Who created Color TV Day?

The date matches the anniversary of the CBS broadcast of 1951, which is what the day marks. No founder, founding year, or establishing record for the observance itself has been identified, and the listings that carry it do not name one.

Is Color TV Day a public holiday?

No. It is an unofficial observance with no proclamation, resolution, or legal recognition found at any level of government, so it is a normal working day.

Is Color TV Day the same as World Television Day?

No. World Television Day falls on 21 November and was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, while Color TV Day is an unofficial American observance in June.

Color TV Day

Next celebratedFriday, June 25, 2027

Within four months CBS had stopped color programming altogether, and the standard behind its 1951 debut was scrapped before most Americans owned a color set. June 25 keeps the date of a broadcast almost nobody could see.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJune 25

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYTech

SUBCATEGORYGadgets

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The date points straight at a 1951 broadcast.

Color TV Day falls on the anniversary of the CBS colour broadcast of 1951, and it appears on holiday listings and in occasional company posts. No founder, founding year, or establishment record has been identified, and nothing documents who picked the date.

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INTRO

Sixteen sponsors backed a broadcast almost no television could show

Color TV Day marks the afternoon in 1951 when CBS put the first commercially sponsored color program on American television. Almost no home could receive it. There were twelve million television sets in the country, and only a few dozen could show the broadcast in color.

The system CBS used was incompatible with every set already sold. The network assembled its audience by hand instead, setting up viewing stations in each of the five cities so invited guests could watch in color. Everyone else who turned to CBS that hour saw only a blank screen.

The show was called "Premiere," and its record is narrower than the one usually claimed for it. It was the first commercial color broadcast in the United States, not the first color broadcast anywhere. Within four months CBS had stopped color programming, and the standard behind it was scrapped before most Americans owned a color set.

ORIGINS

Color TV Day history

INTRODUCTION

In March 1940, Peter Goldmark sat in a Montreal cinema, killing time before a train home, and watched "Gone with the Wind." He was a CBS engineer, and it was the first color film he had seen. "The color was magnificent," he wrote.

By that August he had announced a color television system of his own. At a National Television System Committee meeting he told his older colleagues they were beating a dead horse, because he had already perfected color television. A decade later the Federal Communications Commission agreed with him, and then took it back.

CHAPTER 01

A ruling the government's own laboratory opposed

The choice was between two designs. Goldmark's spun a wheel of red, blue and green filters at the camera, with a matching wheel at the receiver, so no standard monochrome receiver could present an intelligible picture. RCA's carried color on a subcarrier that a black-and-white set could simply ignore.

In July 1950 the National Bureau of Standards rated RCA's system superior in twelve of the eighteen categories it tested. The Commission ruled for CBS anyway, judging that further delay in getting color to the public outweighed compatibility later. RCA sued, and the Supreme Court affirmed the order four weeks before the broadcast.

CHAPTER 02

Nobody would build the sets

Then the problem the Commission had waved away arrived in full. No established set maker would build receivers for a standard that blanked every television in the country. CBS bought the Hytron Radio and Electronics Corporation so its subsidiary Air King could make them instead.

Production did not start until September, three months after the broadcast they were built for. CBS later recalled the ones it had sold and destroyed them.

CHAPTER 03

A standard abolished, an anniversary left over

In October the National Production Authority halted color set manufacturing, citing scarce metals and the conflict in Korea. CBS had already aired its last color program, a football game. The service was finished before the year ended.

In December 1953 the Commission reversed itself and approved a compatible standard drawn up by the industry's own committee. Color TV Day sits on the earlier afternoon, not on the standard that actually reached American homes. Who put it there is not recorded, and no founder or establishing document for the observance has been identified.

Every set we get out there makes it that much tougher on CBS.

David SarnoffRCA, after losing the 1950 ruling

it becomes quixotic and economically foolish for us single-handedly at this time to resume a large-scale broadcasting and manufacturing program

Frank StantonPresident of CBS, conceding at a House hearing

TIMELINE

Timeline

Baird demonstrates color in London

John Logie Baird sent color pictures using a spinning disc cut with three filtered spirals.

America's first color demonstration

Bell Labs showed color television on a screen the size of a postage stamp, viewed through a peephole in a dark room.

CBS shows its system to regulators

Peter Goldmark's field sequential system was demonstrated to industry engineers and FCC officials in New York.

The public sees color television

CBS ran the system on eight sets in the Walker Building in Washington, in a demonstration the FCC had ordered.

Premiere airs on five stations

An hour of sponsored color programming reached New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.

A compatible standard replaces it

The FCC approved the National Television System Committee's color specifications, which existing black-and-white sets could receive.

BY THE NUMBERS

Color TV Day by the Numbers

16: Sponsors on the CBS color premiere
35,000-40,000: CBS estimate of viewers, five cities
405: Scan lines in the CBS color standard
$499.95: Price of the CBS color receiver
111 hrs: CBS color aired in 17 weeks

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Color TV Day

The beaten color system flew to the Moon

Westinghouse passed over the industry standard and revived CBS's discarded spinning wheel for Apollo's color camera, because it was small, low powered and rugged enough to survive the trip.

Not one second of the broadcast survives

Not a single recording of "Premiere," or of any other CBS color program, is known to exist.

Two CBS executives appeared to be wearing green

The Billboard's reviewer noted that Frank Stanton and William Paley seemed to be in green suits, though they were actually dressed in gray.

Its real success was in the operating theater

Goldmark televised surgery in color to fifteen thousand people at a medical convention, and said the impact could be measured by counting how many of them fainted.

The same engineer invented the long playing record

Peter Goldmark developed the LP in 1948 by slowing the disc to 33 1/3 rpm, and held 77 patents in all.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Color TV Day Matters

VIEWING

Color homes watched up to 70 more minutes a day.

In January 1968 the Television Bureau of Advertising found that homes with a color set watched between 40 and 70 more minutes of television a day than homes with black-and-white. The technology did not only change how programs looked, it changed how long they held an audience.

COST

A color set cost a quarter of a salary

RCA's first color receiver sold for $1,000, about a quarter of the average annual salary, against $300 for a top of the line black-and-white set. Sarnoff predicted 75,000 sales in 1954, and roughly 5,000 sold.

SCALE

Twenty-eight million sets decided the standard

By 1953 there were 28 million black-and-white televisions in American homes. That installed base, not picture quality, is what the compatible standard was designed to protect.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Color TV Day

Read the opinion that upheld the standard

Justice Frankfurter set out his doubts separately, warning that the order would require an adapter fitted to millions of sets already in American homes, at substantial cost. The opinion is short and readable.

TRACE

Trace when a favorite show switched to color

Many series ran black-and-white seasons before converting, and the 1966-67 season was the first in which all three networks carried their entire prime-time lineups in color. Pick a show you know and find the season it changed.

VISIT

Visit the plaque where the winner was built

The IEEE marked RCA Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey with a milestone for the first electronic, monochrome-compatible color television system. The citation covers the work done there between 1946 and 1950.

LOOK

Look up the only color pictures that remain

LIFE published six color photographs taken straight off a television screen in its issue of July 23, 1951. At least four of them come from the broadcast itself.

Follow the color wheel to the Moon

Westinghouse's Apollo television manager published his own account of the camera his team built. He explains how the color fields sent from the spacecraft were rebuilt into a normal broadcast signal on the ground.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Color TV Day?

1 / 8

What did viewers with ordinary sets see during the 1951 color broadcast?

Answer

It was the first commercial color broadcast in the United States, meaning the first sponsored color program carried by a network of commercial stations. Color television itself had been demonstrated much earlier, by John Logie Baird in London in 1928 and by Bell Labs in America in 1929.