Broadcasting (Oct - Dec 1950)

Ira L. Grimshaw of the NBC legal department. Radio was scarcely mentioned at the annual April convention of the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. which extended the PressRadio Bureau for another year as a matter of course, reflecting a changed attitude on the part of the publishers who were now accepting radio as a normal factor of American life. A check made at the time by Broadcasting showed that of the country's nearly 700 radio stations, 209 were identified with newspaper interests. More than 100 publishers with radio affiliations held a private meeting during the convention to discuss the threat of newspapers being barred from station ownership, a bill to that effect having been introduced in the House. In hearings of contesting applications certain FCC members and examiners indicated preference for non-publisher applicants for fear that granting a station license to a newspaper publisher might produce a dangerous monopoly of news in the community. Radio Pioneer Marconi Dies of Heart Attack On July 20 Guglielmo Marconi, world renowned radio pioneer, died of a heart attack in Rome. Few inventors have lived to see such great results from their inventions. The suit of Transradio Press against CBS, NBC, AP, UP, INS and ANPA for $1,700,00, charging conspiracy in restraint of trade, was settled out of court after pending for more than two years. Jack Howard was elected president and Merlin H. Aylesworth, former NBC president, now a ScrippsHoward executive, was elected a director of Continental Radio Co., station-operating subsidiary of Scripps-Howard Newspapers which later that year changed its name to Scripps-Howard Radio Inc. Television activity increased throughout the year: Philco and RCA began testing transmission with 441-line pictures, refined from 1936's 343-line images to conform to RMA recommendations; CBS began installing a transmitter atop New York's Chrysler Tower and constructing studios across the street in Grand Central Terminal Bldg. ; Don Lee continued its test transmissions on the West Coast and Farnsworth Television conducted field tests in Philadelphia. In the spring RCA showed a projection receiver, producing pictures 8 by 10 feet in size, at the IRE convention, and in the fall NBC got its first mobile TV unit, comprising two large vans, for remote pickups. At the end of the year 18 experimental video Mr. Aylesworth Mr. Finch broadcast licenses had been issued. But TV was still in the laboratory; no sets had been put on sale to the public. Answering Broadcasting's question as to when TV would emerge, David Sarnoff, RCA president, replied in a signed article : "I do not know and I do not know anyone who does know." In England, the BBC had decided on the Marconi-EMI system as most suitable and had discarded the Baird system and the alternate telecasts of the two inaugurated the previous year. Reduction from two to one systems cut receiver prices by about a third — from $498 to $315 for the cheapest TV-only sets, with combination TV-radio sets down from $630 to $420. A coaxial cable laid around inner London for remote pickups was first used to telecast the procession at the coronation of King George VI on May 12. Some 2,000 TV sets were sold in England during the first year of telecasting there. During 1937 the ranks of stations experimenting with facsimile broadcasting swelled from five to more than a dozen, using their regular transmitters for picture and print broadcasts between midnight and morning. Most of the newcomers were using the facsimile equipment developed by W. G. H. Finch, formerly assistant chief engineer of the FCC. By year's end RCA also had a facsimile system on the market and John T. Parkerson had been granted an indefinite leave from Transradio Press to direct the Fultograph Co., manufacturing equipment for the Fulton facsimile system. Gross Time Sales Top $141 Million Business was good for broadcasters in 1937, with gross time sales of $141,170,000 for the year, according to an estimate made by Dr. Herman Hettinger for the 1938 Broadcasting Yearbook. This represented an increase of 20% over the 1936 total, with national networks up 16%, regional networks up 4%, spot up 35% and local up 20%. Summer business showed less seasonal decline than in any previous year, largely due to baseball broadcast sponsorship, for which General Mills alone spent more than $1 million, with Kellogg Co., Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. and Atlantic Refining Co. also major baseball sponsors. Demonstrating its faith in radio as a means of promoting attendance at the ball park, the Chicago Cubs sponsored re-enactments of the team's games for an hour each evening on WGN Chicago. Atlantic Refining Co. also was a leading football sponsor, using broadcasts of 163 games along the East Coast. Tidewater-Associated Oil Co. sponsored 90 Pacific Coast football (Continued on page 108) Uke iPreitii^e Station tke (^aroiinad Serving its area since 1926 as Broadcasting has served the radio industry for twenty years WBIG Gilbert M. Hutchison, President CBS Affiliate 5000 watts EST. 1926 represented by Hollingbery BROADCASTING • Telecasting October 16, 1950 • Page 107