Color tv sets in Cuba

[AlanInSitges]

There is a surprising amount and detail of information about both early TV in general and color in particular in Cuba available online, though all of it is in Spanish.

Some high points:

- RCA owned the market there, though Admiral, Philco, and Zenith were very active marketing and selling sets

- color broadcasts began on March 19, 1958 on Channel 12. It was the second color station in the world outside the US.

- RCA basically owned all parts of the TV industry in Cuba: they built the equipment, set the standards, content, etc. It was NTSC of course. In those days there was nothing else. I would assume they were RCA sets used for watching.

- NBC set up an affiliate there called Televisión Habanera that broadcast American programming in English along with locally-produced Spanish-language programming. They launched the channel with a special edition of the Jack Paar show live from Havana.

- There is a low-quality capture of another special broadcast of the Steve Allen show on Havana TV here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epvLDIOVpFY

- There is a great picture of a priest blessing the RCA color transmitter in the linked blog post

- Telecolor, the NTSC broadcaster went bust and disappeared from the air about the time everything else went to hell in the country.

- Color TV didn't return to Cuba until 1975, using NEC equipment broadcasting NTSC.

There is a massive, well-written blog post here: http://elblogdepedrazaginori.blogspo...gia-y-sus.html

And some additional information about how SECAM lost to NTSC here: https://cinecubanolapupilainsomne.wo...lsa-efemeride/