Broadcasting (Oct - Dec 1950)

1939 (Continued from page 119) preserved all of the inequities of the ASCAP licenses, noting that to base the BMI fees on ASCAP pajTiients instead of on station revenue was to perpetuate the preferential deals given the networks and the newspaper stations at the expense of other broadcasters. Television made its formal public debut on April 30 by telecasting the opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair, the 3 1/2 -horntelecast also marking the first time a President of the United States had appeared before the video cameras. NBC made this telecast the first feature of daily program service from its Empire State Bldg. TV transmitter, offering some 25 hours a week of studio, film and remote pickup programs at the outset and expanding that schedule as the year wore on. More than a dozen set maufacturers put TV receivers on sale to the New York public and CBS prepared for the opening of its New York video station, while Allen B. DuMont Labs asked the FCC for permission to move its TV transmitter from Passaic to New Yoi-k. Nine FM OuHets On Air at Yearend FM won many adherents to its new system of "staticless broadcasting" during the year, which wound up with nine FM stations on the air and 12 grants of construction permits. Yankee Network, whose FM transmitter at Paxton began 16-hour daily program service in July, applied for a commercial FM station in New York, asking FCC for a hearing at which the network could present proof that FM was ready to move out of the non-commercial category to which it was currently restricted. On Dec. 3 an FM relay was demonstrated, a program originating at W2XCR Yonkers being picked up and rebroadcast by W2XMN Alpine, whose broadcast was again picked up and rebroadcast by WIXPW Meridan, Conn. Observers who heard this final broadcast said that its clarity surpassed the best AM signal they had ever heard. The FCC set Feb. 28, 1940, as starting date of a hearing on the use of UHF for regular broadcast service, with the use of FM versus AM the main issue. FCC Approves Commercials On Internafional Broadcasts The Commission in May adopted a rule permitting commercial broadcasting by international shortwave stations, but accompanied it with a restriction that programs must be of a type that will "reflect the culture of this country and will promote international goodwill, understanding and cooperation." This clause produced such an uproar as an attempt at program censorship that it was suspended. Stations were re quired to boost their power to a minimum of 50 kw by July 1, 1940. First advertiser to take advantage of the new rule was United Fruit Co., sponsoring a quarter-hour of news in Spanish beamed at Latin America by NBC seven evenings a week. . Also in 1939: WLW Cincinnati returned to 50 kw operation after the FCC denied a further extension of its experimental 500 kw operation during normal operating hours; the Appellate Court upheld the FCC's decision and an appeal to the Supreme Court was pending at the end of the year. Arde 1940 ALTHOUGH the break with uL ASCAP did not actually come until the year had passed into history, 1940 is recalled by most broadcasters as the year of the war with ASCAP. More important, it was the year that networks, affiliates and non-network stations, working together as a united industry, established Broadcast Music Inc. as a new music performance licensing organization that was adequate not only for the immediate job of supplying radio with music when ASCAP tunes were not available but for the long term task of protecting American broadcasters for all time from the threats of monopolistic aggression in the music copyright field. Miller Gathers Contracts On District Tour In January, Neville Miller, president of NAB and BMI, returned from a 25,000 mile tour of district meetings with contracts from 160 stations and about $100,000 in cash, initial payments on pledges of $500,000 giving the new organization, with the network pledges, some $900,000 of assured funds plus more or less binding commitments from another 200 stations. While somewhat less than the $1.5 million which had been set as the absolute minimum for the new project, this return in so short a time encouraged the BMI board to delay no longer, so they voted to make BMI fully operative on March 2, with licensing to begin April 1. Sydney Kaye, copyright attorney largely responsible for developing the BMI plan, was designated executive vice president and general counsel, and Merritt E. Tompkins resigned as president of Associated Music Publishers to head up BMI operations as vice president and general manager. Carl Haverlin, for more than 10 years sales manager of KFI and KECA Los Angeles and for the past two years had served as station relations head of Davis & Schwegler, program production firm active in the field of tax-free music for radio, became head of station relations for BMI. Russell Clevenger, from the New York advertising agency, Albert Frank-Guenther Law, was named public relations director. Dana Merriman, who had been in Bulova was authorized to move WPG Atlanta City to New York for merger with his other stations there into a fulltime 5 kw station, and was planning to start an East Coast network early in 1940. The Commission in the fall gave some 200 local stations power increases to 250 w and raised about 35 regional stations to 5 kw fulltime power. WMCA New York was severely reprimanded by the Commission for advertising claiming a news beat by intercepting private communications of foreign powers, an act which if actually performed would have cost the station its license. Transcontinental Broadcasting System was organized by Elliott Roosevelt and John T. Adams, executive vice president of Texas State Network, as a new nationwide network which announced 102 affiliate stations and 35 hours a week of commercial business, largely placed by Blackett-SampleHummert for its various clients. TBS was to begin .service on New Year's Day, 1940, but on Dec. 30 Mr. Adams wired stations that the inaugural had been postponed until Feb. 1. charge of all music and music copyrights at the New York World's Fair after a decade at NBC, was made office manager. Other employes were added and the BMI quarters at 580 Fifth Ave. were expanded and re-expanded as work progressed on the gigantic task of building an adequate supply of music for radio by the end of the year. Acquiring by a 10-year contract the performance rights to the catalog of M. M. Cole Music Publishing Co., a collection of some 2,500 compositions, largely in the hillbilly, cowboy and folk music category, and, by outright purchase, the 2,000 popular, concert and standard published by Hinds, Hayden & Eldredge, BMI also began building its own musical catalog. By June, its music production line was turning out about seven new compositions a week, plus some 25 new arrangements of public domain music. BMI Sets Up New Payment System To get away from the discriminatory rating system which had caused constant turmoil among ASCAP's members, BMI set up its own method of paying writers on a basis of performance only. A writer whose tune was broadcast once over one station would earn one cent in royalties; 20 performances over 50-station networks would bring him $10. The one-centper-broadcast-per-station fee was subject to alteration after tests to see how often BMI tunes were broadcast by the average station subscriber. Meanwhile, ASCAP had launched a publicity campaign of radio persecution, based on the arrest of Gene Buck, its president, in Phoenix on charges of attempting to obtain money under false pretenses and conspiracy to extort, filed in Montana by A. J. Mosby, KGVO Missoula. Network executives, similarly charged, had escaped service by writing Mr. Mosby denials and refusing to waive extradition, but ASCAP had not taken this precaution and Mr. Buck, vacationing in Phoenix, languished in jail over Feb. 22, when the banks were closed, until bail could be arranged. ASCAP also had presented radio with its new licenses, which it was estimated would increase its take from radio by from 70% to 100%. The terms of the new licenses, which were to run for 10 years, off'ered some reduction to the smaller stations but added a 7%% network fee, an obvious attempt to split the industry ranks which was promptly recognized and as promptly rejected. Joint Session Gives BMI Confidence Vote A joint session of the boards of NAB, IRNA and BMI, with Na, tional Independent Broadcasters, organization of non-network stations, invited but its representative unable to attend, unanimously condemned the ASCAP offer and gave BMI a vote of confidence and a virtual blank check to secure a supply of music that would allow broadcasters to forget ASCAP after the expiration of their current ASCAP licenses at the end of the year. This extraordinary board meeting worked out a plan of BMI licensing to take effect when the initial one-year licenses expired. It called for BMI royalty payments of IVzVc to 2%% of net income by stations, with networks to pay the top scale for their owned and operated stations nlus fees of onehalf of 1% on their net income from the sale of network time (gross income minus payments to stations) with 1939 revenue used as a base for BMI's 1941 licenses. This new arrangement of licenses based on income was designed to answer objections of a number of broadcasters to the original BMI licenses which, they complained, were based on ASCAP fees and therefore carried over into BMI all the discriminatory features of the ASCAP licenses. To augment its output of orchestrations and provide a supply of music for the smaller stations (Continued on page 122) Page 120 October 16, 1950 BROADCASTING • Telecasting