In a dimly lit theater inside Bell Labs in New York City, something remarkable unfolded on June 27th, 1929. A woman positioned herself before a lamp that swept light across her face and dress, and within moments her moving image traveled to a television screen situated on the other side of the room. What made this broadcast historic was simple yet groundbreaking — it was the first color TV moment ever transmitted.
The audience watched as a pot of geraniums came into view, followed by the American flag and the Union Jack. While similar demonstrations had taken place before, there was one crucial difference this time around: every single image appeared in full color.
The mastermind behind this first public color TV trial was an engineer named H.E. Ives, who had engineered a method for capturing and sending three separate images simultaneously. As the lamp swept across the woman and the various objects, it passed their light through red, green, and blue photo-electric cells — each one isolating its corresponding hue from the subject. These three distinct images were then beamed to the receiving television via radio signal.
On the other end of the transmission, three individual receivers had been calibrated to pick up different frequencies, with each frequency carrying a separate color. Lamps filled with argon handled the reception and reproduction of green and blue hues, while a neon-filled lamp fitted with a filter took care of the red. As each lamp detected its designated frequency, it illuminated the screen in rapid succession, line by line. Through the use of clouded mirrors, the trio of images was merged into a single beam and cast onto the screen. Arriving simultaneously, they blended into a vivid composite of moving imagery that left the audience marveling at the remarkably lifelike tones before them.
This wasn't Ives' first landmark achievement. Two years prior, he and his technicians had managed to transmit video of then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover all the way from Washington to New York, sending the images through wire. By merging that earlier technology with both color capability and radio transmission, Ives helped steer television toward its destiny as one of the most pervasive mediums for information and entertainment.
Fast forward to 1950, when CBS launched its first color commercial broadcast — audiences spread across five cities tuned in from television sets placed in stores and auditoriums. Still, with studios largely churning out black-and-white content and color TV sets remaining scarce in homes, widespread color programming didn't truly arrive until 1965. That pivotal year marked the moment when production technology finally caught up with consumer demand, sparking a color revolution that permanently transformed the entertainment landscape.