Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

Section of RADIO DAILY. Wednesday. October 26. 1949 — TELEVISION DAILY is fully protected by register and copyright SMITH VS. JONES AT TV HEARING TELE TOPICS A SHOW that should excite widespread ** interest and inspire a flock of imitations because it makes possible high quality entertainment at exceptionally low cost is "What Happens Now?", seen locally on WOR-TV. The idea of a group of actors improvising brief skits from a given situation or line of dialogue is not new to show business, but in video it is especially valuable since it eliminates all need for costly rehearsal. But it is doubtful if anyone can bring it off as well as The Improvisers, six young thespians who work so well together that they seem, at times, to anticipate each other's lines and actions. The skits they built were, at times, weak in development and in the punchline department, but the dialogue was very good — witty and sophisticated and, occasionally superior to that heard on many script shows. Show this week was not well paced, needing more variety in the type of material given the actors. . . . The Improvisers are Larry Blyden, Cecily Burke, Joyce Gordon, Ross Martin, Charles Mendick and Jean Pugsley. Nelson Olmsted is emcee. • £"*BS HAS DECIDED that Abe Burrow's talents are best suited to TV and is dropping his "Breakfast With Burrows" AM stanza in favor of a weekly half-hour video stint. Burrows will write and produce the new show, which will start early in December. AM'er folds after the Oct. 28 airer. . . . George Givot has checked out as permanent emcee of Versatile Varieties on NBC and guest hosts will appear each week, beginning Friday. Harold Barry will be the first. . . "Red Feather USA," half-hour film made for the Community Chest campaign by the four webs, will be aired by ABC and DuMont tonite, by NBC on Thursday and by CBS Saturday. Featured in the film are The Goldbergs, Stop The Music, Milton Berle and June Havoc, Janet Blair and the Blackburn twins. David Rich, of CBS, coordinated the program and Ira Marion, of ABC, scripted. Robert Saudek, ABC; John Hundley, CBS; Edward Carroll, DuM, and Sterling Fisher, NBC, supervised the project for the nets. • IXATHI NORRIS' DuMont daytimer, "Your Television Shopper," marks its first anniversary next Tuesday. On Monday it will receive a birthday present in the form of a contract from Saks-34th bankrolling the first half-hour of the show across the board. Program is completely sold out, other participants including Aborn coffee, Goodman, Gravy Master, A&P, Habitant soup, Plasta starch, McKesson & Robbins and Revere Copper & Brass. . . . Stokey & Ebert have scheduled a half-hour film version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" for immediate shooting at Jerry Fairbanks Studios, using Fairbanks' recently developed three-camera filming technique. Commissioner Infers Philco Veepee Favors RCA, But Is Accused, In Turn, Of 'Pitching' For CBS; Mcintosh Describes Color-Video System Of C.T.I. (Continued from Page 1 vanced. The five principles offered are as follows: (1) The standards must be such as to permit the public individually, and at their personal option, to be able to have either black and white or color reception with no loss of program service either way. (2) Both color and black and white must be transmitted on a single set of standards so that each type of signal can be received interchangeably on either a black-and-white or color receiver. (3) The standards must provide a quality of service at least as good as that now provided by the present commercial standards. (4) The continuity of existing service to receivers in the hands of the public must be maintained. Any proposal of non-compatible standards must include a detailed program to accomplish this purpose. (5) In arriving at these standards there shall be no experimenting at the expense of the public, and the Commission will require assurance for the public that the system has been thoroughly proven before authorization of commercial service. Although insisting he was not seeking to rule out the CBS system, Smith said he felt it incumbent upon anyone offering a system less than completely compatible with present standards for black and white to advance "a transition plan." Such a plan, he said, must accomplish the following objectives: (A) It must maintain, and even expand, current black and white service on present standards to avoid hardship to the public and serious setback and unemployment in the industry. (B) It must provide a real incentive to the public to purchase new receivers incorporating both the present standards and the new non-compatible standards by offering them sufficient value to make that extra expense justifiable and worthwhile to the individual purchaser. (C) After a substantial audience has been built up with receivers incorporating both standards it must provide a procedure for gradually reducing service on the old standards again at no inconvenience or harm to the public. Smith's testimony followed an appearance by Frank H. Mcintosh, consulting engineer representing Color Television, Inc. Mcintosh gave a detailed analysis of the CBS and RCA systems. The CBS system, he said, would degrade TV pictures and at the same time force conversion expense up to $150,000,000 on the owners of the 3,000,000 sets which will be out by the end of the year. In addition, he said the CBS system uses far more bandwidth than the CTI system. Were the CTI system adopted, he said, it might be possible to provide five additional channels without loss of quality — but he stressed that neither he nor CTI recommends reduction in channel width. Mcintosh also attacked the CBS proposal for a double standard for black and white and color TV on the ground that it would mean two sets of scanning circuits in receivers to be made. He said further that it would complicate the sending process because network operation would either have to be rigid or studio equipment would have to be in duplicate, and he added: "If, on the other hand ... all stations were to be required from now on to employ the CBS proposed standards, whether they were broadcasting in monochrome or in color, the Commission would find itself in the position for forcing monochrome as well as color stations to go to the expense of converting their stations for an inherently degraded picture." Monochrome TV Going Ahead Despite Color Talk Raibourn Expansion of TV "is not being slowed up by talk of color," Paul Raibourn, vice-president of Paramount Pictures, said last night at the first American Television Society meeting held during the new season. "For a time," Raibourn said, "the whole country was fooled by words. But now we know. Black and White television very definitely is not frozen. Existing licenses cover 82 per cent of the effective buying income of the country, and how can anything be frozen in its tracks if it covers 82 per cent of the economic potential of the United States and has only covered seven per cent of this potential?" Pointing out a $15 billion decline in gross national product, Raibourn said "more advertising is needed to stimulate consumer demand if the high level of prosperity in the immediate past is to be maintained." TV, he added, is "the only instrument in a long time" with the power to expand distribution as necessary. "The one thing we almost certainly can count on if the industry is left alone to develop naturally," he concluded, "is a circulation of 40,000,000 television receivers in this country by 1956." RCA Accused By CBS But Denies TV 'Delay' Washington Bureau, RADIO DAILY Washington — CBS threw the book at RCA yesterday as it asked the FCC to deny the RCA request for a two-month delay in the camparative color TV demonstration slated for next month. The delay petition was based solely upon considerations of personal advantage for RCA, said CBS, as it asked that, unless the Commission plans to turn down the RCA request, it hold oral argument on the matter. The FCC will hold an executive session tomorrow morning to decide what to do. RCA did not present its true reasons for desiring delay, said CBS. Inspiring the request, CBS said, may be any one of several reasons: (A) The hope that in two months RCA technicians can devise some improvements in the present RCA system, or a new system, "which will rescue RCA from its present embarrassed position; (B) Realization that a comparative demonstration will make the RCA system look even worse than demonstrations thus far, with the desire to postpone the day as long as possible; (C) That "RCA, as the parent of NBC, has an interest in extending the freeze in view of the fact that NBC may enjoy certain competitive advantages as long as the freeze exists, in single station markets"; or (D) That RCA wants to delay the day its patent supremacy in TV is whittled away. RCA, replying to the CBS opposition to the RCA request for a postponement of the comparative demonstrations of color television planned by the FCC, last night filed with FCC the following statement: "The RCA petition sets forth the engineering reasons why the postponement of the comparative demonstrations is necessary to a fair and complete comparative demonstration as between the color television systems proposed in these (FCC) proceedings. The CBS opposition does not challenge these reasons. "The argument set forth in the CBS opposition consists of no more than efforts on the part of CBS to obtain a premature decision based upon inadequate facts in favor of its system. It completely ignores the fact that the public interest can be served only by a sound decision and not necessarily by a quick decision. "CBS' fabrication (in paragraph 1 of its opposition! of the bases for KC.Vs petition for a 60-day postponement is as presumptuous as it is false. "The public interest definitely requires that the short extension requested by RCA be granted in order to enable the Commission to make a determination baaed upon adequate facts as to what color television standards should be adopted."