RCA began selling the CT-100, the first mass-produced color television, at a price of about $1,000 in 1954 — equivalent to over $11,000 today. Few Americans could afford it, and color broadcasts remained scarce for years, but it marked the opening shot in a technology race that would eventually put color TVs in nearly every home.
The CT-100's 15-inch round screen displayed a picture that, by later standards, looked murky and imprecise, prone to color drift that required constant tuning. Only about 5,000 units sold in the first year. Networks broadcast almost nothing in color, so many owners spent lavish sums on a set that mostly showed black-and-white programs with a colorful cabinet sitting in the corner.
RCA had bet the company on color television, spending an estimated $130 million developing the technology and lobbying the FCC to adopt its compatible color standard over rival systems, including one from CBS that produced a sharper picture but couldn't be viewed on existing black-and-white sets. RCA's gamble paid off over the following decade as color broadcasting expanded and prices fell, but the CT-100's rocky 1954 debut is a reminder that transformative technologies often arrive clumsy, expensive, and years ahead of the infrastructure needed to support them.