Cheaper Color TV

Color television sales are going up and prices are going down.

Tabulating their midyear reports last week, the industry's leaders predicted that they would sell more than 750,000 color sets this year--nearly double 1962 sales. To keep up with demand, Admiral will forgo the usual two-week summer shutdown of its color TV assembly line at Harvard, Ill. RCA, which went it alone during the colorless years, and now sells 55% of all the color TV sets and almost all of the color tubes used by other manufacturers, is spending $11.6 million to expand its plant at Lancaster, Pa. Challenging RCA with new competition, Motorola last week introduced a compact color tube that creates a 23-in.-long rectangular picture but is 5 1/2 in. shallower than the RCA tube. Motorola sets with the new tube will begin at $650.

But list prices mean little in discount houses, and even retail outlets have begun to crack color TV's long-held "$400 barrier." Sears, Roebuck recently reduced its 21-in. Silvertone sets from $449 to $388 and is selling them for as low as $365 in the hotly competitive Buffalo area. So far this year, Admiral has cut some prices by $95 (to a low of $399.95) and trimmed its charge for a year's service on color sets from $100 to $69.95, while quality-conscious Zenith has pared its lowest prices by $50 (to $499.95).

Color still costs 2 1/2 to three times as much as black and white. Even though prices of color sets drop as color volume rises, industry experts expect that this ratio will be maintained.

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