last television game show to be aired in black and white

[trainman]

I never considered that ABC was avoiding color repeats for a cost issue.  That is intriguing.  The technical side of me is more intrigued of the cost of running a color film vs. a black-and-white one.

Maybe the union contract had them paying the master control technicians less to run black-and-white than color? Or did they perhaps pay lower royalties/residuals for black-and-white versus color? (I can't imagine the actual process of putting a color film on the air costing more than putting a black-and-white film on!)

[NickintheATL]

I never considered that ABC was avoiding color repeats for a cost issue.  That is intriguing.  The technical side of me is more intrigued of the cost of running a color film vs. a black-and-white one.

Maybe the union contract had them paying the master control technicians less to run black-and-white than color? Or did they perhaps pay lower royalties/residuals for black-and-white versus color? (I can't imagine the actual process of putting a color film on the air costing more than putting a black-and-white film on!)

It certainly happened in the UK.  ITV colour technicians went on strike in 1970 causing shows to be produced in monochrome instead of color for a time.  The companies charged advertisers more for color ads than monochrome ones, and the technicians probably weren't getting paid as they felt they should have.  Therein lied the dispute.

[calliaume]

Bumping this thread - someone on Facebook's TV Archives group posted pages from a 1967 TV Guide.  Here's the breakdown:

ABC:  all of their daytime programs are in black and white (Supermarket Sweep, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, Dream Girl of '67, General Hospital, The Nurses, Dark Shadows, Where the Action Is, plus reruns of The Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, and Ben Casey).

CBS:  only Password and House Party, plus network news cut-ins, are in color.  Everything else (Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow, The Guiding Light, As the World Turns, To Tell the Truth, The Edge of Night, The Secret Storm) is in black and white.  And so is Captain Kangaroo, as well as reruns of Candid Camera, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

NBC:  everything is in color (Reach for the Stars, Concentration, The Pat Boone Show, The Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy!, Eye Guess, Let's Make a Deal, Days of Our Lives, The Doctors, Another World, You Don't Say!, Match Game, plus Today and network news cut-ins).