Premiere (TV program)

Premiere is the first commercially sponsored television program to be broadcast in color. The program was a variety show which aired as a special presentation on June 25, 1951, on a five-city network hook-up of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) television stations. Its airing was an initial step in CBS's brief and unsuccessful campaign to gain public acceptance of its field-sequential method of color broadcasting, which had recently been approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the first commercial color television broadcasting standard for the United States.

Competition for a U.S. color broadcasting standard

CBS's field-sequential color broadcasting system was an electro-mechanical system. It transmitted monochrome images electronically, and color was then added mechanically by placing a rapidly spinning (1440 r.p.m.) transparent tricolor disk in front of the television screen. This spinning Red-Green-Blue disk, when synchronized with a corresponding spinning disk in a color television camera, created the impression of full color. A major downside to the CBS system was that the video images being transmitted were not "compatible" with current monochrome television sets, meaning that unless these sets were modified they would render these video transmissions as meaningless lines and squiggles (with the very rare exception of some sets which would produce four small black-and-white images, one in each corner of the screen.)

During the past decade an often contentious competition had taken place to obtain official approval from the FCC for a U.S. color broadcasting method which would meet the FCC's criteria for cost, quality, and convenience. The primary challenger to CBS's system was an all-electronic color system employing a dot-sequential method which was being developed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the parent company of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The RCA system had a distinct advantage in that it was compatible, meaning that current black-and-white televisions could receive a monochrome picture without any adjustments or modifications. However the color image produced on RCA's tricolor picture tubes had repeatedly been found unsatisfactory by the FCC.

On October 11, 1950 the FCC gave its official approval of CBS's field-sequential color system and stated that commercial color broadcasting could begin on November 20, 1950.