American Colour TV Idents

Excellent website:
http://www.kingoftheroad.net/KARD_html/kard4.html

High quality quicktime files of NBC, CBS and ABC colour television idents from the 1950s and 1960s.

The make contemporaneous output on BBC1, BBC2 and ITV look like absolute rubbish.

The only one missing, so far as I know, is the very first CBS Telelvision colour ident from 1953 (it's been nicknamed the bloodshot eye, because the retina was a blue, red and white design, while the rest of the logo was dark blue).

Colour!?! Before ITV launched? You learn something every day it seems!

Yes, you're right...but not only does American colour pre-date ITV, it goes back to 1946 when the first NBC system was put into use (although it was not commericalised...it was revised into a second system).

Brief History:
After WWII both CBS and NBC developed rival systems. CBS's was a mechanical system that was seen as inferior to NBC's electronic system.

NBC eventually won the approval of the American federal regulators...which was good because NBC was owned by RCA and General Electric (who could make television sets), while CBS was not directly affiliated with any electronics companies.

These early colour idents, NBC's especially, were essentially adverts for colour televisions. After all, nothing would frustrate me more, I think, than constantly hearing about the following programme being in "living colour" if I only had a black and white receiver.

The first "official" colour broadcast on NBC (using the revised NBC system, the first version of which was developed in 1946) was a parade on January 1, 1954. Presumably the first colour ident (the NBC chimes ident, in colour) was also shown then.

CBS also did a few colour broadcasts in the early 1950s, using this ident (it's called the bloodshot eye, for obvious reasons):

http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/images/CBS-DonL3.gif

In 1956, NBC started using a static peacock ident:

http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/Gallery/images/CTC7/Peacock_in_Roundtube.gif

Then, on September 7, 1957, the first "animated" colour peacock was seen.

Kool , You got anymore :

These aren't mine.

Two other good websites for American TV stuff are:

http://www.retromedia.tv
http://www.tvparty.com

The content on tvparty changes regularly (at least the free content does).

It's really interesting to see those sites. When you think of American TV you generally think of large, 3D tacky logos and modern jingles; but when you see those idents from the sixties and seventies they're very similar to British idents at the same time.

http://www.retromedia.tv/images/1959CBS.jpg
CBS=ATV - they've got the same eye.

Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS

I think CBS was the originator of the design. This website that I cited also claims that CBS had the first (mechanical) colour broadcast in 1940 (NBC's electronic colour would eventually be accepted as the industry standard).

I think that their is a lack of american tv idents on the web, anyone agree??

My fav site is this one: TEAMFX2000
It's got TV & Movie Idents. Great site.

The ATV Eye was originally a "spoof" of the CBS eye which Lew Grade scribbled at the back of an envelope when he was on his way back from the US. He was there to learn about commercial television.

Well found! I agree, but that site you quoted is excellent. Although there's no video, I know what three of the four Fox Kids ones looked like anyway - there were also used here. I reckon that the idents started being different though when they stopped saying "Fox Kids Presents (programmme name)" at every junction. I'd need to see US captures to find out though!