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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

COLOR TV COMES INTO EXISTENCE

When television first began to be popular, which was sometime in the 1950’s, or maybe in the late
1940’s, of course all television programming was in black and white.

Science soon managed to achieve the ability of producing TV in full color, but the television industry
found itself in a predicament, because the broadcasters had no incentive whatsoever to broadcast in
color, because the only TV sets the general public had were black and white sets.

On the other hand, even after color sets became available, the general public had no incentive to buy a
color TV, because the networks were not broadcasting in anything but black and white. Therefore, both
the senders and the receivers had a problem on their hands, because either the broadcasters had to start
broadcasting in color in hopes that the public would soon get around to buying color sets, or the general
public could go ahead and buy a color TV set, knowing that the only thing they were going to be able to
receive was that which was being broadcast at that time, which was all black and white.

Therefore, we are at a seeming impasse.

However, along about 1960 or 1961, or at least in that time period, NBC took the chance of broadcasting
one program in full color, in the hopes that a few rich people might go ahead and buy a color TV set,
which at first was a sort of a status symbol. The first color sets were considered to be the cutting edge,
and people who bought color sets at the beginning to some extent impressing their neighbors, rather than
trying to receive improved TV.

The one program that was broadcast in color at the very beginning was the Wonderful World of Disney,
which I recall seeing on a color TV at the home of one of my friends, who 1 believe had the first color
television in Lake City. That man was Phillip Browning, who was the Principal at Lake City Junior High
School.

This was also about the time period in my life was I was in the process of getting a divorce from my first
wife, and after moving out, I had no television whatsoever. After seeing Phillip Browning’s TV, I
decided I would go ahead and buy a color set, even though there was only the one program in color, but
the color sets received black and white broadcast also, so there was really nothing to be lost, and
everything to be gained once color broadcasting came into general existence.

The year following NBC Broadcasting the Wonderful World of Disney, CBS picked up the gauntlet and
started broadcasting Bonanza in color, and for a period of two or three, or perhaps even four years, (I
don’t remember) there were only two color TV programs available, both of which came into our living
rooms on Sunday nights.

Incidentally, and at yet sometime in the future, when my first wife and 1 got to the final phases of the
divorce, and since she had found out that 1 had a color TV set, she put in for a color TV set of her own
as part of the settlement. However, in the section of this book that deals with that, there was no color TV
set provided for her.

Meanwhile, 1 have enjoyed color TV all of these many years since, being a time period of approximately
50 years, and the next time the reader of this book sits down to watch TV on a color TV set, you might
remember how difficult it was to get the whole thing started.

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