The program was a variety show which aired as a special presentation on June 25, 1951, on a five-city network hook-up of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) television stations.
The RCA system had a distinct advantage in that it was compatible, meaning that current black-and-white televisions could receive a monochrome picture without any adjustments or modifications.
On May 28, 1951 on an 8-1 vote the Supreme Court sided with the FCC, stating that commercial color programming could begin in twenty-five days.
[7] CBS lined up several of its best known stars to participate in its opening commercial colorcast, including Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan.
[9] A great amount of effort was made to get the display of colors right, with lighting angles being adjusted and props being changed and moved around.
It was opened by "Patty Painter" (Patricia Stinnette) a professional model and West Virginia native who for many years had been employed by CBS to pose for on-camera tests of its color television system.
[13] She introduced Arthur Godfrey, the host of the first half-hour, who greeted the viewers with the self-deprecating quip about how "awful" it must be to see his face.
[15] She also did a presentation for sponsor Pepsi-Cola and bantered a bit with humorist Sam Levenson who stated how glad he was to be alive in these times.
[16] In the second half-hour Ed Sullivan showed up for hosting duties, announcing that "CBS is putting blood into the coaxial cable.
[15] Ed Sullivan also joked around with the Bil and Cora Baird Marionettes, who serenaded him with E. Y. Harburg's "You, Too, Can Be a Puppet" from the musical Flahooley.
[15] He was also joined by Durward Kirby in a well-received comedy skit in which Moore played a pitchman who attempted to demonstrate a hopelessly useless vegetable slicer.
[15] The New York City Ballet company then performed La Valse, choreographed by George Balanchine to music by Maurice Ravel, with staging by Sol Hurok.
Other commercial products promoted during the program included Wrigley's gum, Toni Home Permanent and Revlon lipstick.
Some of these were needed in-house to produce the show, so only approximately twenty receivers were made available through CBS to the various public and private viewing sites which had been set up for the event.
New York City, NY (WCBS-TV, Channel 2): Eight color receivers were placed by CBS in their studio at 49 East 52nd Street.
[8] Washington, DC (WTOP-TV, Channel 9): There were four CBS color receivers in the city, none of which were made available to the general public that day.
One color set was placed at the Carlton Hotel (two blocks north of the White House) to provide private viewing for government officials and members of the press and such.
[9] Five people called in to the station to report that they were one of the few who had black-and-white TVs which were picking up four small monochrome pictures, one in each corner of the screen.
[16] The two other sets were placed for public viewing on the fifth floor of the Jordan Marsh Company department store, one in the Exhibition Hall, and one in the Fashion Center.
[8] If most of the public wanted to watch CBS color broadcasts in any form over the next few months they would have to rely on their current black-and-white televisions and then install one of three devices which were just coming onto the market.
If they just wanted to watch the color broadcast in black-and-white they would have to buy and install an external "adapter" which produced a monochrome, but smaller, picture (using only 405 lines of a standard set's 525).
[24] His request was turned down, so while Premiere was airing Dr. DuMont invited members of the press to his Passaic, New Jersey laboratories to view a demonstration of color on this improved RCA tube.
[25] NBC had already announced that starting July 9, 1951 it would begin authorized experimental broadcasts in New York City of RCA compatible color, with public demonstrations of the WNBT-TV broadcasts on RCA color receivers[26] In addition, the National Television System Committee (NTSC), which had helped craft the original U.S. monochrome television broadcasting standards in 1941, had already reorganized in order to implement an all-industry plan which would pool together the knowledge and resources of the NTSC, RCA, General Electric and others to create a new "composite" compatible color system which it hoped would prove acceptable to the FCC.
On September 28, 1951, a New York Times ad announced that orders would now be taken for the CBS-Columbia combination color/black-and-white TV set which it had first advertised the day when Premiere aired three months earlier.
CBS immediately complied and went further by ending all color broadcasting the next day after airing the North Carolina-Maryland college football game.