Broadcasting (Jan - Mar 1949)

CBS ^lAAAS^ REVEALED Measurement Device Shown IRE CBS LAST week took the wraps off the techniques of "lAMS," its hitherto hush-hush radar-principled Instantaneous Audience Measurement System. Peter C. Goldmark, director of the network's engineering research and development department, headed a group of CBS engineers in explaining the system to the New York section, Institute of Radio Engineers. The show they put on, called a "Progress Report," was the first public demonstration of the system. >> They limited their performance to the strictly engineering aspect of "lAMS." CBS hopes in the near future to hold a more general demonstration for all segments of the radio industry. CBS officials at the engineering meeting, in answer to direct questions as to CBS intentions, said that despite its developmental work the network did not expect or want to get into the audience measurement field. Richard Hess, supervisor of ratings services division of CBS, said that the network merely sought to develop for the industry a better system than any existing audience measurement services — but hoped that existing audience measurement companies or BMB would ultimately be the actual operators. Not 'Proper Principle' ■ He indicated that the netwoi-k did not feel it was the proper principle to operate a system which ' would in effect be grading the listener pulling power of its own com t petitors. He also indicated that although CBS thinks highly of "lAMS," it does not regard it as in its most perfected form and that CBS will always be on the watch for im 1 provements in it or better measurement systems or combinations of systems. Dr. Goldmark opened his discussion by explaining how his department got in to exploring the audience measurement field. He said that a few years ago, CBS decided that the basic problem of how to find how many sets were tuned to a given station at a specific time was not being satisfactorily solved by » existing measurement services. All systems in use had bad points, in , the opinion of CBS executives. CBS executives then projected the kind of measurement system it wanted and threw the engineering problems of achieving it to Dr. Goldmark's department. "What was desired," said Dr. Goldmark, "was a system which would get the information fast, accurately and inexpensively. It must require as few people to operate as possible and should be automatic. It should be adaptable virtually to I any home picked by research sampling people. It should report I when AM, FM and TV sets in homes are turned on and to what stations sets are tuned. Information should be received, sorted, tabulated and totalized automatically and instantaneously and these results should be printed instantaneously in a form which would immediately describe the size of the audience listening to a pre-selected group of stations." Requires No Personnel In brief, the system CBS devised to answer these requirements is a device for monitoring sets in preselected homes and then collating and printing the information thus collected instantaneously. It is fully automatic and requires no personnel to operate after being turned on. Its operation is as follows: At the WCBS transmitter on Columbia Island, Long Island Sound, a central pulser, called an "Interrogator," sends out an impulse. This impulse is mixed in with program material but the home listener is never aware of it. Dr. Goldmark said that in three-quarters of a year of operation, no listener had ever complained of it. The impulse thus broadcast goes to transceivers installed in preselected homes. The transceivers are another CBS-tailored production, about the size of a cigar humidor, and are connected with home receivers and plugged into an ordinary electric circuit. If a given home set is on, the transceiver then broadcasts an impulse in turn, which is carried via UHF to an antenna atop the Chrysler Building. Another impulse is later broadcast to indicate to what station the set is tuned. Impulses from all the transceivers are received and electronically counted at the Chrysler Building by a binary counter, also CBS-built. The counter is capable of counting 250,000 units per second. The information counted is then coded and transmitted by phone line to any point desired. At present, the phone line goes from the Chrysler Building to CBS COY IN A STAUNCH DEFENSE of FCC against charges of censorship. Chairman Wayne Coy last week-end reiterated his belief in "reasonableness and overall fairness" as the test of a station's operation in the public interest. FCC has handed dowTi decisions which "do indeed restrict the licensee's freedom," he declared in a speech prepared for delivery Saturday night at a Yale Law Journal banquet at New Haven, Conn. "They restrict his freedom to be unfair," he added. Making a major public reply to critics' long-standing charges that Dr. GOLDMARK headquarters on Madison Ave., New York. At CBS headquarters, the coded information is then translated into a value and recorded on a Leeds and Northrup coder, using a paper tape similar to that of a teletype machine. The record thus produced shows the percentage of sets in use and tuned to a particular station at a given time in the form of a graph. 'De Luxe' System Planned The system illustrated Wednesday night is capable of recording 60,000 separate bits of information ,every 2% minutes. Dr. Goldmark said a so-called "de luxe" system is also in the laboratory, capable of recording 180,000 different bits of information every minute. Actually, the system demonstrated was so set up as to record 60 different bits of information for 1,000 different radio homes. The impulse, continuing for 2i/^ minutes duration, "triggers" the transceiver. The transceiver is synchronized with an information FCC imposes censorship on licensees, Mr. Coy declared: "If freedom of radio means that a licensee is entitled to do as he pleases without regard to the interests of the general public, then it may reasonably be contended that restraints on that freedom constitute acts of censorship. If, however, the freedom of radio means that radio should be available as a medium of freedom of expression for the general public, then it is obvious enough that restraints on the licensee which are designed to insure the preservation of that freedom are not acts plan set forth on a clock divided into the 60 information segments. Twenty places on the clock are reserved for AM, 20 for FM and 20 for TV sets. Final Count As the segment on the clock is reached which indicates the number of all AM sets tuned in, motors in the transceivers reach the same point and are activated if the accompanying sets are tuned in. As the hand on the clock moves to the next segment, say station WCBS, the transceivers' motors also reach the same point and the transceivers are activated by sets turned on that time, thus giving the count for sets tuned to WCBS. Similar results are given for other segment around the clock, which are designated by either other stations, geographic areas or economic levels. The "de luxe" system permits the recording of information for 1,000 radio homes categorized into three income groups and three geographic groups. The more simple system demonstrated permitted categorization into only two groups. Voting Device A subsidiary device, made a part of the system, is a push-button affair to permit the listener to vote "yes" or "no" at a given time. This vote, too, is recorded at a given time around the clock. A light flashes on in the little push-button box in the listener's home when he is asked to vote. The value of this method of indicating preference, however, is discounted by many CBS officials, but in view of the difference of opinion on it, it was built into the system so that it could be used if thought valuable. Dr. Goldmark was aided in developing the system by John W. Christensen, Andrew Bark, John T. Wilner, and Al Goldberg, all members of his department. All were present at the demonstration and Messrs. Christensen and Bark aided in explaining and demonstrating the system. of censorship." In its criticism of FCC's socalled "Scott decision" on atheists' j rights to air-time, the House Select Committee to Investigate the FCC "never did come to grips with the fundamental question of what is the nature of the freedom to be preserved in radio and who is to enjoy that freedom," Mr. Coy asserted. He noted that the Select Committee found fault with the Commission's ruling that a broadcaster may not bar an atheist solely because he thinks such a broadcast would not be in the public interest. (Continued on page 55) January 24, 1949 • Page 23 BROADCASTING • Telecasting Q^pj^j^Q^ FCC Against Censorship Charges jijji