Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1963)

8-TElEVISION DIGEST APRIL 29, 1963 rather than public. "Discount houses have sold so many radios so cheap and have beaten prices down so low, I know of many retailers who aren't even interested in radio any more. When they can't moke more than $1 or $1.50 on a sale, what's the use of making the effort? The attempts of some American manufacturers to get volume through discount houses have hurt the business. Zenith's radio sales ore down slightly, but only one-fourth as much as the rest of the industry." • • • • Distributor-to-dealer sales of b&w TV may be leveling off to last year's levels, judging by preliminary unofficial figures for March. These show dealers bought about 592,000 sets last month, up only 2% from the 581,000 of March 1962. For first quarter, sales were about 4% ahead of last year. April 1 TV inventories at factory & distributor levels stood at about 1.12 million — down nearly 12% from year-ago total. (For official 2-month EIA TV-radio-phono sales & production figures, see p. 10.) 23-IN. COLOR TUBE OUTPUT NEXT MONTH: Motorola's 2-year drive for rectangular 90-degree color tube is scheduled to achieve first tangible results in May, when Notional Video plans to begin first production-quantity output of 23-in. version. Motorola itself now plans to introduce 2-size color set line early this summer — "a minimum number of 23-in. tubes in the top of the line" (to quote Motorola), and regular 21-in. round 70-degree tubes in other sets. Motorola & National Video have spent more than $4 million developing the 90-degree rectangular 3-gun shadow-mask tube. Pres. Robert W. Galvin said recently. Zenith's Rauland Corp., meanwhile, is concluding pilot runs and expects to begin production output of 21-in. round 70-degree color tubes at its new plant in May, starting with small quantities and gradually increasing through July. Sylvania will start shipping 21 -in. color tubes in quantity some time during 2nd half of year, probably in 4th quarter (Vol. 3:15 pll). National Video plans to end pilot runs of 23-in. color tubes by about May 15 and start production by end of month. Pres. Asher Cole told us last week. Both he and Motorola spokesmen declined to estimate quantities which will be produced, but Cole said production would be stepped up through rest of year. Tube will be made available to other set manufacturers in quantity around end of this year. Cole said, with sampling coming earlier. He estimated it would cost "roughly in the price class of the 21-in. — maybe about $10 more." National Video plans to produce none of the 21-in. round 70-degree tubes now being built by RCA and scheduled to be produced by Sylvania & Rauland this year. National Video's color tube appears to be interim size, and it's good guess that when Coming's 25-in. rectangular glass bulbs become available (Vol. 3:13 p8) 23-in. will have nm its course. Coming soys its rectangular bulbs may take up to 2 years' development time, but there's some feeling among tube makers that they'll be available considerably ahead of Coming's stated target dates. Same chassis presumably can drive either 23 or 25-in. 90-degree color tube, so it's assumed changeover problems will be minimal. Behind Motorola's crusade for rectangular 90-degree color tube is saga of dogged persistence which is already resulting in change in size & shape of color tubes. There's little doubt that Motorola's campaign against bulky color sets — and its desire to do something about it — is bearing fmit in accelerated efforts by Corning & RCA to bring out shorter color tube in rectangular design. New tube uses specially re-formed black-<5t-white 23-in. bulb — refined to color's tightened tolerances and with special 3-gun neck affixed. RCA-type roimd tube and Coming's upcoming 25 & 19-in. color bulbs use "hard" color glass. Use of b&w glass made it possible for Motorola & Notional Video to break one bottleneck in development of rectangular 90-degree color tube. Motorola virtually roamed world to obtain equipment to make it possible to produce such a tube now. That the tube will be seen in production cjuantities this year, despite widespread skepticism of its competitors, is tribute to Motorola's determination. TOP TV BRANDS-IN-USE IN 15 MARKETS: How various TV brands stack up in terms of total sets used in selected markets is again shown in tabulation of surveys made by local newspapers. The tally for 1963 by Consolidated Consumer Analysis is reproduced by special permission in the table on p. 9. Owned by its member newspapers, CCA conducts annual research surveys of consumer ownership & use of various products. The 15-market survey of TV ownership was based on sample size of 43,104 fom