Year book of motion pictures (1951)

FACTS ABOUT PHONEVISION By COMM. E. F. McDONALD, JR. President, Zenith Radio Corp. N JANUARY ] of this year, Phonevision started its hiscor\ -making experiment in Chicao:o. For 90 days, 300 specially selected families who were supplied by Zenith with Phonevision-equipped TV receixers, were given an opportunity to view 90 Hollywood feature films in their own homes. These were televised on a three-a-day basis from our downtown transmitter. The charge was $1 per picture for each movie that a Phonevision elected to see. McDonald During tlie initial three weeks of the test, we deliberately confined our coding to the \ ideo signal, but left the sound track clear. Any non-participant tuned to Cliannel 2 saw a jittered picture moving rapidly across the face of the T\' tube to the accompaniment of clear, distinct sound. Surprisingly enough, we found that a sizeable group of Chicagoans were taking a lively interest in Phonevision, even in this form. Thousands tuned in Channel 2 to watch our jittered pictures and listen to the fast-paced dialogue. In fact, this audience found Hollywood's regular feature films supplied for the test such good tele\ision fare— e\en with the jitlers— that we were compelled to "scramble" ihe sound track, too, in order to prevent their crawling under the tent. After 270 broadcasts, the Phonevision demonstration was complete— except for assembling and interpreting test results. Today— as I write this— a final report on ihe Phonevision experiment is not yet available. Since decisions of such far-reaching importance to television and the entertainment world arc in\()l\ed, we are purposely going to unprecedented lengths to guarantee the \alidity of a final interpretation even though it delays the release of test results. So— at a cost of approximately $65,000 to Zeniththe National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago is conducting a most exhausti\e survey among the "300" as well as other families in the Chicago area to secure an accurate calibration of our measuring instrument. When such research is complete, all of us can use the 300 family yardstick as an accurate measure of what Phonevision means. In the meantime, a preliminary look at the results at hand indicates to me that our Phonevision test was successful far beyond our expectations. .Although the final interpretation is yet to come, our 300 test families saw movies for a fee in their homes at such a phenomenal and su--tained rate that certain general conclusions seem self-evident. First. Phonevision is a practical and highly economical method of distributing qualitv entertainment to a paying audience; Second, the Phone\ision audience purcliased entertainment in the home at a rate far greater than the public purchases equivalent entertainment outside the home; Third. Phone\ision presents a method of reaching a large new audience for motion ])ictures — a great majoritv of our "customers" liad not previously seen in theaters the pictures that they purchased. Fourth. Phonevision potentially adds countless millions of dollars to the value of motion pictures which ha\e completed their theater runs many years ago and are now reposing in Hollvwood vaults. These statistical highlights justifv the above conclusions. Our total Phone\ision box office for the 90-day test was Sfi7.")0.00, an average of .S22.,')0 per fatnily for the three month period, or SI. 73 per week. Phonevision brought these families very inexpensive entertainment. Nevertheless, the attendance rate is more than three times the .47 times per week I have been given as an average figure of American attendance in the theaters. During the first four weeks of the test, with novelty a high but declining factor, the average familv saw 2.1 mov ies per week by PhoneV ision. During February, whitii turned out to be the poorest month, average weekly patronage per family was 1.5, with one low week when the average family saw only 1.4 movies. March showed substantial improvement over February, with an overall average attendance of 1.6 times per week per family. The month finished "going away" by chalking up a total attendance for the last six 766