Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1963)

NEW SERIES VOL. 3, No. 7 TELEVISION DIGEST— 7 • e « MANUFACTUPUNG, DISTRIBUTION, HNANCE 1962 — THE STORY IN SALES FIGURES: EIA made it official last week with release of final 1962 sales statistics: Last year set records in unit sales of radios & phonos, and it was TV's best sales year since 1956 — whether you include color or not. On heels of this report came preliminary Ian. sales figures, which showed good business was continuing in TV, if not in radio. Black-&-white TV started off year with distributor-to-dealer soles of 489,000 sets, 5% above Jan. 1961's 482,000. Radio sales, however, were down nearly 15% to 482,000 from 563,000 in Jan. 1961 (but still higher than Jan. 1960). In both TV & radio, inventories were at healthy levels at end of Jan. — TV 10% below year-ago and radio identical to year-ago, in terms of combined factory & distributor stocks. Lowered production of radios in Jan. (down more than 20%) indicated drastic inventory revision was xmder way. Looking at 1962's sales & production figures, here's how last year stacked up in TV-radio-phono : Black-&-white TV : Best year in vmit sales since the vintage years. Total distributor sales — 6.3 million, increase of 9% over 1961 and first year since 1957 that they exceeded 6 million. (Throw in 400,000 color set sales and you have total of more than 6.7 million.) TV production totaled 6,471,160, increase of only 5% from 1961. In TV distributor sales, every 1962 month except May was better than corresponding 1961 month. Best month was Sept., when dealers bought a whopping 731,100 sets. Dec. was 2nd, with sales of 635,973, some 6% higher than Dec. 1961 sales. Uhf-equipped sets produced in 1962 totaled 598,446, up 61% from 1961's 370,977. It was biggest all-channel set year since 1957. Radio: Sales ended about 240,000 short of 12-million mark (excluding auto), which some industry figures had predicted last fall. At 1 1,757,093, distributor-to-dealer sales were 5% ahead of preceding year's 11,225,010 — enough for all-time record. In each of year's first 7 months, sales were higher than corresponding 1961 month — but in last 5 months of year, soles couldn't keep up with snappy jxice set in latter 1961. During this period, only Nov. was better than 1961. Year closed out with Dec. sales a respectable 1,587,590 — best monthly figure of year and only 2% below Dec. 1961's excellent 1,617,868. Factory production of radios (again excluding auto) was also 5% above 1961 — 11,912,049 vs. 11,787,501. If you include auto radios, production totaled 19,161,906 (up from 17,373,846), exceeded only by the 20 million produced in 1947. With excellent auto sales year, cor radio production set all-time record of nearly 7.3 million, 30% above 1961 figure and easily outstripping previous record of 6,864,000 (1955). FM radio production soared 36% to 1,227,081 from 915,297 in 1961. Phonos: Year ended with real whammy — Dec. distributor sales of 865,269 — nearly 40% above Dec. 1961 figure of 618,769! For full year, distributor sales (4,841,810) were up 22% (from 3,981,651). New seasonal pattern may be emerging in phonos. After trailing 1961 figures badly for first 5 months of 1962, distributor sales took off in May like ruptured stereophonic duck, with increases of 16, 18, 30, 52, 33, 31 & 40% over comparable 1961 months for rest of year. Sales wandered all over map. Bonner Dec. sales were more than 4 times as great as those of May. Stereo-mono ratio continued pattern of preceding 3 years — 72% of distributor sales were stereo last year vs. 73% in 1961. Phono factory sales were up 24% — to 4,954,434 from 1961's 3,988,680. Here are complete month-by month 1962-VS.-1961 production & sales comparisons: