The History Of Colour TV In The UK

After many years of experimentation, the BBC were able to begin public transmissions. The first were coverage of the 1966 elections to viewers in America via the Early Bird satellite, where colour was more widely adopted; however, the UK still only received black-and-white coverage.

Finally, on 1 July 1967, BBC2 launched colour television to the British public with the Wimbledon tennis championships, presented by David Vine. This was broadcast using the Phase Alternating Line (PAL) system, which was based on the work of the German television engineer Walter Bruch. The channel had launched in black and white in 1964 at a high resolution of 625 lines in preparation for the PAL colour system.

PAL seemed the obvious solution—the signal to the British television industry that the time for a public colour television service had finally arrived. PAL was a marked improvement over the American NTSC-compatible system on which it was based, which was soon dubbed ‘never twice the same colour’ in comparison to PAL.

© Science Museum Group Collection

Although colour television had arrived, not all programmes were ready to make the switch, and colour programming was introduced gradually.

After the BBC2 launch in 1967, colour broadcasting went live on the remaining two channels—BBC1 and ITV—on 15 November 1969.

Only about half of the national population was brought within the range of colour signals. Colour could only be received in the London, Midlands, North-West and Yorkshire TV regions.

ITV’s first colour programmes in Scotland appeared on 13 December 1969; in Wales on 6 April 1970; and in Northern Ireland on 14 September 1970.

Colour TV licences were introduced on 1 January 1968, costing £10—twice the price of the standard £5 black and white TV licence.