On This Day In 1953 Color Sets Went On Sale

The first ever color sets went on sale this day (12/30) in 1953. The first sets were built by RCA and sold for just over $1,100. Westinghouse offered theirs for $1,295 ($11,373 in today's dollars).

However anyone who could afford one had to wait until the "Tournament Of Roses Parade" aired on January 1st, 1954 to see their first color program ever. There wasn't a whole lot to watch for the next 6 years in color.

Even though NBC set up their studios for color on March 27th, 1955 most affiliates didn't have transmitters that could broadcast color.


Some syndicated programs like the Lone Ranger and Superman were filmed in color, but most viewers didn't experience color on a major network until NBC started airing regular programs like 'Bonanza' five years later in 1959.



For the vast majority of Americans color didn't become common until the mid 60's when televisions became more affordable. It also was around that same time about 50% of the network programming started being aired in color. Just one year later (1965) nearly all the prime time shows were in color.

The United States was first. Canada in 1966. England in 1967. China in 1973.

The first color set I owned used a dozen or so vacuum tubes you could heat a room with. Today's sets consume a tenth of the current these original sets used. Long gone are the worries of maintaining convergence or the degaussing of the picture tube (a semi annual requirement).

The reds were way over pronounced because of it being the main carrier frequency for the other color information.

If someone didn't have a TV repairman come out and adjust the convergence and degauss the picture tube, the picture would become more blurry and rainbow like each passing month.

So too one would have to get up quite frequently to adjust the horizontal roll until the phase locked loop (PLL) circuits were invented.

Forget about remote control. Even though they were around since 1955 when Zenith introduced hand held mechanical chimes, most sets didn't come equipped with a decent wireless control until 1973.


Today's users should be amazed how in just 60 years we've gone from two or three channels in B&W to hundreds of High Definition channels not just on our flat screen TVs, but now streaming on super tiny smartphones as well. Something even I now take for granted.

Let us all take a moment of silence for all the thousands of former TV servicemen who no longer exist because of these advances.

So much for taking TV repair in high school

(I being one of them back in the 60's)