Further refinement of color television was temporarily suspended during World War II. After the war, work on the development of color TV resumed, and engineers were able to design a system that would operate within the 6-megahertz channel allocation that had been established for black-and-white service. In a hearing that began on September 26, 1949, and lasted for 62 days, CBS petitioned the FCC for commercialization of its 6-megahertz, 405-line, 144-fields-per-second field-sequential color system. Because of the higher scanning rate, such a system was not compatible with the existing monochromatic standard.

The economic costs of adopting an incompatible system were a major factor in the FCC deliberations. If adopted, it appeared that consumers would carry the cost of modifying the existing 2 million monochrome receivers to follow the higher field-sequential scanning rates and reproduce color signal transmissions in monochrome. The projected costs of this modification varied, with a low figure of about $25. In addition, it was also argued that when broadcasters elected to begin color service, they would lose that portion of the audience that had not yet modified their monochrome receivers.

At the hearings, work on several experimental electronic color systems designed to be compatible with the existing monochrome system was presented to the commission. Color Television, Incorporated (CTI) demonstrated its line-sequential color system, which assigned the color portion of the signal to the successive lines of the image. In the first field, the uppermost line was scanned in green, the next line in blue, the next in red, and so on until the first field was complete. The second field was scanned in a similar manner, and the combination of the two fields produced a complete picture in color. The system operated at 525 lines, and 60 fields a second, corresponding to the existing monochrome service. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) demonstrated its dot-sequential color system in which color is assigned to successive picture elements, or dots, of the image. With this system, each line of any field is composed of dots in the colors of red, blue, and green. The scanning system for this color design (525/60) was also identical to the existing monochrome standard. Both the CTI and RCA color system were formally proposed to the commission as potential standards. In addition to these proposals, preliminary development of several other color systems were also presented. To many of the industry witnesses appearing before the commission, the demonstrations and discussions indicated that a satisfactory compatible system could be developed in a reasonable period of time, and they urged that a decision regarding color be postponed.

Examining the various proposed color systems, the FCC determined that the shortcomings of the compatible systems were fundamental and noted that if a viable alternative compatible system could not be developed and the field-sequential color system was eventually adopted, the costs of modifying an even greater number of monochrome receivers would be prohibitive, denying the public color service altogether. The commission therefore concluded that it was unwise to delay the decision and on October 10, 1950, decided that the adoption of the color field-sequential system proposed by CBS was in the public interest. RCA appealed this decision all the way to the Supreme Court, but the commission’s actions were upheld. The CBS station in New York began regular color broadcasts on June 25, 1951. However, because of the military demands of the Korean War and the reallocation of resources toward the war effort, color receiver production could not be dramatically increased. On October 19, 1951, CBS discontinued color broadcasts due to the limited numbers of color receivers.

It was in this context that the NTSC, the entity that played a key role in setting monochrome standards in the United States, was reactivated to investigate the status of compatible color systems. On July 21, 1953, two years after its first meeting, the second NTSC approved a compatible all-electronic color television dot-sequential system (a modified version of RCA’s system) and petitioned the FCC for adoption. On December 17, 1953, the FCC formally adopted a compatible color standard.

After the color standard was set in 1953, broadcasting stations were fairly quick to upgrade their transmission facilities to provide for color programming. Of the 158 stations operating in the top 40 cities, 106 had adopted color capabilities by 1957. Color programming offerings, however, remained fairly limited for quite some time. Although NBC increased its output of color programming to help its parent company, RCA, sell color receivers, the other major networks were not as supportive of this new innovation. As late as 1965, CBS provided only 800 hours of color programming for the entire year, and ABC only 600 hours. In addition to the limited programming, early sets were somewhat cumbersome to adjust for proper color reception, receiver prices remained fairly high, and manufacturers were reluctant to promote color receivers until the lucrative black-and-white market had been saturated. Consequently, consumers were fairly slow to adopt color technology. As of 1965, only 10 percent of U.S. homes had a color set. It was not until the late 1960s, more than a decade after the standard was set, that color TV sales rose significantly. Today, approximately 95 percent of all U.S. homes have color television.