Inventing Color Television

The Development of Color Television
A German patent in 1904 contained the earliest recorded proposal for a color television system. In 1925, Zworykin filed a patent disclosure for an all-electronic colour television system. Both of these systems were not successful, however, they were the first for color television. A successful color television system began commercial broadcasting, first authorized by the FCC on December 17, 1953 based on a system designed by RCA.

"Between 1946 and 1950 the research staff of RCA Laboratories invented the world’s first electronic, monochrome compatible, color television system." - From IEEE Milestone Plaque.

In 1940, prior to RCA, CBS researchers led by Peter Goldmark invented a mechanical color television system based on the 1928 designs of John Logie Baird. The FCC authorized CBS's color television technology as the national standard in October of 1950, despite the fact that the system was bulky, flickered, and was not compatible with earlier black and white sets. RCA sued to stop the public broadcasting of CBS based systems. CBS had begun color broadcasting on five East Coast stations in June of 1951. However, at that time 10.5 million black and white televisions (half RCA sets) had been sold to the public and very few color sets. Color television production was halted during the Korean war, with that and the lawsuits, and the sluggish sales, the CBS system failed.

Those factors provided RCA with the time to design a better color television, which they based on the 1947 patent application of Alfred Schroeder, for a shadow mask CRT. Their system passed FCC approval in late 1953 and sales of RCA color televisions began in 1954.