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Color television is a television transmission technology that includes information on the color of the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It is an improvement on the earliest television technology, monochrome or black and white television, in which the image is displayed in shades of gray (grayscale). Television broadcasting stations and networks in most parts of the world upgraded from black and white to color transmission in the 1960s and 1970s. The invention of color television standards is an important part of the history of television, and it is described in the technology of television article.

Transmission of color images using mechanical scanners had been conceived as early as the 1880s. A practical demonstration of mechanically-scanned color television was given by John Logie Baird in 1928, but the limitations of a mechanical system were apparent even then. Development of electronic scanning and display made an all-electronic system possible. Early monochrome transmission standards were developed prior to the Second World War, but civilian electronics developments were frozen during much of the war. In August 1944, Baird gave the world's first demonstration of a practical fully electronic color television display. In the United States, commercially competing color standards were developed, finally resulting in the NTSC standard for color that retained compatibility with the prior monochrome system. Although the NTSC color standard was proclaimed in 1953 and limited programming became available, it was not until the early 1970's that color television in North America outsold black and white or monochrome units. Color broadcasting in Europe was not standardized on the PAL format until the 1960s.

Around 2006 countries began to switch from analog color television technology to digital television. This changeover is now complete in many developed countries, but analog television is still the standard in many developing countries.