The first color television broadcast took place in 1951.

By 1951, there were an estimated 13 million television sets in the United States. That year President Truman made the first ever coast-to-coast telecast, and I Love Lucy premiered—in black and white. On this day in 1951, the first color broadcast reached only 40 televisions in Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The broadcast was experimental and could be seen only on the 40 CBS televisions that had technology compatible with the broadcast. Earlier attempts to create marketable color broadcasts had been hampered by the FCC’s insistence that any color signal be readable by existing black and white sets as well. Even though the CBS color transmission system was not compatible with most existing televisions, the FCC approved it as the U.S. standard in 1950. After the successful experimental broadcast, CBS began regularly airing expensive color broadcasts. Unfortunately, the color television sets that were required to view the programs did not sell very well. In 1953, the FCC reversed their decision to use CBS’s design as the national standard in favor of an RCA design that was compatible with existing TV sets. It was another three years before all television stations switched to color broadcasts. In 1956, WNBQ-TV in Chicago became the first station to broadcast only in color.

EconEdLink
Congress has mandated that by the year 2006 all TV transmission will be digital. Just as black and white TVs couldn’t receive early color signals, current analog TVs can’t receive digital signals. In What’s the Problem with Digital TV (6–12), students consider the implications this mandate will have for the environment and evaluate possible solutions to this “problem.”

Science NetLinks
The Science Update Backwards Spinning Wheels (6–12) focuses on the intricacies of television pictures and visual perception and helps give students an understanding of some of the optical illusions they may have noticed when watching TV.

ReadWriteThink
Critical Media Literacy: TV Programs (6–8) provides a platform from which students can critically analyze popular television programs.

A popular television show provides motivation for the study of satire in Exploring Satire with The Simpsons (9–12).