An Inside Look At The Final CBS Color Test…October 20, 1951

On September 6, 2016 - TV History

An Inside Look At The Final CBS Color Test…October 20, 1951

Thanks to Tom Buckley for this wonderful IBEW Newsletter article from January of ’52, that gives us intimate details of that last test broadcast of the CBS Field Sequential Color System.

The article not only names everybody on the 12 man crew, but in just three pages, gives us a great overview of the system’s history, and the details of how CBS came to fold the tent on this work. A “must read” for anyone interested in television’s color wars. Enjoy and Share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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6 Comments

  1. Robert Barker September 6, 2016

    CBS’ excuse sounds phoney baloney. I don’t think I’ve heard of the Korean War having that much effect on the homefront. I’ve never heard of any rationing during that conflict, and I certainly don’t remember Vietnam effecting anything here. It would certainly be fun to see a standing side by side comparison of the CBS color system and the RCA system.

  2. Bob Dunn September 6, 2016

    Fascinating! First time I heard of the CBS system being scuttled because of “material shortages”. You have to wonder what these materials so vital to national defense could have been (and how instrumental RCA was in having them declared such). By the late 1960s, CBS programming was still mostly B&W.

  3. Dennis Dunbar September 6, 2016

    Excellent find!

  4. Bob Sewvello September 6, 2016

    One of the times when the federal government made the right decision (along with the Interstate Highway system).

  5. Jeff Kreines September 6, 2016

    Or this on page 7 — I see Rick spotted it, too.

  6. Rick Bozeman September 6, 2016

    There’s also a short blurb in that newsletter about research by Bing Crosby Enterprises on what would become videotape 4 years later.