Colour television was not invented in a single moment, but key milestones are widely recognised: the first public colour TV demonstration was in 1928, and practical electronic colour TV systems emerged around 1940, with compatible commercial colour broadcasting taking off in the early 1950s.

When was colour TV “invented”?

Because colour television evolved over decades, different sources highlight different turning points as the “invention” depending on what is meant (first demo, first patent, first system, or first mass-market broadcast).

  • 1897: Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik patents an early colour television concept, but it is not practical.
  • 3 July 1928: John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of colour television in London using an electro‑mechanical system.
  • 1940: Electronic and field‑sequential colour systems (RCA in the US, Peter Goldmark at CBS, and Guillermo GonzĂĄlez Camarena’s trichromatic system in Mexico) mark the beginning of viable colour TV technology.
  • 25 June 1951: CBS airs the first commercial colour TV programme in the US, but almost nobody can watch because sets are rare and incompatible.
  • 1953–1954: RCA’s compatible NTSC colour system is approved in the US (FCC approval in December 1953), and regular commercial colour broadcasts begin in 1954, which many historians treat as the true arrival of modern colour television.

So, a concise answer many historians use: colour TV was first demonstrated in 1928 , but modern, compatible colour television for consumers dates from 1953–1954.

Mini timeline of key milestones

  • Late 19th century – Early concepts and patents, including Szczepanik’s colour TV patent (1897), remain experimental and not commercially usable.
  • 1928 – John Logie Baird’s public colour TV demonstration in London proves colour images can be transmitted, but the system is bulky and mechanical.
  • 1940–1946
    • RCA and CBS show competing colour systems in the US, starting a long standards battle.
* Guillermo GonzĂĄlez Camarena patents a colour adapter system in 1940, often cited as the first colour TV patent of its kind.
  • 1950–1951 – CBS’s mechanical field‑sequential colour system is briefly approved; CBS runs the first commercial colour broadcast on 25 June 1951, but it is incompatible with most existing TVs and sees little audience.
  • 1953–1954 – The FCC approves RCA’s all‑electronic, backward‑compatible colour system (NTSC), and the first regular NTSC colour broadcasts start in 1954; this system underpins colour TV’s spread in North America and influences later standards worldwide.
  • 1960s–1970s – Mass adoption: colour sets become affordable, and broadcasters switch programming from black‑and‑white to colour, with black‑and‑white broadcasts largely disappearing by the mid‑1970s.

Why there is no single “inventor”

Several inventors and organisations contributed critical pieces to what people now call colour TV.

  • John Logie Baird – Early public demos of mechanical colour TV, pushing the idea into the mainstream of television research.
  • Guillermo GonzĂĄlez Camarena – Developed and patented an important trichromatic field‑sequential system in 1940 that let black‑and‑white cameras capture colour; his work was influential enough that NASA used it for space imaging decades later.
  • Peter Carl Goldmark and CBS – Built a mechanical colour system that produced good colour but was incompatible with existing sets, leading to commercial failure despite early broadcasts.
  • RCA (and associated labs) – Refined an electronic colour standard that was compatible with black‑and‑white sets; once approved in 1953, this made large‑scale rollout practical and is often treated as the decisive step.

From a modern technology and consumer viewpoint, the “invention” of colour TV is best understood as a series of breakthroughs between 1928 and 1954 , culminating in RCA’s compatible electronic system and the start of regular colour broadcasting.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.