What's Black-And-White - And Dead?

You probably have never heard of Bruce DuMont, but he was a celebrity in his Chicago neighborhood back in 1952 when he was 8 years old. His family owned a television set.

The picture was a bit fuzzy, and all in black and white. But it was "the hottest thing" around, and DuMont recalls that people came from all over for a look-see.

DuMont is head of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago now, and literally part of television history. But the vehicle for those early days of television - the black-and-white set - has almost disappeared.

Except for miniature models, black-and-white TVs have faded from view, their sales shrinking as fast as the size of their screens. The sets rarely are seen even in discount stores any more, and prisons are among the few remaining customers.

Many of the nation's biggest retail chains, such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Kmart Corp., don't sell any traditional black-and-white sets. The last time Sears sold them was in 1990, and then it was just for the Christmas season when the chain offered a 12-inch model.

"That's really a dead market," Pat Ruggieri, a marketing manager for Sony. Corp., said of larger black-and-white sets.

Emerson Radio Corp. of North Bergen, N.J., still markets a 12-inch black-and-white set made in factories in the Far East, but a company executive, noting the razor-thin profits, thinks the future of the medium is anything but black and white.

"Nobody really likes the business anymore," said vice president Marino Andriani. "I don't think you'll see a day where you couldn't sell a black-and-white set. But will people continue to make them? That's another question."

The Electronic Industries Association estimates that nearly all of America's 94 million households have at least one color TV set, and that about half still have some kind of black-and-white set around.

While the trade group projects more than 20 million color TVs will be shipped in the United States this year, the estimate for black-and-white sets is only about 1 million.

The end of black-and-white broadcasting was on the horizon as early as 40 years ago. Limited color telecasts began in 1953, and the television networks shifted to color in the mid-1960s.

"At the beginning, it was very strange," said Julius Barnathan, who recently retired as an ABC executive after 37 years. "Actors didn't realize how much additional makeup they would need. And we couldn't quite get yellow. They had to paint a different color to come up with yellow."

Color brought new opportunities for programmers and advertisers, who could use graphics more creatively.

The NBC peacock was a symbol of this new world, and viewers were amazed by the hues they saw in shows such as "Bonanza" or the Rose Bowl Parade.

The roots of black-and-white television go back to the 19th century with the discovery of radio waves. Scientists eventually tinkered with systems to transmit pictures and, in 1929, a Russian immigrant named Vladimir Zworykin demonstrated a television system complete with a camera and picture tube. By 1950, there were about 6 million TV sets in the U.S.

Even if black-and-white sets go by the wayside, black-and-white programming still remains popular and, in some cases, is viewed as avant-garde rather than outdated.

"Black-and-white has a certain appeal in creating beautiful imagery," said Stephanie Apt, director of broadcast production for the J. Walter Thompson Inc. advertising agency.

"Particularly in a world where everything is in color," she said, "black-and-white really stands out."

Some aficionados of TV reruns say they prefer to watch black-and-white programs. For them, there's a simple solution, even in a world dominated by color sets, said David Lachenbruch, editorial director of Television Digest.

"Anybody who wants a black-and-white picture can just turn the color down," he said.