Radio: Color on the Way

For the past two years, CBS has been the front runner in the Color TV sweepstakes. Only two weeks ago, Government bigwigs popped their eyes at a CBS color demonstration in Washington. Cried Colorado’s Senator Ed Johnson: “No one who sees color is ever going to be satisfied with ordinary . . . television again.”

But last week CBS looked less like a sure thing to win. The Radio Corporation of America (owner of NBC) loudly trumpeted that it too had a new color system. RCA’s system is all-electronic, while CBS’ is mechanical. RCA claims that its programs can be viewed in all their varicolored splendor on present sets, once they are fitted with a color adapter. Most important, RCA claims that its color telecasts can be received on ordinary sets as a black-and-white image (on ordinary sets, CBS color telecasts are a featureless blurring and streaking). RCA’s system seemed built to meet the specifications for color transmission laid down by the Federal Communications Commission.

To CBS, the stretch-running threat of RCA might mean the loss of nine years’ work and $3,500,000 in color research. But CBS President Frank Stanton rallied gamely. It is important, said Stanton, “to have color TV come quickly by the best available system . . .” Looking ahead to this month’s important hearings before FCC, he added: “CBS color TV has been proved through numerous tests and demonstrations . . . We will look forward to studying similar tests and demonstrations of the latest RCA system.”