TELEVISION

It might be difficult to fathom now, but -back in the days- a woman could not say the word "lover" on broadcast TV. Men or women, either one, could not utter the words "toilet paper" or "pregnant". Moreover, the typical, tv mom and pop usually slept in single beds.

In the pre-cable and satellite TV era, analogue -over the air- reception was all there was. After the mid-1950s, there were only three TV networks and -basically- just three programming choices at a time. Keep in mind, as well, that a station usually signed off the air at around midnight, to return to broadcasting at 5 am or so.

All programming was broadcast in black and white until January 1954, when NBC "colorcast" the Rose Parade. NBC, with co-company RCA, had perfected the National Television System Committee (NTSC) standard, which had been approved by the FCC in December 1953.

So, the NBC network had a monopoly, of sorts, on color TV broadcasting, until CBS and ABC reluctantly adopted the NBC-RCA colorcasting system in the early 1960s. Of course, a "living color" program was quite a big event, usually reserved for specials and spectaculars. If you went to someone's home and saw that they had a color set, you were duly impressed!









The various logos that announced NBC colorcast programs in the mid- century years. At the top is the Color Chimes graphic, which was used in 1954 and 1955. The second shows the "in-color and black and white", panel, from an early 1956 broadcast. The final two images are stills from the famous NBC Peacock animated sequence, which first appeared in September, 1957. An announcer would proudly proclaim "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC!"


NBC's western-themed soap opera, "Bonanza", became the first major, regularly-scheduled, in-color TV series on September 12, 1959. In 1964, NBC became the first all-color network. By 1968, all three networks had converted virtually all programming to color. However, some commercials would still be in black and white.