<P> While the meetings were taking place it was widely known within the industry that RCA was working on a dot - sequential system that was compatible with existing black - and - white broadcasts, but RCA declined to demonstrate it during the first series of meetings . Just before the JTAC presented its findings, on August 25, 1949, RCA broke its silence and introduced its system as well . The JTAC still recommended the CBS system, and after the resolution of an ensuing RCA lawsuit, color broadcasts using the CBS system started on June 25, 1951 . By this point the market had changed dramatically; when color was first being considered in 1948 there were fewer than a million television sets in the U.S., but by 1951 there were well over 10 million . The idea that the VHF band could be allowed to "die" was no longer practical . </P> <P> During its campaign for FCC approval, CBS gave the first demonstrations of color television to the general public, showing an hour of color programs daily Mondays through Saturdays, beginning January 12, 1950, and running for the remainder of the month, over WOIC in Washington, D.C., where the programs could be viewed on eight 16 - inch color receivers in a public building . Due to high public demand, the broadcasts were resumed February 13--21, with several evening programs added . CBS initiated a limited schedule of color broadcasts from its New York station WCBS - TV Mondays to Saturdays beginning November 14, 1950, making ten color receivers available for the viewing public . All were broadcast using the single color camera that CBS owned . The New York broadcasts were extended by coaxial cable to Philadelphia's WCAU - TV beginning December 13, and to Chicago on January 10, making them the first network color broadcasts . </P> <P> After a series of hearings beginning in September 1949, the FCC found the RCA and CTI systems fraught with technical problems, inaccurate color reproduction, and expensive equipment, and so formally approved the CBS system as the U.S. color broadcasting standard on October 11, 1950 . An unsuccessful lawsuit by RCA delayed the first commercial network broadcast in color until June 25, 1951, when a musical variety special titled simply Premiere was shown over a network of five East Coast CBS affiliates . Viewing was again restricted: the program could not be seen on black - and - white sets, and Variety estimated that only thirty prototype color receivers were available in the New York area . Regular color broadcasts began that same week with the daytime series The World Is Yours and Modern Homemakers . </P> <P> While the CBS color broadcasting schedule gradually expanded to twelve hours per week (but never into prime time), and the color network expanded to eleven affiliates as far west as Chicago, its commercial success was doomed by the lack of color receivers necessary to watch the programs, the refusal of television manufacturers to create adapter mechanisms for their existing black - and - white sets, and the unwillingness of advertisers to sponsor broadcasts seen by almost no one . CBS had bought a television manufacturer in April, and in September 1951, production began on the only CBS - Columbia color television model, with the first color sets reaching retail stores on September 28 . But it was too little, too late . Only 200 sets had been shipped, and only 100 sold, when CBS discontinued its color television system on October 20, 1951, ostensibly by request of the National Production Authority for the duration of the Korean War, and bought back all the CBS color sets it could to prevent lawsuits by disappointed customers . RCA chairman David Sarnoff later charged that the NPA's order had come "out of a situation artificially created by one company to solve its own perplexing problems" because CBS had been unsuccessful in its color venture . </P>

When did the first color tv show air