Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

6 duced to legalize boosters, it’s difTicult to imagine Congress passing law authorizing them in faee of FCC’s expert opinion that boosters arc not only troublesome but have a perfectly adequate substitute in form of translators. Most of report is devoted to CATV, with some of strongest criticism aimed at FCC’s authorization of microwaves to feed CATV systems. “It is one thing,” report states, “for a broadcaster to compete with an antenna system which simply picks off the air the signals of stations in nearby small cities, but quite another to have the FCC — which allocated his channel to the community and licensed him to operate on it — come along and assist the CATV operator to step up his competition by microwaving in the signals of .3 stations allocated to, and operating in, a distant metropolitan market.” Report minimizes the CATV contribution by which it builds set circulation to the point that prospective operators are encouraged to start stations. “With the lapse of time,” it stated, “the CATV system ceases to be the benefactor of the new station and becomes its competitor. The question is, therefore, whether on balance and in the long run the antenna system is going to build or destroy the station’s economic support.” Summing up impact of CATV, translators, boosters, etc., report states: “All of these devices have their merits and their drawbacks. It is quite probable that all of them will be needed to provide maximum service to the public — at least for some time. Under the.se circumstances it seems clear that the Commission should have, and should vigoi-ously exercise, regulatory power over all of these alternative means of bringing TV service to the public. It is difficult to see how the Commission can perform its duties to the public — and effectuate the will of Congress — without such broad and inclusive authority, because . . . these various services interact upon each other in many ways. It is unfair to impose standai’ds of public service on part of those who furnish TV service to the public while leaving others similarly engaged free of all such obligations. It seems quite clear that the overall TV industry cannot thrive and grow, to the greatest ultimate public interest, if it continues to exist only half regulated.” Report runs 54pp., is titled The Tvlevisiov Inquiry, The Problem of TV Service for Small Communities. It is available from Senate Commerce Committee, or we’ll get you one. Big Newspaper Deal: Once the country’s liveliest newspaper city, Chicago became a 2-publisher town this week with .$18,000,000 sale by Knight Newspapers (John S. Knight) of controlling interest in afternoon Daily Neivs to Field Enterprises Inc. (Marshall Field Jr.), owner of morning Sun-Times. Knight had acquired Daily Neivs in 1044 for $2,151,537 from estate of Col. Frank Knox. Deal made Field sole competitor in Chicago with late Col. Robert R. McCormick’s morning Tribune (WGN-TV & WCN) and afternoon American, which was bought by Tribune from Ilearst in 105G for around $8,000,000. Knight said decision to sell Daily News arose from “desire to cuitail my administrative responsibilities after nearly 40 years in . . . journalism.” Unaffected by Chicago sale were other Knight family publishing & TV-radio interests, which he said “will continue to expand in areas where the demands upon my personal supervision will not be as insistent.” They include Detroit Free Press, Akron Deacon .Journal (45% of WAKR-TV & WAKR), Miami Herald, of Miami’s WCKT & WCKR, Charlotte Observer, weeklies Coral Gables Times and Florida Keys Keynoter. TASO Weighs Vhi & Uhf: Basic (lilTerences in vhf & uhf performance, as determined by TV Allocations Study Organization, according to draft of final report being considered by TASO board this week (see p. 3), are summed up in this statement: “The most significant differences between uhf and vhf performance are due to propagation effects, receiving antenna performance and receiver noise factor. Propagation of TV signals is a phenomenon of nature ; and the differences in propagation at uhf and vhf are likely always to exi.st. Uhf reception suffers in comparison with vhf reception, for one reason becau.se of the smaller physical size of receiving antennas of the same type. Theoretically, if antennas of equal size were used, they would be equally effective in picking up signals. There are a number of sound, practical reasons why this equality has not been achieved; but future, and as yet unknown, inventions might impi’ove the effectiveness of practical uhf antennas. “Referring again to reception, the noise factors of current uhf receivers are markedly poorer than tho.se of vhf receivers. This is largely because of the lack of good, reasonably priced tubes and/or other electron devices for use in uhf tuners. If the commercial demand existed, it might be possible to develop such tubes, but this is uncertain for the pre.sent. One might suggest that the handicaps suffered by uhf could be overcome by the use of correspondingly higher power transmitters. Currently available transmitters do not permit the achievement of this goal; but again, future development might change the situation.” V V ^ a' Report discus.se.s “critical distance” for stations — the distance beyond which service deteriorates very rapidly — comes up with these figures: Ch. 2-6, 65 mi.; Ch. 7-13, 55 mi.; Ch. 14-40, 40 mi.; Ch. 41-83, 30 mi. TASO found, in measurements made at 1232 points in 8 areas, that vhf field strength exceeded uhf (in lower half of band) by average of 6.5 db — with same ERP. Low-band vhf exceeded uhf by 7.5 db.; low-band vhf exceeded uhf by 4.5 db. Rcpoi’t cautions: “It should be noted that these comparisons of field strength hold only out to limited distances, namely to the distance at which uhf field strength could be measured. Beyond these distances, no quantitative comparisons could be made. If comparisons at these greater distances could have been made, the difference between vhf and uhf fields would have been much greater. Moreover, in obtaining the averages, data from the atypical areas favoring uhf propagation were included. If these had been excluded, the vhf field strengths would have averaged higher in comparison with uhf fields.” Also noted was that in extremely fiat, treeless, terrain within line-of-sight of antennas, uhf fields were “consistently appreciably higher than vhf.” Fresno & Buffalo uhf transmissions — in certain directions — were cited as examples. Turning to interference, report states: “Although TASO did not make quantitative measurements of interference, the observations made in the field surveys, the questionnaire survey of TV servicemen and inquiries directly to service managers of leading TV receiver manufacturers showed clearly that uhf TV is sub