Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

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4 TV's 'Danger Point': It’s okay for grade school children to spend 20 hours per week in front of home TV sets — but parents should watch out if kiddies begin stretching it to 21-26 hours, director Dr. Paul Witty of Northwestern U’s Psycho-Educational Clinic warned this week. Reporting on 9-year survey of 2000 Chicago children and their parents & teachers, Dr. Witty filed these findings with educational section, American Assn, for the Advancement of Science, at annual convention in Washington: (1) Average youngster watches TV 20 hours per week (favorite show, ABC-TV’s Zorro) and suffers no loss of sleep as result. Chances are his health, school work, reading, hobbies, general behavior won’t be affected — and he probably reads more under TV stimulus. (2) But “excessive” TV viewing, with “danger point” somewhere between 21 & 26 hours, can produce “behavior & adjustment problems associated with TV, such as fatigue, impoverishment of play, disinterest in school, increased nervousness, reduction in reading, eyestrain & mealtime disturbance.” (3) Children spend as much time as TV-watchers as they did when medium was new, novelty showing few signs of wearing off. They prefer westerns, crime & violence — and it’s “most distressing [that they may] gradually come to accept violence, hate & destruction as almost normal ways of life.” (4) Some youngsters find it hard to imagine world without TV. One 10-year-old boy started letter wdth: “In prehistoric times, before people had TV . . .” In another paper read to AAAS session. Prof. Daniel Tanner of San Francisco State College said TV “shows tremendous promise as a medium of supplementing & enriching existing classroom practices.” But he argued that TV is no substitute for classroom teachers, that “students tend to become increasingly disenchanted with classroom TV [and its] lack of direct contact with the instructor.” The Defiant Miss Torre: TV-radio columnist Marie Torre of N. Y. Herald Tribune refused this week to purge herself of contempt of U. S. District Court — and escape 10-day jail sentence — in $1,393,333 libel-breach-of contract suit by singer Judy Garland against CBS (Vol. 14:52). She was promptly ordered by Federal Judge Sylvester J. Ryan to surrender in court Jan. 5 to start serving her term, imposed when she defied his instructions to identify the CBS v.p. she quoted in derogatory remarks about Miss Garland. Judge turned down plea by her counsel Mathias Correa that she be given 2 weeks to arrange her affairs (she’s mother of 2) before going to jail. Judge Ryan warned that she’d be liable to further contempt action if she persists in her defiance after completing sentence, said she was “setting a bad example to your fellow citizens for your refusal to comply with reasonable obedience to a court which has passed upon this matter.” Judge also admonished Miss Torre to “seriously consider your position and meditate and change your mind and obey the mandates of the court.” How to Teach on TV is explained by experts in College Teaching by Television published by editorial dept, of American Council on Education, 1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D. C. (234pp., $4). Book includes transcripts of sessions of ETV conference co-sponsored in 1957 at University Park, Pa. by Council and Pa. State U — plus supplementary papers and bibliography for TV teachers. ‘A Star of First Magnitude’: TV’s newest star has a show with negligible audience by network standards, no commercial sponsorship, no income to its network — yet he has such “strange and compelling powers before a camera” that some Catholic orders have revised their schedule of masses to catch it, San Quentin Penitentiary has some inmates watching it regularly, kines are in demand in several foreign countries. Thus NBC chairman Robert Samoff describes “Harvey” — Dr. Harvey White, U of California’s physics professor, who.se 6:30-7 a.m. Continental Classroom each weekday, carried on 149 stations, with 250 colleges offering full academic credit, now has 5000 high school teachers and trainees registered while 27,000 others have mailed in 50<? each for a syllabus. Total daily audience is reckoned at only about 270,000 — but Samoff, in his latest newsletter to editors, asserts it’s “the most dramatic, and perhaps the most useful, of all post-sputnik efforts to close the perilous gap of America’s science education.” He pays high tribute to Dr. White, who “works slave-labor hours to keep the show going,” acknowledges partnership of American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and financial support from Bell Telephone System, Ford Foundation, Fund for Advancement of Education, General Foods Fund, IBM, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Foundation, Standard Oil of California, U. S. Steel. “We are blessed,” he writes, “with a star of the first academic magnitude, who enjoys working in TV and even watches it occasionally (preferably westerns) for relaxation. I think our principal contribution is that we exist. Only because of our structure as a national network, able to reach Americans everywhere, can this massive infusion of scientific knowledge be attempted.” U. S. population as of Jan. 1, 1959 was estimated at 175,600,000 by U. S. Census Bureau, up 2,900,000 from year ago and 24,500,000 more than count in national census of April, 1950. Current vogue for westerns on TV is traced from early fiction writers (Zane Grey, O. Henry, Owen Wister) through movies (Wm. S. Hart, Tom Mix, Will Rogers, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Gary Cooper) to today’s resurgence of Hopalong Cassidy on Japanese TV and in France, Germany, Australia & England, in article in Jan. Reader’s Digest, titled “TV Westerns: The Shots Heard Round the World.” Article is condensed from Television Age, written by John Reddy, who produced the notable documentary “The Western” on NBC-TV’s Wide Wide World. It notes that some $50,000,000 will be spent on TV westerns this season, with 28 shows comprising some 570 hours of new footage, equal to 400 western movies or far more than Hollywood made at peak of western-movie production. Option-time was discussed by FCC again this week, and Commission returned staff’s memo for redrafting, to be reconsidered Jan. 9. Commission has been weighing staff’s evaluation of need for option time, and has been considering whether to submit it directly for legal opinion of Justice Dept, or to seek industry comments on it first (Vol. 14:50). Reminder to “men in white”: NAB TV Code’s ban on use of actors to portray physicians, nurses or dentists in commercials (Vol. 14:41) became effective Jan. 1. That also was cut-off date for permissible use of “men in white coats” in commercials already filmed when Code Review Board voted amendment in rule last June.