Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

Section of RADIO DAILY, Wednesday, October 5. 1949 — TELEVISION DAILY is fully protected by register and copyright CBS COLOR READY NOW-STANTON TELE TOPICS THERE IS ABSOLUTELY no entertain• ment to be derived from watching "Auction-Aire," the Libby, McNeill & Libby stanza that bowed on ABC last week. The program was definitely a bore from start to finish. Format, if such it can be called, is as follows: Merchandise prizes are auctioned off for labels from Libby products, with those in the studio audience shouting their bids while home viewers are allowed to bid via phone. For the home audience there is the added opportunity of a film quiz, which posed such questions as, "What are the names of the Marx Brothers?" The top bidders also get a chance at the mystery chant. This is a recorded auctioneer's chant which mentions several numbers. Contestant must offer the exact sum of the numbers to win the prize — a new car. There were one or two other gimmicks, all in the same vein. . . . Auctioneer Jack Gregson was frantically incoherent throughout, and after each bit could be seen waving his hand to ask the audience for applause. Others on the show are assistant Rebel Randall and announcer Glenn Riggs. Eddie Nugent directs, J. Walter Thompson is the agency. Program is a MastersonReddyNelson package. . . . Show was first announced Sept. 6, at which time consumers first were notified to save Libby labels. Yet when the stanza went on the air Sept. 30, some articles drew between 200 and 300 labels, and one, a gas range, was knocked down for 1,100. How was it possible for anyone to accumulate so many labels in 24 days? • AT THE PRESS PREVIEW of the Ed Wynn show yesterday, CBS program chief Charlie Underbill said the web is planning several additional coast originations following favorable response to the quality of the recording on the Wynn show. He said also that the net might make some original films in Hollywood, utilizing three cameras simultaneously as in a live pickup. . . . Another H'wood entry is the Hank McCune film series which will bow on WNBT Sunday. Directed by Harold Schuster, program will feature Arthur Q. Bryan, Sara Berner, Larry Keating, Frank Nelson and Tammy Kiper. . . . Ted Granik's "American Forum Of The Air" will become an NBC simulcast Oct. 30 in the 4:30-5 p.m. spot on Sundays. # "AUTHOR MEETS THE CRITICS" is ** setting up two awards for the best American books, one fiction and the other non-fiction, published since the first of the year. About 200 critics and reviewers will comprise the judgin™ panel, with winners to be announced on the show Dec. 5, over ABC. . . . First annual tobacco bowl festival in Richmond will be filmed by MPO Productions under direction of Bernard Dudley. Net Chief Urges Immediate Adoption Of Best System To "Bring About Stability In The Industry"; Asks Freeze Be Lifted Within Next Few Months (Continued FCC to lift the freeze "within the next few months, so that TV broadcasting, in color and/or black and white, can move ahead. "I do not think it wise," he continued, "to extend the freeze merely for the purpose of squeezing information on color systems from reluctant participants, or to permit unnecessarily extensive field tests." Stanton said that an affirmative decision on color "will bring about stability in the industry," and asked that the FCC approve the system that best satisfies the tests of "performance, cost, time and compatibility." Reiterating the web's position that "We will support any color television system which best suits the problem, no matter by whom invented, no matter by whom suggested." Stanton said that in view of the RCA proposal that lower cost color receivers and converters give only two-color reproduction, the Commission would have to decide whether "two-color reproduction for great masses of the public, and three-color reproduction only for those who can afford expensive receivers, qualifies at all as a color television system and can be adopted in the public interest." He added, "It would be completely inconsistent with the public interest to adopt a double standard — one for the rich and one for everybody else." Stanton was the target for a number of questions concerning CBS color equipment, which he asked be directed today to Dr. Peter Goldmark, CBS technical expert. Asked about how soon home equipment for from Page 1) CBS could be ready, he said Goldmark could answer but that his own emphasis has been upon the Teadiness of studio equipment for the CBS color system. Stanton pointed out that "no other single organization has devoted the time, human resources or money to the development of color" that Columbia has, and that behind the CBS color system are more than 10,000 hours of color camera operation and over $3,500,000 expended. He revealed that in recent months CBS has been exploring the possibility of expanding its color television interests, joining with electronic manufacturing and industrial organizations "to pursue the development of color television on a broader front than Columbia feels it is equipped to do alone." He said CBS also plans to continue its policy of licensing all responsible manufacturers under CBS patents upon payment of reasonable royalty fees. The CBS president warned against losing sight, in a "maze of conflicting technical data," of the two basic "policy issues" confronting the Commission. He posed those issues as: "Should there be color television promptly?" "Which system, if any, should be adopted?" The question of prompt service, he said, "answers itself. The public wants color service as soon as possible and certainly has a right to it if it can be made available." The cost of transition to color, for public, broadcaster, and manufacturer, (Continued on Page 8) Press-Time Paragraphs \ VIS Asks New Channels For Auxiliary §tas. Washington — Commenting on the proposed new FCC rules governing auxiliary TV stations, the NAB uroed that the Commission provide extra pickup channels for stations in larger cities by m-aking available the three frequencies in the 7,000 rnc. band now assigned solely to common carriers. NAB urged also exemption of pickup stations from requirement of prior authorization for remote operation and elimination of limitation on use of such stations to instances "where wire service is not practicable." Mir Plans Film Rate Structure National Television Film Council has begun a survey of TV market areas as preliminary to establishing a rate structure for use of films by stations. Station time charges probably will he used as the basis for the recommendations. Serving on a committee to recommend rental standardization are W. W. Black, Official Television; Paul White, International Trans-Video; Connie Lazar, Film Equities, and William Holland, Hyperion Films. Chris Witting To Head DuM Web Operations Chris J. Witting has been appointed executive assistant to Mortimer W. Loewi, director of the DuMont web, and will be in active charge of the entire organization, Loewi announced yesterday. Witting joined DuMont in June, 1947, and since May has served as assistant director in charge of administration and operations. Since 1941 Witting was comptroller and an officer of USO-Camp Shows Hospital Camp Shows. He left USO temporarily in 1943 for a year with the Maritime Service and later set up the business organization that supervised USO shows in England and on the Continent. A native of Cranford, N. J., Witting attended New York and Columbia Universities and Fordham Law School. WITTING and Veterans Admiral Corp. Claims TV Production Record Chicago — First place in television production has been claimed for the Admiral Corp. by R. A. Graver, vice-president in charge of television and radio. "While it is true," he said, "that the entire television industry has advanced at a rate rarely equalled in the history of American enterprise. Admiral's own growth has far outpaced that of the industry as a whole. For the first six months of 1949 total sales of television manufacturers . . . were 206 per cent greater than for the same period in 1948. Admiral's gain, however, was 450 per cent, more than double that of the entire reporting industry.'' 'Polgar' To Expand Trimount Clothing Co., sponsors of the CBS-TV hypnotism series, "The Amazing Polgar," aired Friday, 7:45-7:55 p.m., has asked the network to find a 30-minute slot for an expanded version of the program, CBS said Friday. Wm. H. Weintraub is the Trimount agency.