Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

The National Daily Newspaper of Commercial Radio and Television VOL. 49. NO. 14 NEW YORK. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1949 TEN CENTS INT'L TELE-FILM NETWORK PROPOSED Aimed At Promoting Good-will, Easing Shortage Of Dollars Abroad, And Offering Low -Priced Shows BMB Sets Dec. Date For Study Number 2 The Broadcast Measurement Bureau's Study No. 2 is nearing completion and, it is hoped, will be ready for release on Dec. 1, Ken Baker, acting BMB president, said yesterday. Baker conceded that the coverage figures it contains are based on samplings taken last March and will therefore be somewhat dated upon release. The time lag in the present study method has provoked considerable criticism from subscribers, he said. But, he went on, the figures will nonetheless be considerably more valuable than those in the 1946 study, for which the BMB still gets requests. Columbia Records Plans Wide Promotion For Fall Columbia Records will launch one of the biggest promotion campaigns in its history this fall, Paul E. Southard, vice-president in charge of merchandising, said yesterday. Plans include advertising spreads in 19 national magazines, window displays, pennant streamers, posters, and direct mail. Appropriate tieins have been arranged for the Christmas shopping season. 45 RPMs Here To Stay, RCA Says, Citing Sales Rumors that RCA Victor will abandon its 45 rpm record system were emphatically denied yesterday by Frank M. Folsom, president of RCA. Attributing such rumors to those with "an axe to grind," Folsom declared: "By no means will the '45' (Continued on Page 2) Dixieland Disker New Orleans — Oscar "Papa" Celestin. 64-year-old musician whose career dates back to the neolithic Dixieland period, has been signed for a weekly diskjockey show on WDSU, Saturday. 12-1 p.m. For many years Papa and his all-Negro combo held forth on Basin Street, famous in song and story as an incubator of the blues. Inside Information Was His Specialty Parchman. Miss. — Listeners to a certain local station are hereby notified of a suspension of service, until further notice. The station's one-man staff. William F. Moody, will be too preoccupied for the next few years to devote any time to broadcasting. He's serving a 50-year-sentence in Mississippi State Prison for armed robbery. To while away the time. Moody built three transmitters, and for the last four years has been broadcasting information intended for his wife, who has been working for a pardon. Five FCC engineers, who did not find it entertaining, spent three weeks scouring the state with mobile units and finally traced the broadcasts to their source. Said Moody: "That's Freedom of Speech for you!" Pool Arrangements Ready For U. N. Day The official laying of the cornerstone of the new UN building on New York's East Side, Oct. 24, will be televised by almost all stations connected by cable with New York under a pool arrangement to be handled by CBS and will be broadcast via pooled facilities of the UN by the four major networks and unaffiliated stations throughout the country. CBS-TV will have three cameras on hand to cover the hour-long proceedings, 12-1 p.m., EST. Douglas | (Continued on Page 2) Chicago — Commercial radio stations throughout the country will indirectly be contributing to a nationwide musical appreciation program through funds to be allocated by the American Federation of Musicians from the union's transcription and recording royalty fund, it was revealed at the School Broadcast Conference which wound up its three-day session at the Sherman Hotel here last night. If the Chicago Heavy Registration For NAB Meeting Over 100 broadcasters have registered for the Third district NAB meeting which will be held at the Skytop Lodge, Skytop, Pa., on next Wednesday and Thursday, George D. Coleman, general manager of WGB1, Scranton, Pa., district chairman, announced yesterday. NAB speakers who will participate in the meeting will be Justin Miller, president; Kenneth Baker, (Continued on Page 6) Clipp Sees TV Income Topping AM Gross By '51 Philadelphia — Roger W. Clipp, general manager of the Philadelphia Inquirer stations, WFIL and WFTLTV, has predicted that the video station's gross income will exceed that of the AM station "within the next year or 18 months." "By that time," he said, "television (Continued on Page 4) Ask Action Against Cuba And Mexico Re NARBA Washington Bureau of RADIO DAILY Washington — President Truman and the State Department have been asked, in a resolution pi-opounded at a meeting of District 4, NAB, to (Continued on Page 2) plan, which is already going into effect, becomes national, several hundred thousand dollars and perhaps even as high as a million dollars may be allocated from the union's royalty fund for educational purposes. In Chicago, alone, fifty thousand dollars is being allocated to the public school system to foster love for music among children. Seventy-five (Continued on Page 3) An international television film network that would (1) help promote good will and understanding among the various nations in the Western Hemisphere and Europe, (2) help ease the severe dollar shortage in Marshall Plan countries, and (3) provide TV stations with quality film programming at reasonable cost was envisioned yesterday at a luncheon meeting of the Radio Executives Club of New York at the Hotel Roosevelt. Participants in the discussion, which was titled, "Television's Fifth Network," were Norman Oorwin, (Continued on Page 6) RCA Asks FCC Defer Tests Of Color-Tele Washington Bureau of RADIO DAILY Washington — RCA yesterday asked the FCC to delay for two months the scheduled comparative demonstration of competing color TV systems and DuMont black-andwhite television. Need for additional field testing, possibility that the awaited single tube for direct view black-and-white and color might be (Continued on Page 7) Merger Of Technicians Unions Now In Prospect The recently-authorized affiliation committee of NABET tentatively has scheduled a meeting on Nov. 7 with a similar committee of the IBEW, one of three unions which have in(Continued on Page 2) Merger? Washington — Top officials of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Frequency Modulation Assn. met at dinner here last night and discussed the matter of absorption of FMA into the NAB. The conference was held at the Statler Hotel, here, and still was in progress at press time. Announcement of decision Is expected some time today. Chicago Music-Appreciation Being Underwritten By AFM