Radio: Color Climax

In Manhattan, a salesman earnestly buttonholed a doubtful customer. “They’ll never lick this thing,” he cried. “It’s too big. With Marshall Plan and arms for Europe, and if we should have another war—God forbid—who knows when there’ll be color television? Better take this set right now . . .” In Washington, another dealer moaned: “Yesterday I sold exactly one receiver. Normally, I’d get rid of 30 to 50 in one day.” Across the nation, other TV dealers gloomily surveyed piles of canceled orders. Manufacturers, with TV sets in their warehouses, gritted their teeth.

For the industry, it was the most confused day since Orson Welles, twelve years ago, launched his invasion-from-Mars. The Federal Communications Commission caused it all last week by handing down a final decision on color TV. As it had indicated it would last month, FCC ruled out the dot sequential system of RCA and the line sequential of Color Television Inc., plumped for the field sequential system of CBS (TIME, Nov. 28).

Red, Blue & Green. Just how good is CBS color TV? Most TV critics agree that the picture it produces is generally excellent. The colors are soft, not glaring, and the image is easier on the eyes than black & white TV.* The difference is much more impressive than that between black & white movies and Technicolor. Because the TV screen is so much smaller than a movie screen, color gives a great deal more information. Football and basketball are easier to follow because of contrasting jersey colors; backgrounds are better defined and more realistic; clothes, food and furnishings become more attractive.

The colorcasts which CBS expects to launch next month will require a fairly heavy financial outlay from any of the 8,000,000 U.S. set owners who want the images to appear on their screens. To receive color telecasts even in black & white, set owners must spend $30-$50 for an adapter. When plugged into the set, the shoebox-shaped adapter (about the size of a midget radio) reduces the number of “scanned” lines on each screen from the 525 used for ordinary telecasts to the 405 lines required by the CBS system. To get telecasts in color, set owners must spend another $75-$100 for a converter. The converter is a whirling, motor-driven disc which slides in front of the TV screen (see cut) and filters the image through red, blue and green colors at such speed that they are blended by the human eye into a full-color picture.

The mechanical, spinning disc is responsible for the high standard of CBS color pictures. But it also limits their size. The diameter of the disc must be twice the size of the desired picture. Even if an original black & white screen measures 20 inches, the most practicable color picture will be a 12½-inch one. Technicians, both at CBS and RCA, are currently working on an electronic, direct-view color tube that may, eventually, permit color screens of any size.

No Admittance. By Christmas, CBS plans to have 20 hours a week of color TV on the air. These colorcasts, during the daytime and late at night, will not interfere with CBS’s regular black & white TV.

On paper, CBS seems certain of collecting up to $150 million in royalty fees from patents on its exclusive color process developed by Hungarian-born Dr. Peter Goldmark. But, at week’s end, CBS discovered it still had a fight on its hands.

Almost without exception, the major TV manufacturers denounced the FCC decision in favor of CBS. Board Chairman David Sarnoff of RCA labeled it “scientifically unsound and against the public interest.” TV Pioneer Allen B. Du Mont snorted: “The decision just says to hell with the people who already own television sets.” Pilot Radio Corp. threatened federal court action against FCC because it had “exceeded its jurisdiction.” The Radio-Television Manufacturers Association called a special closed meeting on color TV, refused admittance to a CBS representative.

Body Blow. On the air at week’s end, CBS President Frank Stanton protested: “We do not want the future of color television to fall into the hands of any self-appointed group meeting in secret behind closed doors. We intend to do everything we can to prevent anyone .. . from blocking color television and keeping it from the American public.”

Announcing that CBS was eager to license every TV manufacturer in the U.S. to make equipment based on “CBS color inventions,” Stanton struck a body blow at the recalcitrant manufacturers. He suggested that his listeners may want to wait six months before buying a new TV set. By waiting, said Stanton, “you may save some money and you will have a self-contained set with built-in compatibility and built-in color. On the other hand, if you buy an ordinary black & white set now, you will be able to enjoy the black & white programs being broadcast. But, if you do buy such a set, buy only from a manufacturer who will give you positive assurance that there will soon be adapters and converters which will enable you to get color.”

*Some viewers of the CBS system complain of “color flash” when they look away from the screen. CBS officials point out that the eye quickly becomes adjusted and that color flash (caused by the persistence in the eye of the last one-color picture seen) soon disappears.