How Israel ERASED Colour TV | An AMTV Documentary

Not every nation around the Earth would be so excited to adopt TELEVISION into its culture as soon as they could. In ISRAEL, the new independent state was hesitant and resisted television for several decades.

When the development of COLOUR TELEVISION came about, things became more serious. Citing it as an unnecessary luxury, the lengths that the various Israeli Governments went to to prevent colour from reaching local audiences, is truly quite remarkable... In this latest AMTV mini-documentary, we explore that story!

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Toby Lior Carmel

MY LINKS:

With Thanks To Our Patrons & Staff Members: (as of 29/08/23)
Assistant Floor Managers
- Phil Atkin
- Rob Wilson
- MeowingCookie
- James Mathieson
- Evonne Okafor
- Martin Spellacey
- Mevans2001
- Alek Zapara

Directors
- Rob Jefferson
- Matt Pekarek
- jimmythebantam

Producers
- Joseph 'Gerkuman' Adams
- KNIGH7
- Jenny Tea
- James Brindley
- Macra99
- Technostalgism
- Andrew L. Budny
- Ryan Boundy

AMTV Staff Members
- Macra
- Hux Media
- Ben Freeman
- Bruce Danton
- Globe Of Reviews
- Derek Chambers
- Shaun Knock
- Daud Khan
- Traffi
- Tbose Krotz
- Liam De-Maine
- Keith Myers
- KarlKR

Please like, comment, share, subscribe and check out my other videos! :D

#israel #colour #television

[AdamMartyn]

Thank you for tuning in to this AMTV documentary! I hope you enjoyed this rather baffling yet fascinating story!

A special thank you to Toby Lior Carmel! He reached out and suggested the idea of telling this story, and presented me with an initial script to cover it! I adapted his script into what you've just watched, and without his help, knowledge and insight into this story, then this video would have never come about! Thank you Toby!

Please leave a LIKE on this video, SUBSCRIBE to the channel if you're new, and SHARE it around on all of your socials!

See you in the next one!

[robertsteinbach]

The younger generation needed to know that even in the United States that in the late 70s and early 1980's not all TV sets in use were color sets. Black and White sets were still in use until the end of the 1980's in America and probably far later elsewhere. Even medium size TV sets built in the 1960s were well built, easy to get repaired, and last decades with regular use.

[jfwfreo]

Given how much pressure there was from not just the broadcasters but also the people of Israel, I wonder why there weren't political parties saying "vote for us and we will end the ban on color TV".

[shacharraz]

As an Israeli, I knew about this story but not all of its details. My Gen X parents have always told me of the time there was only was channel. Two bonus facts: 1. One of the shows you showed, Zehu Ze, got a 2020 reboot that’s still going. 2. Tommy Lapid later went into politics, and so did his son, who served as Prime Minister for 6 months last year

[davidsp]

My father talks about talks about being in Israel during the moon landing in 1969. He said that it wasn't available on live TV. He had to listen to it on the radio.

[JCCyC]

Another country that could make for an interesting "History of TV" video is Brazil. We took the frequency+geometry+framerate of NTSC, but with PAL color encoding. It was named PAL-M. One of my college teachers was the man who developed the format, Alcyone Fernandes de Almeida Jr. The idea was to avoid both the flickering of PAL standards and the color distortion of NTSC. In fact, it was the best of both worlds and the image quality of locally produced content was gorgeous.

[lironl]

Israel wasn't the only country where colour was suppressed. I read on the web that here in Australia, before the official launch of colour TV and during the hours when TV stations weren't supposed to broadcast in colour, TV pre-launch, stations kept broadcasting in colour, except that they omitteed the colour burst signal. Like Israel, colour TVs could be modified to be able to watch in colour despite the lack of a colour burst signal, but people had to adjust the picture occasionally as the colours would drift. However, i can't find any references on the web at the moment.

[Ponken]

The trial of Adolf Eichmann was televised and broadcast internationally in 1961. I believe this event forced Israeli politicians to rethink.

[ingikjartansson]

In Iceland we got our first TV station in 1966, but we didn’t get colour until 1976.
They didn’t start broadcasting every day of the week until 1987, until then there was no broadcast on Thursday’s.
We didn’t get our second station until late 1986.
Before we got our own station a lot of people were watching a broadcast from the American military base stationed in Iceland, but it was frowned upon by many as they believed it was damaging Icelandic culture, whatever that is.

[kurtl]

It might be interesting to cover South Africa, which didn't have national TV until the late-70s (with most people not having TVs until the 80s).
Many communities relied on a monthly service that brought imported TV programs/movies to the local town hall or community Center.
Radio drama continued until TV took over.
Radio enthusiasts have been trying to restore Springbok Radio"s program archives from homemade off-the-air recordings.

[kfirwz]

As a teen I remember this time. I did watch the Eurovision in color. It was an event at the time. They did broadcast sometime different shows in color. I remember a nature show with David Attenborough.
Another attempt to not corrupt the youth of the 1960s was banning the Beatles to perform in Israel.. 😢

[Game_Hero]

These anti-colour TV attitudes were wild, man. I'm surprised there wasn't one that said that colour tv would make people violent or something.

[novatiberium]

Finally, an Israel video without the controversial uncontributing comments.

Excellent work :D

[simondan]

I was in elementary school in Israel during the years of: the eraser, anti-eraser and transition to color.
One detail worth mentioning- until the end of the 1970s, Israel suffered from lack of foreign currency due to the struggling economy and the Arab boycott (many brands were boycotting Israel: Coca Cola, Pepsi, Honda, all fast food chains etc.).
As a result, the government imposed strict restrictions:
For example you could only withdraw foreign currency with a flight ticket in hand, and there was a strict quota on the amount. Your luggage was searched for cash etc.
Therefore, the government was doing everything they could to limit the import of foreign luxury goods, such as color TVs.

[jaxking]

It’ll be fun to see you to cover Japan’s transition to color.

[DanielArbaboff_daPersonB]

3:52 I do remember vaguely a report that included an interesting fact: When Ben Gurion visited the French PM (I believe that happened around 1962), he saw a documentary aired on the telly, focusing on nature. That particular program made him change his mind about the concept of television - in its educational purposes in particular.

[OrlyYahalom]

Thank you for this excellent doc! I'm an Israeli, born in 1975, and I've learned a lot.

I don't know when my family bought our first TV set, but the first colour TV arrived when I was 6. Before that, my brothers and I used to watch some colour animation for kids at neighbours' who had one.

BTW the educational programs were excellent. Many B&W programs were re-runned for many years. We all loved them and enjoyed watching them when we were sick, or pretended to be sick in order to avoid school. For example, there were programs in English that we started watching and rewatching as small kids before we even started learning English at school.

Oddly, watching the educational programs at school itself was actually less common, at least where I used to live. We didn't have a TV in class.

[blitzroehre]

Please do a docu on South African TV. The "ungodly box" was long blocked by Albert Herzog, minister of telecommunications and introduction was comparitively late in 1976.

[dratopia]

You should also make a story about how Romania got color television. It has a very interesting history, being the last country in Europe to use colour.

[jamesmt]

Great documentary, and the Eurovision connection is fascinating.

I belive the BBC had to loan the IBA colour equipment for the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, which they also had to do to RTÉ following Ireland's first win at the start of the decade. Irrespective of how it was shown locally, the EBU would have insisted on it being filmed and broadcast internationally in colour, but you can certainly tell the Israelis weren't used to colour when they hosted for the first time.

Today, of course, Israel has one of the most advanced television industries in the world. Their third hosting of Eurovision four years ago was exceptional (if we don't talk about Madonna!)