December 18, 1953…First Color Commercial Airs On WPTZ, Philadelphia

December 18, 1953…First Color Commercial Airs On WPTZ, Philadelphia

In yesterday’s post, we learned of the FCC’s December 17, 1953 decision adopting RCA’s Compatible Color System. On Friday, December 18, 1953 at about 11:15 am, the FCC issued to WPTZ, Channel 3, its official color experimental license which authorized the transmission of color video on the station.

Three hours later, color television hit the airwaves in Philadelphia with a color commercial made up of slides. George Skinner hosted a show there weekdays between 2 pm and 2:30 called ‘Skinner’s Spotlight’…it was during this time that WPTZ’s first color telecast under an official FCC license took place. It was the first color commercial broadcast in the nation and it was on Channel 3 at about 2:20 pm. At the time, there were only about 100 color sets in Philadelphia.

The day before, the NBC Network had broadcast the first color image under the new NTSC standards when at 5:31 PM, it broadcast a color slide of the NBC chimes logo. At the time, only a few stations had any color equipment and it was all telecine. Only NBC had live color cameras which were the four RCA TK40 prototypes at The Colonial Theater.

The first shipment of the TK40 production model cameras was made on March 4, 1954. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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