of August 1956, announced that in comparison with 1955–56 (when only three of its regularly scheduled programs were broadcast in color) the 1956–57 season would feature 17 series in color.<ref>{{cite news |last=Adams |first=Val |title=N. B. C.-TV Lists Colorful Plans / 17 Series of Tinted Shows Slated on Regular Basis, an Increase of 14 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/08/31/121450267.html?pageNumber=35 |work=The New York Times |date=31 August 1956 |access-date=1 December 2019}}</ref> By 1959 RCA was the only remaining major manufacturer of color sets,<ref>RCA made about 95 percent of the color television sets sold in the US in 1960. Peter Bart, "Advertising: Color TV Set Output Spurred", ''The New York Times'', 31 July 1961, p. 27.</ref> competitors having discontinued models that used RCA picture tubes because of poor sales, while working on their own improved tube designs.{{r|time19580630}} CBS and [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], not affiliated with set manufacturers and not eager to promote their competitor's product, were much slower to broadcast in color.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LSMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8 |title=ABC to Go Tint at First Sponsor Nibble |magazine=Billboard |date=4 September 1954 |page=8}}</ref><ref name=time19580630>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,891921-1,00.html |title=Chasing the Rainbow |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724201955/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,891921-1,00.html |archive-date=24 July 2008 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=30 June 1958}}</ref> CBS broadcast color specials and sometimes aired its big weekly variety shows in color, but it offered no regularly scheduled color programming until the fall of 1965. At least one CBS show, ''[[The Lucy Show]]'', was filmed in color beginning in 1963, but continued to be telecast in black and white through the end of the 1964–65 season. ABC delayed its first color programs until 1962, but these were initially only broadcasts of the cartoon shows ''[[The Flintstones]]'', ''[[The Jetsons]]'' and ''[[Beany and Cecil]]''.<ref>''[[The Flintstones]]'', ''[[The Jetsons]]'', and ''[[Beany and Cecil]]''. "A.B.C.-TV To Start Color Programs", ''The New York Times'', 1 April 1962, p. 84. "More Color", ''The New York Times'', 23 September 1962, p. 145. Ed Reitan, [http://novia.net/~ereitan/rca-nbc_firsts.html RCA-NBC Firsts in Television] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219060637/http://novia.net/~ereitan/rca-nbc_firsts.html |date=19 December 2008}}. Jack Gould, "Tinted TV Shows Its Colors", ''The New York Times'', 29 November 1964, p. X17.</ref> The [[DuMont Television Network|DuMont]] network, although it did have a television-manufacturing parent company, was in financial decline by 1954 and was dissolved two years later.<ref>Clarke Ingram, [https://dumonthistory.com/7.html The DuMont Television Network, Chapter Seven: Finale] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090804165205/https://dumonthistory.com/7.html |date=4 August 2009}}. The small amount of color programming that DuMont broadcast in 1954–1955 (mostly its show ''Sunday Supplement'') was all from color films.</ref> The only known original color programming broadcast over the DuMont network was a [[high school football]] [[American football on Thanksgiving|Thanksgiving game]] from New Jersey in 1957, a year after the network had ceased regular operations.<ref name=disappearing_tradition>{{Cite web|url=https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/essex/montclair/2017/11/20/thanksgiving-football-games/879640001/|title=Thanksgiving football games a disappearing tradition|first=Steve|last=Tober|website=North Jersey Media Group|accessdate=August 28, 2023}}</ref>

The relatively small amount of network color programming, combined with the high cost of color television sets, meant that as late as 1964 only 3.1 percent of television households in the US had a color set. However, by the mid-1960s, the subject of color programming turned into a ratings war. A 1965 [[Nielsen Audio|American Research Bureau (ARB)]] study that proposed an emerging trend in color television set sales convinced NBC that a full shift to color would gain a ratings advantage over its two competitors.<ref name="tvobscurities.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/color60s/|title=Color Revolution: Television In The Sixties – TVObscurities|website=tvobscurities.com|date=14 March 2009 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150103093236/http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/color60s/|archive-date=3 January 2015}}</ref> As a result, NBC provided the catalyst for rapid color expansion by announcing that its [[1965-66 United States network television schedule|prime time schedule for fall 1965]] would be almost entirely in color.<ref>The exceptions being ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]'' and ''[[Convoy (TV series)|Convoy]]''.</ref> ABC and CBS followed suit and over half of their combined prime-time programming also moved to color that season, but they were still reluctant to telecast all their programming in color due to production costs.<ref name="tvobscurities.com"/> All three broadcast networks were airing full color prime time schedules by the [[1966–67 United States network television schedule|1966–67 broadcast season]], and ABC aired its last new black-and-white daytime programming in December 1967.<ref>The game show ''Everybody's Talking''. CBS's daytime soap opera ''[[The Secret Storm]]'' was the last network show to switch to color after airing its last black-and-white performance on 11 March 1968, making it the last black-and-white series on commercial network television. The last black-and-white series on network television was  ''[[Mister Rogers' Neighborhood|MisteRogers' Neighborhood]]'' on the non-commercial [[National Educational Television|NET]]. Production of this series switched over to color in August 1968.</ref> Public broadcasting networks like [[National Educational Television|NET]], however, did not use color for a majority of their programming until 1968. The number of color television sets sold in the US did not exceed black-and-white sales until 1972, which was also the first year that more than fifty percent of television households in the US had a color set.<ref>[http://www.tvhistory.tv/facts-stats.htm Television Facts and Statistics – 1939 to 2000] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080731144259/http://www.tvhistory.tv/facts-stats.htm |date=31 July 2008 }}, Television History – The First 75 Years.</ref> This was also the year that "in color" notices before color television programs ended{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}, due to the rise in color television set sales, and color programming having become the norm.

In a display of foresight, [[The Walt Disney Company|Disney]] had filmed many of its earlier shows in color so they were able to be repeated on NBC, and since most of Disney's feature-length films were also made in color, they could now also be telecast in that format. To emphasize the new feature, the series was re-dubbed ''[[Walt Disney anthology television series|Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color]]'', which premiered in September 1961, and retained that moniker until 1969.<ref>[[Walt Disney anthology television series]]</ref>

By the mid-1970s, the only stations broadcasting in black-and-white were a few high-numbered UHF stations in small markets, and a handful of low-power repeater stations in even smaller markets such as vacation spots. By 1979, even the last of these had converted to color and by the early 1980s, B&W sets had been pushed into niche markets, notably low-power uses, small portable sets, or use as video monitor screens in lower-cost consumer equipment.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} These black-and-white displays were still compatible with color signals and remained usable through the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st Century for uses that did not require a full color display. The [[digital television transition in the United States]] in 2009 rendered the remaining black-and-white television sets obsolete; all digital television receivers are capable of displaying full color.

Color broadcasting in Hawaii started on 5 May 1957.<ref>"Kaiser Station On The Air Tonight", Honolulu Advertiser; 5 May 1957</ref> One of the last television stations in North America to convert to color, [[WINP-TV|WQEX]] (now WINP-TV) in [[Pittsburgh]], started broadcasting in color on 16 October 1986, after its black-and-white transmitter, which dated from the 1950s, broke down in February 1985 and the parts required to fix it were no longer available. The owner of WQEX, [[PBS]] member station [[WQED (TV)|WQED]], used some of its pledge money to buy a color transmitter.<ref>{{Cite news |title=WQEX-TV returns to air with new look, sound, feel |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/pittsburgh-post-gazette-wqex-tv-returns/33723584/ |access-date=16 May 2023 |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=14 October 1986 |page=11 }}</ref>

Early color sets were either floor-standing console models or tabletop versions nearly as bulky and heavy, so in practice, they remained firmly anchored in one place. The introduction of [[General Electric|GE's]] relatively compact and lightweight [[Porta-Color]] set in the spring of 1966 made watching color television a more flexible and convenient proposition. In 1972, the year sales of color sets finally surpassed sales of black-and-white sets, the last holdout among daytime network programs converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}