The Non-Compatible Blues

Color TV is ready for public use, trumpeted Colorado's Democratic Senator Edwin C. Johnson last week, but "powerful interests" (i.e., set manufacturers) are delaying it until the market is saturated with black & white receivers. Before Johnson could draw breath, both CBS and RCA were making their answers. RCA's David Sarnoff said that his company was doing "everything we know how to advance color TV for the home . . . I don't know to whom Senator Johnson refers . . ." Added CBS, whose noncompatible* system was approved by FCC 2 1/2 years ago (TIME, Oct. 23, 1950): the fault lies with the Government, which restricted production on color TV equipment.

But at week's end came word from the National Television System Committee, representing technical groups and most major manufacturers, who banded together to devise a new system that they hoped would make FCC revise its favorable decision on the CBS method. Said N.T.S.C. spokesmen: the committee has designed a compatible system which needs only field tests before it is presented to FCC. The field tests began this week.

*A "compatible" color system reproduces in black & white on conventional receivers; a noncompatible system produces only a blur.

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