In this photo taken on Sept. 15, 2008, a roll of Kodachrome 64 is seen in Tonawanda, N.Y. Kodak announced Monday that it is retiring its most senior film because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Sorry, Paul Simon, Kodak is taking your Kodachrome away.
The Eastman Kodak Co. announced Monday it’s retiring its most senior film because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.
The world’s first commercially successful color film, immortalized in song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak’s portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 percent of the company’s total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it.
Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it convinced Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.
“Kodachrome is particularly difficult (to retire) because it really has become kind of an icon,” Hellyar said.
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