Welsh households still buy black and white TV licences

TV Licensing has sold 242 black-and-white-TV licences in Wales this year – a figure partly explained by the popularity of vintage and portable TVs among collectors.

But there may also be a financial reason – while a full TV licence costs £154.50 per year, a licence for a black-and-white TV will only set you back £52.

A concert by Petula Clark was the first programme broadcast in colour on BBC One. Picture: Andy Garth

Those 242 households are resisting the increasingly diverse, internet-driven ways people watch TV.

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“When BBC One launched its colour TV service in November 1969, there were only three channels available," Helen Wild, from TV Licensing, said. "Fast forward to 2019, and more than half (53 per cent) of TV households have in some way an internet connection to their TV and access to hundreds of channels.

“While only accounting for a very small proportion, it’s interesting to know that some households still like to watch their favourite shows on a black and white telly.”

Sir David Attenborough oversaw the beginning of colour broadcasting on BBC Two when he was the channel's controller in the late 1960s. Picture: David Parry/PA Wire

Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the first colour broadcasting on two of Britain's major terrestrial channels.

On BBC One, the first show beamed out to audiences was a Royal Albert Hall concert starring veteran entertainer Petula Clark.

Later that day, colour broadcasts included Star Trek, Dixon of Dock Green, The Harry Secombe Show, and Match of the Day, followed by the 1952 Stewart Granger film The Prisoner of Zenda.

On ITV, the first colour broadcast was Road Report, followed by two children's shows – The Growing Summer and puppet classic Thunderbirds. The first advertisement shown in colour, incidentally, was for Birds Eye peas.

Thunderbirds was one of the first colour programmes broadcast on ITV.

But this wasn't the first time British TV audiences had been able to watch in colour – BBC Two, under controller David Attenborough, had been showing colour programmes, including Wimbledon and the Eurovision Song Contest, since 1967.