The first time I ever saw colour TV was at a friend's house in Guelph. This was before there was colour broadcasting in Canada but they were picking up one of the US channels. I was a little disappointed. The colour didn't look very convincing. It reminded me of the colours in comic books.

It was years before I ever saw colour TV again. When colour TV came to Canada we got our first set, a Sanyo, from Woolco. I was astounded by the brilliance of the colour. The technology had come a long way in a few years.

Last edited by turkeytop (September 28, 2023 9:24 pm)

I remember all three of the Amnet intros. ABC & CBS discontinued theirs around 1970 but NBC was using its intro until 1976 when they brought in the ill-advised, ill-fated 'N'. And while they used it on the Tonight Show, it wasn't used on the first SNLs, save for the Star Trek cancellation sketch (which is on YouTube.)

I also remember the CBC and CTV intros running well into the 70s. CBC stopped theirs around 1974 when they brought in the original exploding 'C'.

I remember finding the CHCH Ultra colour intro in their archives - but it was silent! Audio was run off a cart instead of from the film.

And for once, the CRTC isn't to blame for the delayed introduction of colour. That one's on its predecessor, the BBG. CFTO actually bought some of the earliest models from RCA when it built the Agincourt studio. And according to articles from that era, CFPL London was prepared to put colour on the air with 90 minutes' notice. But the BBG apparently decided that wasn't fair to the other stations - especially those in small markets that were still trying to pay for their original gear! So colour wasn't official launched here until 1966 - coincidentally, the same year all the Amnets ramped up their colo(u)r programming.

In the early days, they used to announce at the beginning of  a program that it was "In living colour."

My dad took me downtown to the downtown Eatons store late that summer of '66 to see the display of colour TVs they were selling, and CFTO provided the source of the signal fed to the display models. The shows themselves were what Channel 9 was going to air as part of their new fall lineup, including Star Trek showing, highlights from what would end up being the series third episode -" Where No Man Has Gone Before". That episode being chosen by CFTO, I have to think now, because its title may have been thought to intrigue and entice new colour TV buyers into actually spending their money.

Our family already owned a colour TV - an Electrohome. My dad liked to buy 'Canadian'. We were already watching Bonanza and Hogan's Heroes in colour, and on rare occasion, if they had not already gone home, my dad's friends would stay and watch as well.

The first colour program I saw was at a neighbour's home in 1966.  Daktari was a program set in the jungle and I remember the colour being vivid but not that natural.  The lions all looked bright orange.  The neighbours had a beautiful big wood cabinet stereo with the TV in the middle.

When our family bought a colour set in 1971 it was a Sony Trinitron 19 inch model.  CFPL in London had the clearest and most natural colour of all the stations we received,  even their local programs.  With channel 10 seemed like you never had to adjust the picture.  CHCH also had sharp colour.

I think it was from the opening of a Wayne & Shuster program prior to them going colour.  I seem to remember seeing a picture or the animation somewhere. But like you, can't find it anywhere. 

It certainly seems odd that it took a government OK to bring colour TV to Canada, but that's what happened, as this article from Feb. 1967 indicates. I wonder how they picked the stations that were allowed to "broadcast color-tape programs?" Does that mean only a select few were able to do everything in colour, while the rest were restricted to "non-live" programming? What a weird rule.



Of course, those who couldn't wait could have always opted for this "solution" back in 1964:

   Think I posted this info many years ago.  We were married in 1963 and bought a brand new television during the first six months (black and white)  Found out that Channel 7 in Watertown was going to  start with colour programs that fall.   Headed out and bought a 26"  round screen RCA colour tv.  It was installed and a new antenna put up at our rental apartment.  Invited a number of people from the radio station to watch the first colour show on CBS at 8 o'clock.   It came on but in gorgeous black and white.  I had forgotten to turn up the colour button.  We were lucky to see one colour show each day.  Incidently it was the second colour television sold in Smiths Falls..the first went to the owner of the coke bottler.  At the time I was working at CJET Radio.  A long time ago and the attraction of all the bells and whistles  on a television remains to this day.   The colour tv in a metal cabinet cost.$619.

MJ Vancouver wrote:

On YouTube I’ve seen a mixture within the same program during that period, on both sides of the border. There’s a clip on YouTube of CKVR’s year in review from 1976, which itself was broadcast in colour, but some of the news film presented from that year was in black and white.

CHEX in Peterborough was also still shooting news footage on B&W film into the late 1970s, but unlike CKVR, which used 16mm colour film as late as 1984, CHEX's news department skipped colour film and went straight to 3/4" colour videotape. It was around '84 that 'VR adopted Sony's Betacam cameras and VTRs for ENG/EFP.

By January 1966, NBC's primetime schedule was in colour except for Convoy and I Dream of Jeannie. The CBS primetime schedule  was 51% colour, ABC 49%. NBC became the first all colour network on November 7, 1966 when the game show Concentration switched from black & white.

NBC had more colour programming much earlier than anyone else because parent company RCA was having trouble selling any colour TV's.  Even in the early to mid 60's colour penetration was still stuck in the single digits in the US and this could also be why CBS and ABC moved into colour at a much more leisurely pace.  CBS was the number one network with a largely B&W prime time until 1966/67.

The big thing against colour was the price.  The TV's were too expensive and since a lot of shows were still in B&W  people were not buying them.  But that all changed around 1966/67.

Canada's Electrohome started to make and market colour TV's heavily in 1965, getting ready for CBC, CTV, CHCH and larger local channels that would be broadcasting in colour in the fall of 1966.

I remember reading in a marketing magazine that claimed in the mid 60's to early 70's,  Electrohome had half the colour TV sales in Canada.  Eaton Viking and Sears Kenmore TV brands were usually made by the Kitchener company.  However this would change by the mid 70's when Japanese sets started to take over here and in the US.