And The Color Race Is ON!
And The Color Race Is ON!
Believe it or not, In April of 1954 Westinghouse began selling the first home color television set. They beat RCA by several weeks and RCA rushed the CT 100 into production on March 25. During the color wars between CBS and RCA over the compatible color systems, manufacturers were reluctant to commit to building sets till the dust had settled, and when it did, the RCA Dot Sequential system had beaten out the CBS Field Sequential system. Many radio and TV manufacturers had been a part of the NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) and already knew the technical specs and were ready to go in early 1954. The Westinghouse set sold for $1295. RCA’s CT-100 sold for $1000, but by August RCA had dropped the price to $495. GE sold its 15 inch set for $1,000, and Sylvania’s cost $1,150. Emerson rented color sets for $200 for the first month and $75/month thereafter. All of these were 15″ screens but in ’55, RCA came out with the 21″ color screen and even though they lost money on every set, they recalled the 15″ sets and swapped them for the 21″ models at no cost. In the long run, RCA made mega millions on color television. When RCA was sold to GE in the 80s, GE paid $6.2 Billion but there was $2 Billion in the bank so GE got RCA/NBC for $4.2 Billion.
For accuracy, Westinghouse began selling the Westinghouse H840CK15 on February 28, 1954. On August 8, 1954, RCA dropped the price of the CT 100 to $495.00 and rebated $505.00 to all who purchased the set. The industry was gearing up for the upcoming Motorola 19 inch color set and RCA’s new 21 inch set.
Interesting
And by 1959 there was only one color set maker left, RCA. The others had given up.
So if you are a 4 billion dollar company with 2 billion in cash reserves why in the world do you go out of business?