WTMJ-TV was one of the first television stations in the United States to purchase color equipment to transmit and produce programming in the format; in December 1953, it broadcast NBC's color telecast of "Amahl and the Night Visitors", when only two prototype color sets existed in Milwaukee. The first color television sets in the city were sold in March 1954; by July of that year, WTMJ became the third television station in the U.S. with live color capability, when it broadcast its first local color program that originated from its studios, "The Grenadiers". About 3,000 color sets existed in Milwaukee in February 1957.