Broadcasting (Apr - June 1950)

VIEWING UP Tops Night AM in Baltimore, Hooper Report Shows BALTIMORE is the first U.S. city to show TV getting a larger share of sets-in-use than radio during the evening hours, according to data collected in February by C. E. Hooper Inc. The Hooper city report on Baltimore evening audiences for that month shows 50.2% of those called by Hooper interviewers reporting * ■ watching TV at the time of the call, while 49.8^ were listening to the radio. Other cities nearing the 50-50 mark in February were Philadelphia, with TV getting roughly 46 % of the evening audience to radio's 54% ; New York, where the ratio was 45% TV to 55 % radio; Washington, with 43% TV to 57% radio, and Los Angeles, with 407c TV to 60% radio. The TV-radio trends are charted for all TV cities covered by Hooper reports each month in the Hooper New York Pocketpiece by an insert which shows the rise in the TV audience and the decline in the radio audience, month by month, since January 1949. The Pocketpiece also shows the share of audience among New York stations, VIDEO BIDS FCC Urges Application Delay FCC MADE CLEAR last week that it does not want new television applications, or amendments of existing applications, until it has decided its current proceedings on new TV rules, standards, and allocations. Filing them in the meantime, FCC reiterated, will create additional and possibly unnecessary work for the Commission's staff and perhaps needless expense for the applicants involved. FCC re-emphasized its position in an opinion upholding an earlier action which put into the pending files a request by Loyola U.'s WWL New Orleans seeking to amend its TV application in order to specify Channel 4 instead of Channel 10. The Commission said: . . . Until such time as the Commission issues a decision [on TV rules, standards and allocations] it cannot be known for certain what channels will be allocated to any particular city. Petitions and amendments of the nature tendered by the petitioner, therefore, may be futile and will only serve to create a useless burden of work. We have previously stated that a reasonable period of time will be provided for the filing of amendments such as this after a decision has been made in the above proceeding. No applicant will be prejudiced by its failure to amend to specify new channels prior to such a decision Action on petitioner's amendment at this time may give rise to the erroneous impression among interested parties that the petitioner is deriving a tactical advantage by specifying a new television channel prior to a decision in the above proceeding. The creation of such an impression could result in applicants needlessly filing amendments to their applications in an attempt to out-maneuver their opposition. Page 51 • BROADCASTING radio and TV, by half-hour periods through the week. The New York Pocketpieces are part of an audience measurement package service which the Hooper organization will start in June. Basic unit of the package is the collection of City Reports, issued up to three times a year for each of approximately 100 U. S. cities and showing how the audience is shared by half-hour units among the stations serving each market. As formerly, these city reports are available to advertisers and agencies for all measured cities as well as stations in each city. Supplementing the city reports is an improved share-of -audience report for each city summarizing the average share of audience of each station for the average weekday morning, average weekday afternoon, Saturday daytime, Sunday afternoon and average evening. In addition, these reports now include each station's .share of audience for each evening of the week. Issued monthly, these share-of -audience reports will cover all cities measured by Hooper during that month and will be available to advertisers and agencies as well as stations. Two More Reports Set Two more monthly reports will show the share-of-audiences in TV cities, one tabulating each radio and TV station's share for cities in which the evening TV audience is less than 25% of the total broadcast audience, the other showing a graphic comparison for cities in which the TV audience is more than 25% of the total. These reports are also available to advertisers, agencies and stations. Hooper also will issue two annual reports. One will chart share-ofaudience in cities where TV has more than 25% of the evening total. The other will provide a city-by-city winter average audience index (DecemberApril) for network stations by half -hour units, enabling an advertiser or agency to determine at a glance how any network radio program stacks up against its competition in each of the hundred Hooper cities. Those two annual reports are for advertiser and agency subscribers only. Advertiser and agency subscribers to the Hooper package will also receive the monthly Pocketpieces for New York and Los Angeles, showing the audience distribution among the stations of those cities. KBTV (TV) Dallas begins Wednesday telecasts and discontinues Saturday operations until further notice. New test pattern schedule, beginning 11 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 2 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and 5 p.m. Sunday, inaugurated. WN AC-TV ADVANTAGES of the Zoomcr lens, fro be used in telecasting all sports by WNAC-TV Boston in closeup coverage, are pointed out by its inventor. Dr. Frank G. Back (with his hand on the 40-inch lens), to (I to r) George W. Steffy, vice president of the Yankee Network; Harry Whittemore, chief engineer of WNAC-TV, and Jack Pegler, of the Television Zoomar Corp. The WNAC-TV camera crew will use the Zoomar lens in covering all of the home games of the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Braves. Dr. Back was at the WNAC-TV studios to explain the system of video reflections with mirrors of the lens. TIPS on stage lighting and other video developments were given Les Hacker (1), gen. mgr. of KVEC San Luis Obispo, Calif., and Bob Wilton (r), mgr. of KPRL Paso Robles, Calif., by Gene Baker, disc m. c, as the two inspect Hollywood television headquarters of Don Lee Network CUEING actors (seated) and cameraman during filming of commercials for Acme Beer at Telefilm Inc., Hollywood, is S. S. (Bud) Spencer, (standing, I) West Coast head, radio-TV, Foote, Cone & Belding. Looking on are Peter Comandini (center), Telefilm production head, and Lyman Powers, FC&B art director. AS climax to spring graduation exercises at the Twin City TV Lab in ^^fe^. the Lyceum Theatre, Minneapolis, I. E. Showerman (r), vice president, NBC Central Division, awards diploma to Melvin Liss, program director graduate. Looking on is Ernest S. Cooling who introduced Mr. Showerman as main speaker. CBS program Toast of the Town, dedicated to Notre Dame U., was the occasion for this backstage gathering at the network's New York studios. The two ladies in front are Mrs. Knute Rockne (I), widow of the Notre Dame football coach who died in a plane crash in Kansas in 1931, and his daughter, Jeanne. The gentlemen are (I to r) NBC-TV's Milton Berle; CBS-TV Stars Robert Q. Lewis and Ken Murray; Mario Lewis, executive vice president, wm^^t Blaine-Thompson Co. Inc; Comedian Henny Youngman, and William A. "^^r Chalmers, vice president and radio director of Kenyon & Eckhardt Inc.