Thursday Open Line


Today is the anniversary of the first color television broadcast. In 1951, CBS transmitted the appropriately named program “Premiere” from New York City, and through stations in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The program was seen in color only at a few select facilities because color sets for the home weren’t available until 1954.  Sales of color sets caught up with those of black and white sets around 1970. Shortly thereafter, American consumers began preferring foreign manufactured sets, and in 1995, the last domestic brand was sold to a Korean firm. What little receiver manufacturing remains is a $52 million a year business in the U.S. You can find current data on the country’s economy by downloading the ‘America’s Economy’ mobile application at <www.census.gov/mobile>.