Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr - June 1951)

Everyone Picks Channel 6 COLUMBUS, OHIO THE SPORTS PICTURE, with BILL BROWN features authoritative reports and comments never missed by sports minded Central Ohioans. Nightly interviews, with plenty of visual punch, rate this quarter hour as tops. Mail response from over 50 communities PLUS the rich Columbus market means AUDIENCE, and AUDIENCE means SALES. 5:45 PM Monday through Friday. TEA TIME with BETTY PARKER suits Central Ohio homemakers to a "T". This informally, powerful half-hour is entertaining, informative, yet a snappy show. A new and different approach to a sure-fire woman's audience. 2:15 PM, Mon. Wed. Fri. /Si IN SELLING POWER in the Rich Central Ohio District Edward Lamb, President Headley-Reed, National Reps. ABC-DuMONT Networks KFI-TV SALE General Tire & Rubber Co. Buys for $2.5 Million SALE of KFI-TV Los Angeles to General Tire & Rubber Co. for $2,500,000 was consummated last Friday, subject to FCC approval. Final agreement was reached after weeklong conferences between Earle C. Anthony, head of the licensee Earle C. Anthony Inc.; Thomas F. O'Neil, General Tire & Rubber, vice presi * dent and director; Louis G. Caldwell, of the law firm of Kirkland, Fleming, Green, Martin & Ellis (for seller); and W. Theodore Pierson, Pierson & Ball (for purchaser) : Negotiations were for the nonnetwork TV property only and Mr. Anthony will retain KFI, which he pioneered in 1922. KFI— 50 kw clear channel outlet on 640 kc — is NBC affiliate for Los Angeles. Personnel plans were not divulged. George A. Whitney is general manager of both the radio and television stations. The transaction for the threeyear-old KFI-TV on Channel 9 is regarded as a springboard on which Mutual Broadcasting System can enter the national television network field. General Tire & Rubber Co. owns the Yankee Network (JAW-CIO BID Seeks UHF Channel in Detroit PLANS of the United Auto Workers-CIO to seek a UHF channel in the Detroit area were announced last week by President Walter P. Reuther, who said that in the meantime UAW-CIO will sponsor a weekly documentary on WWJ-TV there beginning June 19. The union plans to extend its work in television into other areas but is initiating it in Detroit, which has the greatest concentration of UAW-CIO members, Mr. Reuther said. The UAW International Executive Board, which approved the plans for a TV application, also voted to recommend that the UAWCIO Broadcasting Corp. of Ohio, which the union controls, suspend operation of its WCUO-FM Cleveland. Much of WCUO-FM's coverage area is also served by the union's WDET-FM Detroit, Mr. Reuther said, with the result that the International Executive Board concluded that concentration on TV would be more effective. WDETFM will continue in operation, he said. UAW-CIO, through a broadcasting subsidiary, has long sought an AM station in the Detroit area. The channel to be sought in the TV application was not identified. UAW spokesmen said the TV operation would be non-profit and the union was prepared to carry the station on a non-commercial basis if necessary. The documentary to be sponsored on WWJ-TV, Mr. Reuther said, will be a 15-minute Tuesday feature, and will be produced by Guy Nunn, UAW commentator. The contract, for 52 weeks, was signed through Luckoff, Wayburn & Frankel, Detroit. which, in turn, controls a major portion of Mutual stock. A rundown of TV station licensees and applicants shows these holdings of MBS' stockholders: General Teleradio Inc. (Bamberger) owns WOR-TV New York. The Chicago Tribune through WGN Inc., has WGN-TV Chicago. Yankee Network operates and owns WN AC-TV Boston; has applied for TV in Bridgeport, Conn., and Springfield, Mass. Don Lee Broadcasting System, acquired last year by General Tire & Rubber, has Channel 2 reserved in San Francisco. Reservation was made in view of the then-undetermined status of Don Lee stations' renewals. However, when Don Lee renewals were finally granted, the TV fieeze was in effect. WIP Philadelphia, owned by the Gimbel family, holder of MBS stock, also is seeking television facilities in that city. Among difficulties that have beset KFI-TV has been the labor problem. The outlet currently is struck by Television Authority, which has negotiated contracts with six other area stations. Mutual's desire to get into the national TV field along the line of the MBS radio network plan has been expressed. In the spring of 1950, President Frank White announced, following a board meeting, that MBS key TV stations would be available to its network advertisers wishing to telecast programs [Broadcasting • Telecasting, April 24, 1950]. This gave rise to reports that MBS was looking to ultimate TV network operations when more television stations were available. That sentiment also was attributed to J. R. Poppele, Mutual board member and WOR vice president and chief engineer, during the course of the FCC's hearing on intercity television facilities in the late spring of 1950. 'COLORVISION' SETS Air King Announces Full Production Plans NEW Air King "Colorvision" TV receiver, which switches from standard black-and-white to CBS color reception with the turning of a knob, will command the company's entire production facilities "within a few months," D. H. Cogan, Air King Products president, said at the set's first demonstration, held in Brooklyn last week. Deliveries in "late summer or early fall" are scheduled for a $499 deluxe console and a $399 openfaced console model, both with effective 12% -inch screens, with lower-priced versions to come later, it was announced. The cost of additional components to add color to black-andwhite receivers will "dwindle to the vanishing point" with mass production, Mr. Cogan said. "Perhaps $1.50 in extra materials are used," he asserted. Tri-Color Tube CBS is in the process of acquiring Hytron Radio & Electronics Corp., of which Air King is a subsidiary. When the merger is effected, the receiver will be known as "CBS Columbia Colorvision," it was announced. A tri-color tube is under development by the parent company, Hytron Radio & Electronics Corp., Mr. Cogan continued. "Whenever a practical, economical tri color tube is able to be produced in mass quantity, it can be used very simply in receivers for the CBS system. The only doubt is how long it will take to get the tube into mass production. "We do not have neai'ly enough information," he emphasized, "to predict how long it will take to get into quantity production on a practical, economical tri-color tube that will have not only high definition and color fidelity but also satisfactory stability, tube life and ruggedness to withstand normal shopping and home conditions. There are many questions to be answered. The new receiver is 36% inches high, 32 inches across and 22-11/16 inches deep. It contains 27 tubes, including rectifiers and a 10-inch picture tube, which replaces the 12% -inch tube and permits a smaller cabinet and color disc. The picture is magnified to an effective 12% -inch screen size. According to I. Melmen, Air King engineer in charge of color TV research and development, the only components required in addition to those of black-and-white receivers are three vacuum tubes. "It is essentially trouble-free and the present retailers and servicemen would not have any more difficulty servicing this receiver than any present monochrome receiver," he said. Mr. Melmen said that under development also are "color converters . . . which will be adaptable and can be used with the majority of monochrome receivers on the market today. If any of the television manufacturers have included color sockets in their sets our converter can be plugged in any one of these and will receive color signals." Page 70 • June 11, 1951 Telecasting • BROADCASTING