November 8, 1952…NBC’s First Full Color Facility Debuts

On this day in 1952, The Colonial Theater broadcast it’s first color production to the network. Fittingly, the show was NBC’s top rated Saturday night program, “Your Show Of Shows”, but it was a one time event. At least for “YSOS”, as it was NBC’s intent to rotate all of their New York based shows trough the Colonial for a color show for two reasons.

The first reason was to help teach the producers and talent how to do color shows, and the second reason was to continue to demonstrate that the RCA Dot Sequential color system really was “compatible color”…that is, received by black and white sets, just as well as regular black and white broadcasts.

I think The Colonial first came to the attention of RCA/NBC in October of 1951 when RCA exhibited a color TV receiver-projector there, which provided color pictures on a 9 x 12 foot theater screen.

At this time, the 1,300 seat theater built in 1905, was in an RKO movie theater. In 1935, RKO converted it from a vaudeville and live theater venue to a movie theater, but newer theaters nearby had taken the wind from The Colonial’s sails.

The Colonial was located at 1887 Broadway and became NBC’s 15th studio with a November 8, 1952 debut. Gone, but not forgotten! -Bobby Ellerbee

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