Coding schemes suitable for progressive transmission of still pictures in NTSC composite format are studied. Transform coding methods based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the WalshHadamard transform (WHT) are used. The transform coefficients are segmented into groups having similar properties. Variable blocklength to variable length codes are used to encode the quantized coefficients for each of the groups. Progressive transmission is achieved by sending the coefficients belonging to particular groups in successive passes over the image. Results are presented for coding the NTSC signal sampled at four times the color subcarrier frequency with an orthogonal structure, and at twice the subcarrier frequency with a hexagonal structure.