American television directory (1946)

TELEVISION IN THE RETAIL FIELD There is excitement and interest for women in “news of merchandise” and a whole new profession is needed to present this news visually and dramatically. By I. A. HIRSGHMANN _ Vice President, M etropolitan Television, Inc. I elevision is on the way as a regular service for our people. Nobody can stop its progress. The people who might delay it or in¬ terfere with it may be those who would like to make it an overnight profitable success. That would be the most deadly means of retarding its development. Technically most of the television problems have been met through the coordination of the best engineering minds under the auspices of the govern¬ ment in the war. In contrast, program¬ ming has not even had a start. And pro¬ gramming is a field that will call for the best imagination and the best im¬ plements that we have learned to use in other related arts. I have absolute faith that we will learn how to do it well and inexpensively. I also think that we will probably learn the hardest way, which in the long run is the best way and the way we seem to do things in this coun¬ try. The most dangerous kind of think¬ ing that we can indulge in is along these lines: 1 — That television sets will quickly re¬ place radio sets in everybody’s home. 2 — That television will be so revolution¬ ary that it will interfere with or frustrate the moving picture busi¬ ness, the radio business, the news¬ paper business and change the habits of the American people. We ought to know now from the his¬ tory of even our most exciting develop¬ ments in the fields of communications and entertainment that it does not work that way. Moving pictures are just be¬ ginning to become less sappy, more in¬ telligent and well-integrated. Progress Will Be Gradual Our memories are probably short, for most of us forget that from 1920 to 1929, in the boom of the postwar era, radio went through its fumbling pre¬ paratory stages. Television will also develop gradually. If it does not, some¬ thing will be wrong with it. In recent years as we moved into an unparalleled boom in advertising, with radio selling at a high level, we sud¬ denly learned that the technical method for broadcasting was outmoded; that FM would supply a much more desir¬ able service; that radio principals were rushing to develop this new field which inevitably would replace AM radio. This ought to provide some kind of a lesson that there is no final technical word when you are dealing with the ether. There is no last frontier in the field of the unknown. Our steps ought to be bold and well-aimed. But we must always anticipate the possibility of a revolution just around the corner prob¬ ably started by fertile-minded young¬ sters who have had first-hand oppor¬ tunity in this war to use mechanical instruments which are destined to be¬ come tools of the future. This should not give us pause or haste but courage and confidence, for we know that the fields will be broad and open with newer possibilities and opportunities than any of us dared to dream about, even in our optimistic moments. I would make a plea for good stand¬ ards of programming for television in its early stages. I think that radio with all its success is underselling the Amer¬ ican people; that it could be raised sev¬ eral notches higher in intelligence and appeal, sell just as much goods, if not more, sell good-will along with it, and sell itself as the valuable instrument that it is. Advertising on radio need not neces¬ sarily be offensive or defensive. People gladly give credit to a company that supplies decent entertainment, humor, music or information. They will do it all the more willingly when a program assumes that its average listener is SUBTLE COMMERCIAL: The sponsor's product — table linen — has been constantly in view STORE CONDITIONS can easily be reproas the action of a short drama centered about a dinner table. The commercial simply duced in the studio, permitting customers to answers questions that women in the audience might quite naturally wish to ask. feel that they are "shopping by television." 47