context: It was not until the 1965–66 season that color became the dominant format for the three broadcast television networks. ABC, meanwhile, remained in third place and still needed money to grow itself into a major competitor. However, ABC's issues with its transition to color became secondary compared to the network's financial problems; in 1964, the network found itself, as Goldenson later wrote in the 1991 book "Beating the Odds: The Untold Story Behind the Rise of ABC", "in the middle of a war [where] the battlefield was Wall Street". Many companies sought to take over ABC, including Norton Simon, General Electric, International Telephone and Telegraph and Litton Industries.
question: ABC didn't suddenly one day go from black and white, they had to what?