Curious as to when your local TV stations began broadcasting in color....I mean local programming and not network. For me it was in 1957 when our channel 5 in Boston (WHDH-TV) went on the air. All of channel 5's cameras were color cameras and therefore their news (studio segments) and children's programming such as Bozo the Clown and Romper Room with Miss Jean were all carried in color. WBZ-TV channel 4 and WNAC-TV channel 7 did not begin color programming until the mid-60's.
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How early did your local station broadcast in color?
- Thread starter davalvideo
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In Baltimore and DC the stations that first went full color were WRC and WBAL. Both of them went full local color by 1963 and not a surprise both were/still are NBC.
Denver it was KWGN channel 2 who went color first and that was in 1966 when the station was bought by WGN in Chicago. Funny footnote to this is that most of the Denver stations would make the claim to being "Denver's first color station.. When KWGN mentioned the move to color in it's 50th anniversary telecast shortly afterward both KUSA and KMGH would make the claim that they too were the first station in town to go color. OK so who was the first station in Denver to go color ??? I give that one to KWGN since they rolled tape on that color program back in 1966 and KLZ and KBTV ( OK...KMGH and KUSA ) just well talked about it many years later. KOA/KCNC ??? As far as I know they never made a claim of being Denver's first station to go color but their sister station down in Pueblo/Colorado Springs KOAA channel 5 was the first.
Hampton Roads, Virginia......no question about it..WAVY !! WAVY went color in 1965. WTAR/WTKR in 1967 but WVEC and WYAH not until 1970 !! Looking back I am not sure when WYAH went color but in the movie "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" they showed some film clips of Jim and Tammy Faye's local show on WYAH and they were in color. Those tapes were from 1970 and 1971.
Denver it was KWGN channel 2 who went color first and that was in 1966 when the station was bought by WGN in Chicago. Funny footnote to this is that most of the Denver stations would make the claim to being "Denver's first color station.. When KWGN mentioned the move to color in it's 50th anniversary telecast shortly afterward both KUSA and KMGH would make the claim that they too were the first station in town to go color. OK so who was the first station in Denver to go color ??? I give that one to KWGN since they rolled tape on that color program back in 1966 and KLZ and KBTV ( OK...KMGH and KUSA ) just well talked about it many years later. KOA/KCNC ??? As far as I know they never made a claim of being Denver's first station to go color but their sister station down in Pueblo/Colorado Springs KOAA channel 5 was the first.
Hampton Roads, Virginia......no question about it..WAVY !! WAVY went color in 1965. WTAR/WTKR in 1967 but WVEC and WYAH not until 1970 !! Looking back I am not sure when WYAH went color but in the movie "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" they showed some film clips of Jim and Tammy Faye's local show on WYAH and they were in color. Those tapes were from 1970 and 1971.
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I have the "As It Happened" video of JFK as reported by NBC. And the local DFW NBC was broadcasting in color in November 1963, atleast for this event. In my hometown of Seattle, I remember KING TV was color by about 1967. I believe they were first in the market, but I could be corrected.
I grew up in LA with 7 VHF stations (3 network, 4 indy) and it seems like they all went color at once...I'm thinking late 1965 or early 1966. We didn't have a color set, but I remember those color announcements at the beginning of programs - even the independent stations had them. This doesn't include KNBC 4, of course, which went color a few years earlier for news, Disney, Bonanza, etc.
As I recall, the stations in Buffalo, NY were still working on bringing
color as recently December 2016. I am told that the snow has something
to do with it......
color as recently December 2016. I am told that the snow has something
to do with it......
According to the attached ad, KMTV Omaha brought in the RCA color cameras in 1957. According to the post, KMTV swapped WOW for the NBC affiliation, but whoever did the ad layout didn't update the info at the bottom...
http://fadedsignals.com/post/63421125328/kmtv-signed-on-from-omaha-in-1949-as-a-cbs
http://fadedsignals.com/post/63421125328/kmtv-signed-on-from-omaha-in-1949-as-a-cbs
The seed, nursery and radio biz must have been really good for Shenandoah's Earl May. (They supposedly tried to call it KMA-TV but the FCC said no) Omaha seems like a rather small market to have gone color that early.
Seems like I saw somewhere that the network told the affiliate to switch to black and white so as not to make the network folks look bad (NBC's coverage, like all the national coverage that day, was black and white). On topic, I would have to guess that in most cities, the NBC affiliate was the first to go color. If I had to pick an independent station that did color early on, my guess would be WGN in Chicago. I know they were broadcasting some Cubs and Sox games in color in the late 50s.
IIRC, WGN-TV didn't broadcast in color until they moved to their studio on W. Bradley Place in 1961. WNBQ (WMAQ-TV), being the NBC station, was the first to go color in Chicago, in 1956. Not sure when WBBM-TV and WBKB (WLS-TV) went color, but my guess is sometime in the late '60s.
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