On January 1, 1954, television crossed a technological threshold that had been decades in the making: color.

In this episode of Countdown to the Centennial, we trace the long road from early color experiments by John Logie Baird and others to the industry-defining breakthrough engineered by RCA under David Sarnoff.

The challenge was not just creating color images—it was making them compatible with the millions of black-and-white television sets already in American homes. While Peter Goldmark developed an innovative system for CBS, it ultimately failed the test of compatibility.

RCA’s solution embedded color information into the existing broadcast signal, allowing older sets to display a normal monochrome picture. That breakthrough became the NTSC color standard, adopted in December 1953.

Just two weeks later, NBC broadcast the Tournament of Roses Parade in the first coast-to-coast color telecast – though no one at home could actually see it in color. 

This episode explores the engineering triumph, corporate rivalry, and cultural shift behind the arrival of color television—and why its impact would take more than a decade to fully unfold.

Chapters

• (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown 65
• (00:01:25) - Color TV
• (00:11:52) - 100 Years of Television: The Top 100 Milestones