• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Late conversions to color

M

mjlarochelle

It is believed that WQEX/16 in Pittsburgh may have been the last television station in North America to begin broadcasting in colour. WQEX began broadcasting in colour in 1986, following a year off the air, before which the station was broadcasting in black-and-white.

What are some other stations (including translators) in the United States and Canada that did not convert to colour until 1975 or later?

Also, what are some stations that were still using black-and-white film for news reports in 1975 or later? In Canada, CBC affiliates CKNX Wingham and CHEX Peterborough were still using black-and-white film into 1977, with CKNX converting to colour Super-8 film early that year, and CHEX converting to videotape later in the year.
 
I think the Anchorage stations were still shooting news in black-and-white until 1969 or so when they went to color film. In Fairbanks, KTVF was the first with color film in around 1970; KATN would follow their lead sometime in '72 when they purchased their first color studio and film cameras.

The stations back then had no in-house processing facilities, so newsfilm had to be flown to Seattle to get them developed; the labs footed the bill to fly the films back to Alaska for broadcast. It would be about 1979 or 1980 when we started making the transition to videotape.

Oh, topic-wise: Australian TV didn't go color until 1975!!!!

Jonathan Allen
 
Armed Forces TV in Europe didn't go color until at least 1976-77 or so.

Newer AFRTS outlets, such as those on ships I believe were color from the get-go.
 
I am told that, in 1980, WKTV/Utica had a choice for local news: go to color film, or ENG.

They chose color film. In 1980.

As well, WICZ/Binghamton (the old NBC affiliate) did not go to local color until 1977. They had been on the air since 1957.
 
Salisbury, Md's WBOC-TV channel 16 didn't start airing its local programs in color until 1975.
Its interesting to know that today I believe Salisbury is the smallest market to sport a TV station
with a news chopper, and the station that has it? WBOC !!!!

Even though they have been in full color since day 1 ( 1970 ), Hagerstown, MD's WHAG-TV still used color film for their news rather than tape until 1983.

BTW..I have seen a few public access channels on cable still beaming their signals in lovely B/W as recently as 1990 even though color video cameras and camcorders had already been on the market for the home comsumer for a several years by that point.
 
johnnya2k6 said:
Oh, topic-wise: Australian TV didn't go color until 1975!!!!
Click to expand...

I think Italy also didn't start colorcasting until that year.

Furtrhermore, South Africa didn't even have TV until that year as well.
 
M.J. said:
It is believed that WQEX/16 in Pittsburgh may have been the last television station in North America to begin broadcasting in colour. WQEX began broadcasting in colour in 1986, following a year off the air, before which the station was broadcasting in black-and-white.

What are some other stations (including translators) in the United States and Canada that did not convert to colour until 1975 or later?

Also, what are some stations that were still using black-and-white film for news reports in 1975 or later? In Canada, CBC affiliates CKNX Wingham and CHEX Peterborough were still using black-and-white film into 1977, with CKNX converting to colour Super-8 film early that year, and CHEX converting to videotape later in the year.

WINGHAM HAS ONLY A population 8,000 still
Click to expand...
 
I am told that, in 1980, WKTV/Utica had a choice for local news: go to color film, or ENG.
They chose color film. In 1980.

They chose film because most of their photogs were closing in on age 60 or above.
They didn't want to carry what was then very heavy equiptment -eng. Unions are a wonderful thing. Also, one of he reasons they did not invest in a color processor
until then, was that there was a water problem on Smith Hill. WUTR (right across the street) had moved their processor down the hill, to a Park owned building, a few years earlier because of the lack of, and the quaility of the water. Until then, if WKTV needed color film they would send it over to WUTR to process.
 
Adam Cohoon said:
M.J. said:
Also, what are some stations that were still using black-and-white film for news reports in 1975 or later? In Canada, CBC affiliates CKNX Wingham and CHEX Peterborough were still using black-and-white film into 1977, with CKNX converting to colour Super-8 film early that year, and CHEX converting to videotape later in the year.
Click to expand...
WINGHAM HAS ONLY A population 8,000 still
Click to expand...

CKNX, although situated in Wingham, covered a very wide area including Owen Sound, Hanover, Walkerton, Stratford, Goderich, Listowel, Mount Forest, and other towns. Their signal also reaches Waterloo so some stories up there may have been covered. Their coverage area today has over 200,000 potential viewers (not counting Waterloo, where CKNX is no longer on cable), more than a lot of American markets that have three or four stations. That said, the reason they preferred to stick with film was exactly because of this wide coverage area they had, having stringers spread out over each of the major towns in the coverage area instead of all working out of Wingham. ENG would just not have been economical for them because the reporters were so spread out.

Some Canadian stations were very slow to convert from colour film to videotape. CFPL in London started using tape in 1979 but continued using film for some news reports into 1983. CBLT in Toronto was using a combination as well, still using film as late as 1984 (there is a film report from them from June 1984 on the CBC Archives website). I have seen anecdotal evidence suggesting French-language CBFT in Montreal was still using film in 1986. CITY in Toronto was using pure videotape when they started their CityPulse news show in 1977.
 
ixnay said:
What's ENG?

ixnay
Click to expand...

Electronic News Gathering. Basically, videotape news camcorders such as U-Matic and Betacam (early years and which were two-component monsters weighing a good thirty-pounds each) through BETA-SP, SVHS, High-8, DVC-Pro and up to and including the flashcams (using removable computer media similar to a keychain flash memory stick) in use today.

Without the advent of ENG, news gathering as we know it, and the associated 24-hour media cycle, would likely not exist.

ENG tape can be immediately taped, edited, narrated and broadcast...unlike film news gathering which needed time to process the film reel, manually splice-edit a story together (something, thankfully, I've only had to do for radio reporting gig at a small NPR station where I once student-volunteered) and narrate before being broadcast.
 
When I arrived at WPEC in West Palm Beach in 1979 they were still using some film in their newscasts. I was somewhat surprised to find a station in such a large market still using film. As I soon found out, it made sense. The station was owned by a film processing company - Photo Electric Company -PEC. They did have some eng. for PM Magizine and at least one for general news. I think PM magizine and the live truck shared a RCA TK 70 (?). They gradually changed over to total eng within a year for news.
 
Remember when I said last time that news film in Alaska had to be taken to Seattle to get it processed before it would air? Well, I was dead wrong.

KFAR (KATN) and KTVF until 1979-80 I think used the long abandoned Photo Factory on Illinois Street next to the Daily News-Miner and across the street from the former St. Joseph's Hospital (now Denali State Bank building). Sometimes they would process their films at the Co-Op Drug store downtown, but I don't know; maybe someone who worked at one of the stations back then may shed some light on this.

As for Anchorage? I think they too used a photography place or drug story before they went to videotape. When the late Norman Vaughan appeared on Leno a few years ago, they showed a clip of him from 1981 giving Pope John Paul II a dog sled ride while he visited Anchorage and it had a "clip courtesy of KTUU-TV" credit at the end...which explains to me that the transition may have started in mid- or late 1980.

But before they went on the air the following year, it was KTOO-TV in Juneau who were the first in Alaska with ENG in 1977, shooting legislative coverage with three Ikegami portable cameras and U-Matic recorders. They were purchased with legislative funds as part of their local match for the federal grant to help build the new station.

Jonathan Allen
 
M.J. said:
Some Canadian stations were very slow to convert from colour film to videotape. CFPL in London started using tape in 1979 but continued using film for some news reports into 1983. CBLT in Toronto was using a combination as well, still using film as late as 1984 (there is a film report from them from June 1984 on the CBC Archives website). I have seen anecdotal evidence suggesting French-language CBFT in Montreal was still using film in 1986. CITY in Toronto was using pure videotape when they started their CityPulse news show in 1977.
Click to expand...
What about CFTO (CTV)? When did they make the switch from film to tape?

And what about Great Britain? Some local BBC/ITV stations may have went from film to video in the early to mid-'80s as well.

Jonathan Allen
 
Didn't Kansas City's PBS station, KCPT, finally started broadcasting in color in the early 70s?
 
mleach said:
Salisbury, Md's WBOC-TV channel 16 didn't start airing its local programs in color until 1975.
Click to expand...

Makes me wish I'd grown up in the Salisbury market, instead of vacationing summers there (in Indian River and Dewey Beach, DE) :), although the cottages in which we stayed lacked TV.

ixnay
 
johnnya2k6 said:
What about CFTO (CTV)? When did they make the switch from film to tape?
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure about CFTO, I think it was in the early 1980s. Global in Ontario was using some videotape in the late 1970s, but did not convert fully to ENG until 1982.
 
Mike said:
My turn to jump in here...

CBC Newfoundland's LAND AND SEA was using 16mm film until about 1988 although some episodes were shot on tape.
Click to expand...

Documentary-type programs tended to be like that. CTV's W5 was still using film into 1986, and I believe 60 Minutes on CBS was still using film even later than that.
 
Mike said:
CBC Newfoundland's LAND AND SEA was using 16mm film until about 1988 although some episodes were shot on tape.
Click to expand...

Back in December 1985 when that military transport plane crashed near Gander (the worst ever U.S. military crash in peacetime), I remember I was surprised that the first news footage on CNN of the crash site, which came from either CBC or CTV, was on film. By that time, pretty much everyone in the U.S. was using tape/ENG for everything, so it seemed odd, almost "retro," to see a filmed news report.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom