American television directory (1946)

CAREERS IN TELEVISION Every businessman, every professional man, every worker would do well to explore every angle through which his future may be related to this new medium. By DAN D. HALPIN _ Radio Corporation of America Past President, American Television Society © Baehraeh T he nation’s immediate employment problem is one of finding and creating jobs not only for returned fighting men, but also for many millions of others who need gainful employment. The American Legion program calls for the employment of 3,000,000 more people than are engaged in productive occupa¬ tions today. Altogether too much emphasis has been placed on the capacity of industry alone to provide jobs. We must bear in mind that only about 25 per cent of peacetime workers are employed by in¬ dustry. The rest are employed in other business occupations. Consequently, 23,000,000 of the 55,000,000 jobs sought by the Legion in its campaign to solve the postwar employment problem, must be in the sales, service, and distribution fields, according to Edward N. Scheiberling, National Commander of the Amer¬ ican Legion. If their commendable objective of “7,000,000 new jobs in service and dis¬ tribution, and a million self-employment places” is to be realized, it will “neces¬ sitate intensive selling and development of markets for the goods we can pro¬ duce.” Television can make no specific guar¬ antee of providing millions of jobs or even hundreds of thousands of jobs after the war. But this much is certain : It will provide many opportunities for new careers in the radio manufactur¬ ing, distribution, and broadcasting fields, and in such related industries as glass, plastics, metals, wood-working, transportation, building, machine tool and advertising. In order for us to determine the rela¬ tive size of the market for television home receivers at specified price levels, a survey was made in eleven represen¬ tative cities of a cross-section of the public according to age, income and sex. The question was asked, “Would you or your family consider buying a radio and television receiver if the price were $400?” To this, 10.3 per cent said “Yes.” To those who said “No” we said, “Would you pay $300?” The cumula¬ tive total reached 19.9 per cent. At $250, the cumulative total became 34.3 per cent and finally, when the price was put at $200, the cumulative total of people who said they would buy a tele¬ vision receiver was 61.3 per cent. The conclusion is obvious. When the radio industry produces a good television re¬ ceiver in the $200 price range, a high percentage of United States homes will buy television receivers as soon as service is available. The first television markets will be metropolitan New York, Philadelphia, Albany-Schenectady, Chicago and Los Angeles, where television stations are now operating — and serving a market of 7,254,588 wired homes. Networks Ready in Five Years Applications on file with the Federal Communications Commission, as of October, 1945, would serve an additional 7,704,066 wired homes in 35 cities. Therefore, stations active and proposed would serve 14,958,654 wired homes, or 51.7 per cent of the 28,915,000 wired homes of the United States. In addi¬ tion, the Federal Communications Com¬ mission, according to Commissioner E. K. Jett, expects an additional 150 appli¬ cations for tele stations during 1946. LOOKING through banks of overhead lights at a musical production in the WNBT studio. In approximately five years, coaxial cable and radio relay networks should link up television transmitters located in 157 key cities of the United States. Television program service would then be available to a primary market of 72,159,000 people, 17,252,000 wired homes and 61.5 per cent of the purchas¬ ing power of the United States. Shortly thereafter television should be available to an additional 10,000,000 people through secondary television network developments. By the end of the fifth full television production year, it is the judgment of qualified people that the anual radio¬ television retail billing will be at the rate of $1,442,000,000 annually. The attainment of this figure, it is believed, will make possible approximately 300,000 new jobs in the radio industry by the beginning of the sixth year after television goes ahead. These estimates are used in making our plans for personnel, facilities and financial investments in building, ma¬ chinery and development work. They are the result of detailed commercial research and analysis. This annual rate figure of $1,442,000,000 worth of retail sales for the com¬ bined television and radio industry is based on the assumption that the in¬ dustry can expand its television pro¬ duction facilities to build, in the fifth full production year, television sets at a rate of 5,000,000 to retail for an aver¬ age price of $200, and that these sets will be purchased by an eager public. This would actually be the sixth year of civilian production, for it will take about one year to organize the tele¬ vision production facilities to go for¬ ward on the scale outlined. It is interesting to note that the re¬ sults of the television market surveys made for us in August and December 1943 have since been corroborated by the many surveys made by organiza¬ tions not associated with the radio or television industry. For example, 32.4 per cent of Newsweek readers plan to buy television sets, making television the second choice after automobiles. At the Franklin Square Savings Bank, Hempstead, Long Island, 22 per cent of its Postwar Purchase Club ac( Continued on page 118) no