Television's most enthusiastic and critical fan club today is the growing coterie of color-set owners.  They watch far more television than black-and-white set families.  They tend to invite people to their homes to watch with them - and they urge their friends to join the club.  Their missionary work is effective.  More people now buy color sets because of the influence of color-owning friends than for any other reason.  Two recent surveys give that picture of the unorganized People's Color Lobby.  And while PCL is out spreading the Word to black-and-white viewers, it's also turning its fire on broadcasters who haven't yet discovered that the sky is blue and grass is green.  It is demanding more color programs, and one of its weapons is an unspoken boycott of black-and-white programs while color shows are on the air.  The Lobby is winning.  Color sets are selling almost as fast as picture tubes can be made.  About two million families are now in the club, and the three-million mark will probably be reached late this year, five million by the end of 1965.  Broadcasters are beginning to pay attention to the Lobby.  Two million isn't a vast number, out of the total of 50 million television homes in the United States.  But it's an important four percent.  Color owners are television enthusiasts, and they have higher-than-average incomes - making them the kind of viewers that sponsors love.  These two million sets are not distributed in proportion to the total U.S. population.  There are several tight little "color clusters" - localities where the sales charts indicate that as many as nine percent of all television homes are color watchers.  In these areas, color sets are beginning to make a difference in program ratings.  In these color areas too, it's no coincidence that stations are offering the largest amount of color programming.  The top color cities are Cincinnati, Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Omaha, San Francisco and Los Angeles, in roughly that order.  These are places where the stations supplement network color fare with their own color originations.  NBC's color menu now lists almost 60 regularly scheduled programs weekly, including some 70 percent of its night-time bill-of-fare.  Being owned by color-set pioneer RCA, NBC tints as many programs as it can, absorbing most of the extra costs instead of billing its sponsors or stations.  ABC, now carrying five or six hours of color a week, lets its local outlets pay the telephone company the added color "line charge."  All but 44 of ABCs 134 primary affiliates have been carrying the network's color shows in glorious black-and-white, but ABC will increase its color programming next season.  It recently gave its affiliates a preview of five new color film series it hopes to add to its schedule.  CBS continues to follow a ruggedly independent attitude towards color, although its president, Dr. Frank Stanton, said nearly 15 years ago:  "Color is an enormous step forward in the enjoyment of television.  Unless you have actually seen color television - and I hope many of you will see it soon - it is hard to imagine just how exciting it is."  Unlike NBC's parent RCA, CBS doesn't make color sets, and doesn't feel it should help subsidize those who do.  It has been charging its sponsors extra for color, but this charge has been reduced to what it calls a "token payment."  The network telecast about eight color shows last year, has put on two so far this year.  Many of its affiliated stations broadcast their own color programs.  CBS concedes it has "received hundreds of letters from owners of color receivers (who) were sincerely thanking the network or station for the color programs ... and they hoped we would keep it up."  It is installing $1,5000,000 worth of color equipment in its New York production center, now under construction.  At the local level, some stations are now finding that color helps attract both viewers and sponsors.  Of some 565 commercial stations on the air, 137 can now originate some form of "local" color programs - generally film shows.  Of these, 50 have also installed the expensive equipment to originate live color shows (a color camera costs nearly three times as much as a black-and-white one).  Two independent stations with no network affiliation - Chicago's WGN-TV and New York's WOR-TV - say they'll be offering their viewers more color than NBC this spring - about 55 hours a week.  WLWT in Cincinnati claims to be the world's color champ, with a network-plus-local talent of 67 hours weekly.  So enthusiastic is the station about color that its owners have appropriated a million dollars to equip its sister station in Columbus (WLWC) for complete live and film color broadcasting.  Many CBS affiliates share the network's cautious approach.  Forty of them can originate color film, and 17 have live cameras.  The Storer Broadcasting Company, which owns major city stations in Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Toledo, Ohio, will have all five color-equipped by the end of this year.  Three of them are affiliated with CBS, two with ABC, none with the "color network."  Most local stations with live color cameras try to color everything that moves, even news and weather shows, and naturally, live commercials.  KSTP-TV in St. Paul, Minn., covers on-the-spot news in color, thanks to a rapid-developing system that permits color news film to be shown an hour after it's exposed.  Chicago's WGN-TV and Cincinnati's WLWT broadcast church services live in color.  A CBS affiliate, Boston's WHDH-TV, has sent color-film crews to Europe and Asia to make special documentaries for local audiences.  Its daily show, Dateline Boston, has panned the color cameras on local events ranging from a piano concert to a Boston University variety show.  Feature film remains the most important source of non-network color and there's no shortage of it.  As of last fall, 10,427 feature films were available to TV, of which 1205 were in color.  Of American movies made since 1950 and now being released to TV, nearly 50 percent are in color.  Except for cartoons (almost all of the new ones are shot in color) the outlook isn't so good for other non-network film shows.  Only three major half-hour syndicated dramatic series are now available to stations in color: Ripcord, The Everglades and The Lawbreakers.  Sports offer the most fertile field for large additional amounts of color.  NBC has colorcast postseason football games, the World Series and occasional basketball games, but with the exception of golf shows on ABC and NBC, there have been few regular sports shows in color.  This situation will change by fall.  The biggest boon to the Color Lobby was NBC's capture of the 1964 and 1965 season rights to the NCAA football games.  It plans to colorize most of them.  It is already scrounging color cameras and crews from NBC affiliates, outside production services, and even from RCA's color TV exhibit at the World's Fair (which closes for the winter in October), to supplement its own color equipment next fall.  NBC also hopes to put at least part of its coverage of next October's Olympic Games from Tokyo in color.  New York's independent WOR-TV has just bought six live color cameras and is installing four of them in brand-new Shea Stadium, so that fans may watch their beloved Mets lose home games in living color.  WPIX, which carries Yankee games, decided color wasn't so necessary to a winning team, and won't start until the 1965 season.  Home baseball games in Chicago and Cincinnati are also broadcast in color, and Cincinnati's WLWT is one of the few stations to colorcast basketball.  For this purpose it worked with General Electric on development of a color-camera tube which doesn't require extra-bright lighting.  Even stations without their own color equipment can have sports and other special events in rainbow hues, thanks to Sports Network Inc., which owns two completely equipped color TV trucks and services stations and networks with live pickups.  Next New Year's Day may mark something of a color milestone for NBC, which plans to present 12 hours of continuous color, starting with the Tournament of Roses Parade at about 11 A.M. (ET), then the Sugar Bowl game at 2 P.M., followed by the Rose Bowl at 8.  Until now, RCA and NBC have been the prime motive forces behind the expansion of color programming.  Now the People's Color Lobby has taken over.  This club is influential, loud and growing fast.  Networks and stations can't - and won't - ignore it.  In color television, for the first time, the public is dropping into the driver's seat.  Johnny Cason's comment in 1963 illustrates how few people had color TV's at the time.  Listen

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