American television directory (1946)

SPORTS FOR MILLIONS BY TELEVISION Play-by-play radio reporting helped build bigger athletic attendance. Will television help the sports box-office? By BILL SLATER World Series Sports Announcer Nothing has ever been so rousingly successful before the fact as television. In the promises of enthusiastic tele¬ vision pioneers and in the eager antici¬ pation of future television set owners, this new art is already magnificent, revolutionary and, of course, whoppingly successful ! A home television receiver is on the 1946 buying list of millions. But there must be many who share my fear that these zestful buyers of television receivers may be in for a sharp disappointment. This fear is based on extensive observation of per¬ sons seeing their first telecasts. Their first impression is: “Why, this is just like the movies.” Then they view a per¬ formance on the television screen that is far below the quality standard to which they’ve become accustomed in motion picture theaters. Inevitably they shake their heads and show in their demeanor the let-down they feel. Technically, television is far in ad¬ vance of its programming. This may be just another instance of today’s general unbalance between scientific advance and social or artistic progress. Our tools despite wartime restrictions are far better than our ability to use them. The television program of this 1945 autumn is an amateurish presentation smacking of attempts either to put the legitimate stage on the video screen or to adapt radio program ideas to the new medium. Sports telecasting offers no exception. Video sports, except box¬ ing and wrestling, are largely futile efforts to follow radio’s pattern. Action Area Is Important Boxing and wrestling occupy so little action space that the television camera cannot miss portraying their essence. But football, baseball, basketball, hockey — the major team sports played on a broad area — are in another category. Wartime inadequacies of equipment will soon be overcome. But inadequate con¬ cepts of how to televise these ranging sports are becoming intrenched. There is too great a temptation to follow radio’s pattern. We are of a mind to cover a baseball game, for example, with a few mobile cameras. We must realize that this job requires a perma¬ nent installation in the park and the use of no fewer than eight or ten cam¬ eras if television is to measure up to its potentialities. Sports programs in the studio must be made far more than a melange of static interviews, old film and con¬ stricted action. The point here is more than petulant carping. We are about to step out on screens in thousands upon thousands of homes of people who have some discernment as to what is good and what isn’t. If our audience is dis¬ appointed before we hit our stride, we shall have a deuce of a time winning it back, no matter how thrilling the novelty of our new medium. In telecasting sports we have prob¬ lems even greater, perhaps, than tech¬ nical set-ups and programming. We have the commercial fears of sports promoters and those whose livelihood comes from this business of athletics. And it is a business, even to the col¬ leges and universities. Hence, and soon, sports promoters and college athletic authorities must be invited into tele¬ vision’s councils. Many of them know nothing of the nature or the capabili¬ ties of television. Despite the demon¬ strated spectator-building power of radio, they cannot see how television will maintain or increase their specta¬ tor attendance. It is reported that fight mogul Mike Jacobs believes he can use television to INDOOR SPORTS, such as billiards, pool and table tennis have tele¬ vised effectively with close-ups of tricky shots and intricate plays. BOXING AND WRESTLING attract television’s largest and most avid audiences, despite the lack of crowd psychology in the home. 36