[davidw]

This is the code that is shown there (based on version 2.0)

<div align="center" style="padding:2px; z-index: -1; background-color:#{$vboptions[tickbgcol]}; layer-background-color:#{$vboptions[tickbgcol]}";><marquee width="{$vboptions[tickwidth]}%" height="{$vboptions[tickheight]}" behavior=scroll scrollamount="{$vboptions[tickspeed]}" onmouseover="this.stop()" onmouseout="this.start()"><font color="#{$vboptions[tickcolor]}">$tickpre</font> $ticker_titles</marquee></div>

There are three things that can be done.
1) Update to 2.0 and have control over the background color
2) Edit your template and change it from a <div> tag to <table><tr><td> and put in what you want class="tcat" technically should work for you there - but I've not tested it.
3) Edit your current template and change the background there.