The grass was suddenly greener
Game, set and colour. MARION McMULLEN looks at how Wimbledon ditched black and white coverage 55 years ago
VIEWERS across the UK were used to seeing the world in black and white on the small screen, but that all changed in 1967.
BBC2 brought colour into people’s living rooms with sports coverage from Wimbledon. The historic moment was a great success even though there were only four colour cameras in operation at the time.
Journalists were invited to attend a special viewing at Television Centre in London to witness the new technology in action and to see for themselves the quality of the colour transmission.
It was initially planned to launch everything in December, but the date was brought forward because the BBC was determined to be the first in Europe to offer regular programmes in colour.
There were fewer than 5,000 colour television sets in Britain at the time, but demand quickly grew following the Wimbledon coverage, which saw Australian tennis player John Newcombe crowned winner of the men’s singles and America’s Billie Jean King successfully defending her ladies’ singles title by beating Ann Jones in the final.
BBC2 Controller David Attenborough announced that the channel would initially broadcast in colour for up to five hours a week, but by December 80 per cent of the channels’s programmes were being transmitted in colour.
It was estimated the new colour service would cost the BBC up to £2million a year, but viewers were reassured they would not miss out and would still be able to watch all programmes in black and white if they did not own a colour television set.
The first official BBC1 programme in colour came along in 1969 with a concert by Downtown singer Petula Clark from the Royal Albert Hall in London.