Kodak to Retire its Kodachrome Color Film ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Kodak is retiring its Kodachrome color film this year, ending a 74 year run as a photographic icon.

Kodak says its digital business now drives 70 percent of its revenues, while sales of Kodachrome have declined dramatically in recent years, to under one percent of total sales of still-picture films.

Financial analyst George Conboy with Brighton Securities says one of the things that doomed Kodachrome is its complicated and environmentally challenging developing process. He says when Kodak stopped processing Kodachrome a few years ago, it was the writing on the wall that it would discontinue the film.

Conboy says Kodak is suggesting its new Ektachrome technologies as replacements for Kodachrome.

The company says it has brought seven new professonal still films and new motion picture films to market the last few years.

Kodak says some of the last pictures shot on rolls of Kodachrome film will be donated to the George Eastman House. © Copyright 2009, WXXI