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September 29, 1951…Two College Football Television Firsts

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

September 29, 1951…Two College Football Television Firsts

Did you know CBS and NBC made television history the same day? On September 29, 1951 NBC gave us the first live sporting event broadcast coast-to-coast, a college football game between Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Later the same day, CBS broadcast the first college football game in color, between the University of California and the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia. CBS was using their Field Sequential System. There were only a precious few sets able to receive the color signal, and the game was broadcast only in a few test markets.

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4 responses to “September 29, 1951…Two College Football Television Firsts”

  1. William Ellenback

    I’m looking at that camera. Looks like a single image orthicon model made to appear to be a color camera. NBC color was way ahead in the color game using quadrature amplitude and phase modulation for color.

  2. Alfred Robert Hogan

    The transcontinental coast to coast TV interconnection ability had debuted, other than testing, with pooled coverage of HST et al at the peace treaty signing ceremony (Japan, USA, et al) airing live from San Francisco on two days or so in early September 1951. Walter Cronkite of CBS News provided reporting, which he oddly rarely receives credit for. I did not know about the sports telecasts late in that month. Your posts are always so informative, fascinating, and well-written — even this broadcasting historian learns new things from you regularly!

  3. Lawrence Manross

    Penn has a football team?!?

  4. Rick Bozeman

    Ad for the Admiral TV set with color optional interesting.

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