Quick: what happened in Japan on Sept. 10, 1960? A few people might recall that was the day Japan commenced color TV broadcasting. At the startup, color programs were few in number, but consumers still had four years and one month to buy a color set before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
It was not until 1973 — 13 years after the advent of color broadcasts — that the number of color sets in Japanese homes surpassed black and white.
This coming July 24, several million TV sets with cathode-ray tubes will display white noise, as Japan pulls the plug on analog broadcasting. The media seems determined to dwell on the negative aspects of chi-deji, as digital terrestrial TV broadcasting is called for short.