"Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other."
Ann Landers, journalist
Color television is possible because the human brain can convert a grid of differently colored dots (usually known as pixels, short for picture elements) into a complete color image. Color television cathode ray tubes have three electron beams, as opposed to the single electron beam in a black and white TV. The screen is coated with red, green, and blue phosphor dots placed behind the holes of the tube's shadow mask. All the observed colors are combinations of the red, green, and blue signals (that is, if all dots are firing, the image appears white).
The fact that color television is essentially only three times more complicated than black and white television means that the basic invention processes for the two devices almost took place simultaneously. John Logie Baird (1888-1946) is recognized as a leading pioneer in the development of television, alongside Philo Farnsworth, and in 1928 Baird first demonstrated the transmission of color images.
One of the early important commercial considerations was that the signals that transmitted the color pictures should not only result in color images on "color TV" sets, but should also be rendered as black and white images on mono sets. Development was slow, and sales of shadow-masked RCA cathode ray tube color TV sets only started in 1954, The sets were extremely expensive and typically cost more than $1,000. The 1961 Sunday evening transmission of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" encouraged U.S. citizens to buy color TVs. Only by 1972 were color TV sales exceeding black and white.
