As a Norwegian I will applaude you for your effort.🥳🎉 Trond Kirkvaag with Knut Lystad and Lars Mjøen formed a trio named KLM. This trio and Jon Skolmen more or less defined Norwegian comedy in the '70s and '80s. Perhaps even the '90s. The trio made a children's tv-show called "Brødrene Dal" or the "Valley Brothers". Their names were Gaus Dal, Roms Dal and Brumund Dal. All three names of real valleys in Norway. These three brothers were kind of British 19th century "explorers". 4 different series each with their own topic were made. They were made in the same type of slapstick humour as in the "Nor-way" program. Every Norwegian who grew up in the '70s and '80s viewed these series. The world was very different then, but in popularity they could be compared to Top Gear with Clarkson, Hammond and May.

@shonenjumpmagneto

9 ай бұрын

Watch 'Troll Hunter'. A good Norwegian Mockumentary just like 'The Nor-Way To Broadcasting'!

Very well researched. As a Norwegian TV nerd who has worked in television myself, and who has interacted with Jon Skolmen irl, I was waiting for one or more factual errors but there were none. Bravo! I never expected to see a Briton upload a tribute and dedication to Kirkvaag and Skolmen, so it was quite emotional, as they are both much beloved here and dearly missed. One explanation though on why there is no recording of the exact moment they went full time color on New Years 1975 is because there wasn't a big huge moment. NRK had already done part of their programming in color since 1972, and by 1974 seventy percent of all programming was in color. So by the time they officially went 100 percent color it wasn't a big deal anymore. It was already the norm. Some added trivia: NRK went on to win a lot of awards for their comedy specials in Montreux in the following years. A couple of these NRK comedies even co-starred British comedy legends John Cleese (To Norway, Home of Giants) and Peter Cook (Diplomatix). Cleese later joked about the fact that the year the BBC sent "Fawlty Towers" to compete at Montreux they lost to NRK, but since he co-starred in the Norwegian winning program he still won, even if the BBC didn't.

@OscarOSullivan

10 ай бұрын

RTE first started using colour in 1968 but it took until 1976 with the late late show for that transition to finish colour tv programmes were still common in the early 1970’s

@a64738

10 ай бұрын

Great times :) Now BBC and NRK is just lie machines that spread misinformation, propaganda and discredit people on demand by their overlords in the hyper rich "elite".

That clip is what they should have broadcast in 1975 for the start of the full time colour broadcast. The clip itself stands on its own as a good way of celebrating the changeover. :)

The more you know... I mean, as a Norwegian, and long time fan of Jon Skolmen and especially Trond Kirkvaag, I honestly did not know too much about this. I have indeed believed this clip to be the introduction of colour for Nrk, although I have also been confused as I've seen other clips contradicting it. But this makes a lot of sense! And thinking about it, I even remember having watched the entirety of this Montreux contribution. It feels like it's been used in reference to Nrk broadcasting in colour, so much and so often, that it's almost made kind of a Mandela effect I'd say. But wow, I honestly didn't think I would learn this from a British youtuber I originally started watching for his Doctor Who content. Good job!

Thanks for bringing this to light. It's a genuinely funny comedy bit. I'm familiar with Rolv Wesenlund for his role as Marve Fleksnes. He was very popular in Denmark. ( _Fleksnes_ was apparently an adaptation of the british Hancock's Half Hour )

As a Norwegian, I thank you for this video. It really is a tribute to some of our greatest comedians of all time - and they're still considered that to this day.

Man, as a Norwegian I've always been told that the Kirkvaag and Skolmen clip was the actual introduction of color TV. I believe this was even told in public schools.

@doomsaier1

10 ай бұрын

i remember one text book even touted it as the actual changeover moment

@shonenjumpmagneto

9 ай бұрын

The moment i saw it I knew it was a parody LMAO

@user-cvbnm

3 ай бұрын

Telephone game at its finest

The text in the bottom third of the video from 1972 says: "Julie Ege & Rolv Wesenlund in colour" Spoken dialogue translates as: Rolv: ...in first in colour in the new year. (It's the end of a sentence, so the grammar doesn't entirely make sense.) Julie: Is that me? Rolv: In colour! We're in colour, yes! Let's applause for colour in Norway!

During a parliamentary debate on color television, labour MP and later NRK head Einar Førde spoke ironically on the Christian Democratic opposition, «sure, we've got sin, but we don't want it in colour». It's quite famous in Norway. Funnily enough, Trond Kirkvaag used to parody Førde excellently. I can still remember watching him do the parody live one Saturday, the whole family flabbergasted by how well he did it. Except it was actually Einar Førde, and a «confused» Kirkvaag entered the scene. Epic.

Same thing, slightly worse, happened in Italy: our national broadcaster (RAI) started experimenting in August 1972, but the regular service only started on February 1977 because our government struggled when they had to choose between PAL and SECAM formats.

@user-cvbnm

9 ай бұрын

I thought it was because of years of lead in italy that delayed it.

That's a fantastically well-done video. Using other shots from Nor-Way was very, very clever and nerds like me got to laugh all the way to the reveal. I've worked at NRK R&D and actually have a few Kodachrome shots of the earliest colour tests, and an NRK version of the Test Card J 35mm slide. There's more fun political history about how Norway went to colour. A personal idol of mine, Labour politician (and later S-tier NRK director-general) Einar Førde, had a quote in Parliament which was considered so funny that it's sort of been allowed to define the conflict in posterity. "It has a taste of meaningless radicalism - the sort that says: I'm against priests, but in favour of female priests. It also has traces of puritanism - we'll have to accept that Sin has come to Earth, but we do not want it in colour." In reality, it was a question of "colour for the cities, or B&W to the whole people?" - the topography makes a TV network very demanding. NATO defense spending enabled high-bandwidth communication links up and down the country, which opened the door for television distribution. But as the sixties came to a close, there simply weren't that many gaps in coverage and the premium on colour kit had decreased. Note that Parliament gave NRK permission to "conduct experimental colour transmissions". Well, nobody ever concluded about that experiment, and NRK were legally speaking merely experimenting with colour until the laws were amended in connection with the digital terrestrial network.

Here in Poland, it's a way different story. First off, let me tell the story of television in Poland. The first Polish radio network, Polskie Radio, was estabilished in 1925/1926 in Warsaw. The first experimental television broadcasts began in 1937, albeit at the time only mechanical television. Later, in 1939, just before WWII broke out, the first electronic TV broadcasts began (still experimental, mind you). Then there's a long gap, because of WWII, but what's important is that after WWII, a communist government got installed in Poland. The first TV network in Poland, Telewizja Polska (TVP) started in 1952, transmitting stuff usual for a state TV station in a communist country. TVP started color TV broadcasts in March 1971, followed by regular color TV broadcasts in December 1971 (although, this is likely for TVP1, as TVP2 likely had color later on, and many of the local Polish TV stations, like Telewizja Katowice or Telewizja Szczecin only beginning to transmit in color in the late 1970s or even the 1980s) The thing is, basically no footage survived of the first color broadcasts in Poland, because TV recordings (especially videotape recordings) were essentially non-existent in the 1970s. Granted, some excerpts of 1970s TVP did survive, but most of them were either in black & white or were made in the tail end of the 1970s. The oldest recordings I was able to find of color Polish TV was an ident of TVP1 from 1975, which was likely recorded on film, and two tape recordings: One tape recording was a recording of a lotto program from February 1978, and another being a home recording of Pope John Paul II's inauguration, also from 1978. Both recordings I was able to find are very damaged.

These "first color TV broadcasts" are only ceremonial anyway, because the mere fact that they were able to instantly and seamlessly switch from black & white to color means that they were already using color TV cameras and transmitters, and simply had the color subcarrier disabled until the official go-ahead was given to switch it on. Plus, whenever they showed a button being pressed or switch being thrown on-camera, it was entirely fake; the real switch was in the control room, and often they didn't get the timing perfect so you can see the picture become color a split-second before what's shown on camera. And in this case, the rope didn't even break after the tug-of-war and explosion -- it just fell to the ground. 😀

@steeviebops

10 ай бұрын

You can see that in the German switchover, the colour appears before the button was pressed. The Irish RTE analogue TV switchoff was the same, they clicked a mouse and the screens supposedly went blue, but the actual transmission didn't cut for about 5 seconds after that.

@shonenjumpmagneto

9 ай бұрын

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS CAME THROUGH except fxck that first part. Nonsense & robotic to disniss history & sentiment

@user-cvbnm

3 ай бұрын

@@steeviebopssimilar for chile in 1978, the timing was off

Great documentary, and you’re right - the story is somewhat lost. Our family was quite early in getting a colour set, in 1971 (I was five). Living in the south east, we could receive SR’s (Sveriges Radio) two channels, and as you’ve documented, they already had a complete colour production line. Colour TV was a politically tense issue in Norway. Some blame would go to a few MPs from KrF (Christian peoples party), but actually, the discussion was deeper than that. Some politicians simply looked to the US, and how media in general pushed commercials and products to kids. Well, we simply didn’t have any legislation to tackle a societal shift of that magnitude, so what the public picked up, was just the narrow minded ideological narratives. There is a technical (economy) reason why so much footage is lost. From the start in 1960, most of NRKs own productions were live broadcasts. NRK had some 2” video players, but a recorder was immensely expensive. So was the tape, so it was frequently erased and re-used. Rules said NOT to edit the tape (cutting) for that reason… In the field, 16mm film was often used, it was cheaper to just scan the negatives (often in Gothenburg, Sweden I heard?). Video equipment was hardly luggable until the first NG-friendly shoulder cameras appeared. This led to two periods of live events not being recorded, first at the start of B/W, then for the first colour tests and live shows. For the latter, mostly OB programme wasn’t recorded due to rather small OB trucks, but live studio colour broadcasts were indeed recorded onto B/W machines. Reruns would indeed go out in B/W, although the live event was in colour. As our politicians let the dust settle by the mid 70’s, NRK indeed got top of the line equipment, soon becoming among the best producers for winter sports. As others mention, they did well at Montreux too. The live concept lived on into the 1990’s when I had some stints as a music producer “liaison” on about 40 shows. They are indeed in the digital archives today, not really helping my confidence 30 years on… 🙈 But THAT work opportunity was a blast, and I’m eternally grateful!

@toresbe

10 ай бұрын

I can assure you the film was scanned in Norway. You may be thinking of video recordings? Before NRK got their first two videotape machines in 1963, video was sent by microwave to Sweden or Denmark and recordings were made there. Film scanning to air was called telecine, and you needed telecines for any kind of inserts because you couldn't cut to videotape. When I was helping to evaluate video encoders for NRK, I did so in the room TKL1, "Telekino Lokal 1" - the old telecine room for Marienlyst studio 1. NRK's first, T-shaped telecine machine - which used a rotating mirror to switch between a cinema projector and a 35mm slide projector - is still on exhibit at Marienlyst, in the walkway between the TV, Radio and G buildings.

@musiqtee

10 ай бұрын

@@toresbe Huge thanks, I’m humbly corrected - with a smile on my face… Could I be confused by the live telecine (and more) conversion during the Apollo 11 landing in ‘69? I walked past TKL1 in the hallway several times. In awe… Again, thanks for sharing! 👍

@toresbe

10 ай бұрын

@@musiqtee That could easily be, yes!

In the clip where they actually do the switchover the man says: “And yea. We are going into colour for the new year” The women asks “are we doing that?” And then after the cut the man starts to repeat “We are in colour. We are in colour”. Now. I’m not Norwegian, but Swedish and the man’s dialect is quite thick, so I might have got some of it wrong. But I didn’t see anyone try to translate this in the comments so …

I see you've already gotten a lot of support and cheers from other Norwegians. And it's well deserved! Great job!

Rolf Wesenlund (the guy to the right in that clip you showed), says something like "first in Colors now on new years eve", the woman seems to say "is that me?". I think I remember this from my own childhood (we had a color tv, albeit just being a normal working family, not rich at all, both parents working, it was a rather odd gift for their daughter because of some accident), so we ended up with that TV and watched this moment together. I do believe you might have found the first official introduction to Colors in Norwegian TV history, but you could always go directly to the source and write a letter to NRK, they're very friendly and you'll most likely get an answer :)

@AdamMartyn

11 ай бұрын

You know what, I may do just that! Hopefully they'll still hold that key moment in 1975!

@rogerdarthwell5393

11 ай бұрын

@@AdamMartyn I am surprised that you missed this, but I have just discovered that Jon Skolmen has also occasionally appeared on the BBC throughout the years, in 1971 he was just for a week a presenter on Play School on BBC Two

How crazy that the only recording of their change to colour TV is a parody of what actually happened 😂 But I vibe with it, its certainly memorable! ❤️

Interesting to note; television in Norway was I think the only other European country than Britain who used to show Test Card F at times so too. I know Australia and Hong Kong also showed it of old too. Thank you!

Nice! Hope you do an episode about the switch to colour in Israel with its infamous "eraser" and "anti-eraser"

@youtubetoby

11 ай бұрын

Let me know if you'd like help with research, I know the story well

@kr0hng375

11 ай бұрын

We would like to see it!

My grandparents got their first TV in 1975. Before that very few people in their area had TV sets. My grandad and the neighbor both really wanted to watch some big sports event so they bought a TV together. They set it up in my grandparents' living room as they had most space. Back then there was only NRK, and they only broadcast in the evening. Every day the neighbor would show up when the broadcast started, watch every single program and leave again after it was finished. Where they lived housephones were not common in the 1970s either. It was not before the early 1980s that most people in the area got them. Electrical appliances like these could be very expensive back in the day. It was common to buy TVs and freezers on downpayment. For those who did not have the funds it was possible to rent a box at a freezer facility near the town center. I think my grandparents did this a while into the 1970s. When grandma needed to take something out of the freezer grandad had to drive her there. If he was at work she had to take the bus. Or walk to the nearest farm, ask them if she could borrow the phone, call grandad's work and leave a message for him, so he could stop at the freezer on his way home.

I could believe the rope pulling as an switch but not the scissors not working. Now I have seen that clip before but not connected it all.

What a tender, charming way to debunk a misunderstood moment. Beautifully done. I'd be a lucky duck if we're ever remembered with such fondness:)

I really like the documentaries, thanks for making them. :)

@AdamMartyn

11 ай бұрын

My pleasure!

My video was used at 2:03. Glad you used it for your documentary.

Fun fact: the first color broadcast in Portugal was also "by accident" in 1972, and it was a Eurovision Music Contest broadcast. (Only a few tens of televisions around Lisbon's Monsanto antenna were able to receive it in color.) The first "official" color broadcast was in 1975 (first free elections), which only few people were able to see as well, and these are usually remembered as the first color broadcasts as they were actually advertised as such. The regular color broadcasts started in 1982, after disputes between PAL and SECAM (which dovetailed with political disputes about socialism vs capitalism.)

This was a good documentary. No flaws as far as I can see, and I can confirm these comedians are beloved and missed by many in Norway.

I live in South Africa. Our television service officially started on 5 January 1976 on SAUK/SABC. Using PAL, it was colour right from the beginning. Test transmissions started in 1975. The delay in the introduction of television in SA was mostly due to conservative political elements. For many years after its introduction, TV in SA was heavily censored and primarily used by the apartheid government as a propaganda tool. The SABC/SAUK was the sole broadcaster until 1987 when MNET became available. An encrypted subscription service, MNET was forbidden from broadcasting news. Skirting this rule, MNET instead introduced a very popular investigative reporting program called Carte Blanche in the style of "60 Minutes".

@AdamMartyn

11 ай бұрын

Sounds like a fascinating story! Any footage available of TV's launch in South Africa?

@SO_DIGITAL

11 ай бұрын

If you need captions for Afrikaans bits, I can translate.

@youtubetoby

10 ай бұрын

@@SO_DIGITAL I happened to live in South Africa as a child for a couple of years during that time and I remember us getting the MNET decoder which saved us our weekly trips to the video rental shop. More striking to me was that American shows were dubbed into either Afrikaans on TV1/TV4 or local languages on TV2/TV3, and you'd have to tune your radio to a station called Radio 2000 in order to hear the original English soundtrack. Still remember watching Fat Albert on TV in Xhosa (I think) while listening to the English soundtrack on the radio.

@SO_DIGITAL

10 ай бұрын

Good times, good times.@@youtubetoby

@SO_DIGITAL

10 ай бұрын

@@youtubetobyOh and you could buy TVs here with a built-in FM tuner for the simulcast sound. We had a Telefunken with a built-in FM tuner. Tré cool.

I found your video recently due many pages quoting that was the moment when NRK activated the colour system. Very interesting investigation you did, and thanks to show us the truth.

in the US, the number of Color Tv users passed the number of black and white tv sales in 1972, and there was this one station in Pittsburgh that took until 1986 to switch to color because of a storm wrecking the old black and white tower the previous year, so they switched to color with a new transmitter.

Great documentary! Is the Sunday Catch-up still on?

I wouldn't beat yourself up about not being able to speak Norewgian; as far as I can see not even the Norwegians speak Norwegian.

I’m really sure the official moment nrk switched to colour is somewhere int their archives. I can recall seeing it on nrk not too long ago.

I experienced the first coloured TV pictures receivef When Germany opened colour TV in 1967 Swedish TV transmitted the German opening show Since 1964 we received Swedish TV via cable TV. We had the only colour TV in our part of the country and it was all big news at the time.

I like the documentaries, Please keep making them.

@AdamMartyn

11 ай бұрын

I'll do my best!

In videos that are about countries, it will always have an outro with the anthem of that said country. But not this one.

LoL even we behind the iron curtain got color tv earlier 😅

Why am I reminded of Monty Python?

Make an *AM Color TV Playlist!*

Ummmm... Yes, Finland already started colour TV, but I don't think there was any transmitters in North Finland which could have been viewed in Northern Norway. Inari and Enontekiö transmitters would probably be seen, but I'm not really sure they carried TV in the 1970s (early on at least)

@kyyla771

5 ай бұрын

From SRHS forum: Coverage map from May 1970 Yllästunturi transmitter did send on channel 11 with 60kW of oomph. 130 kilometers to Norwegian border. Note that the tower collapsed in late 1970. Inari (channel 10) and Kaunispää (channel 8) were on air also, but with only 600W and 500W of power, respectively.

Try to talk about abs-cbns history, 'the one channel that do not want to go down'

Hey Adam I have a question do you like the transformers franchise?. If so what’s your favourite movie, tv show, and character from the franchise?

never knew about this

Those two look like Mr. Jeremy Brown and Juan Servantes from Mind Your Language..... I wonder if there's any connection to that.

I just joined your KZread channel, I find it interesting thank you very much, did you do a video about how digital TV how it started around the world, and is there in the future a second generation of digital Tv, talking of digital TV, is digital TV still PAL or NTSC, PAL around Europe and Australia, I'm not sure so that means if it is digital,PAL and NTSC, doesn't exist anymore,since it is digital signal only, is that right. Thanks for the video the last one I saw about history colour TV how Australia started I found it very interesting keep up the good job you are doing thanks again😊😊

@jfwfreo

10 ай бұрын

Different countries have different digital TV standards. The US and Canada (and probably others) use the ATSC standard invented by the US. Australia, the UK and no doubt many others use the DVB-T standard. Then you have countries like Japan and China that do their own thing (Japan probably because they invented it first and China probably to make sure only Chinese companies can build TVs for China or something)

This is a very interesting documentary Adam well done! (BTW this is NOT in any way criticism, but I am surprised that you didn't do an unscripted video about the death of Michael Parkinson, I mean you did videos for Paul O'Grady and George Alagiah once they passed away, so skipping Parky is a bit weird for me, again not criticism but I was just curious)

@AdamMartyn

11 ай бұрын

I didn't really have a link to Michael as he was a bit after my time, but his passing is sad nonetheless!

@rogerdarthwell5393

11 ай бұрын

@@AdamMartyn In this case it's completely understandable!

Meanwhile here in the UK it took until February 1979 for the BBC to switch full time to colour.

@user-cvbnm

9 ай бұрын

I thought it took until 1976

Takk!

@AdamMartyn

10 ай бұрын

Thank you so much!!

Thanks, this was great. I miss Jon Skolmen and Trond Kirkvaag. A great youtube video, except the pronunciation (or butchering as they say:) KØRKVAHG (three big errors in one word).

Those two look like a Norwegian Morecambe & Wise.

Oh

I think Julie Ege is equally lovely in B & W and colour

I told my Fictosexual GF right when I saw that clip that it was a parody!

Can you please talk about Liberia getting color television

@AdamMartyn

11 ай бұрын

Is there much info on it? Any clips etc?

@bennorwood8433

11 ай бұрын

@@AdamMartyn that’s what I was kinda hoping to ask you

Caught me off guard!

oww this is really a rabbithole

Skolmen appears to be Sam Hyde's Norwegian grandfather.

fourth, long live the usa

What's Next? @AdamMartyn Denmark and Italy for Colour TV

Next: "Why former Eastern Bloc countries almost adopted SECAM?".

Why give us the history of colour tv when your headline is Norways colour TV. GET ON WITH IT FFS!