Broadcasting Telecasting (July - Sept 1952)

HEWS STOPPER i itate Dept. Would Liberalize I TATE Dept. has notified the merican Newspapers Publishers ssn. it will seek to liberalize cerin provisions of the Atlantic City slecommunications Treaty on posble press censorship. ANPA protested last week that te treaty as written invites press nsorship "by many countries." asserted the U. S. should refuse sign the treaty unless articles >vering transmission of press essages are revised. Complaint ras filed with Francis Colt DeWolf , epartment telecommunications ofcial, by ANPA General Manager Iranston William. A plenipotentiary conference of ae International Telecommunicaions Union gets underway in Bue;os Aires this Friday with Mr. DeVolf leading the U. S. delegation s chairman. He and other mem'(srs of the State Dept. and FCC /ere leaving New York last Saturday for the conference, slated a last until Dec. 15. Mr. DeWolf advised Broadcaststg« Telecasting he had notified JSTPA that the department is , sympathetic to its view" and 'ould seek modification of Article 9 of the convention to obviate any ossibility of peacetime press cenorship. ANPA "strongly objects" on Arounds that "under its present Reading any dispatch during peaceime can be willfully delayed or ransmission stopped." Mr. Wilams said that censorship "should j e limited to military requirements itfsnly." Changes tentatively were greed on earlier in conferences »-|i'btween FCC and newspapers, he '♦dded. I Purpose of the Buenos Aires conirence is to review the work acJ Jamplished thus far on implementation of ITU's allocations table j" Jjr radio spectrum frequency. Bud-et and administrative problems Iso will be discussed. Meeting f a followup to one held at Geneva ist December. Plenipotentiary leets are held every five years nder provisions of the telecomit i' mnications treaty negotiated in WPDQ Jacksonville, Fla., made it possible for housewives of the area to conduct an hour-long interview with Tighe Woods, new director of the Office of Price Stabilization, when he visited Jacksonville on Sept. 18 — and may have set a national pattern in the process. It was announced in advance that Mr. Woods would appear on the Anne Daly Show on WPDQ and answer questions . sent in by listeners. The result: More questions than Mr. Woods could answer in the hour's air time, plus this quote atributed to him by the station: "We are going to continue with WPDQ's idea by having other state committees make similar arrangements. This use of radio to get 'grass roots' opinion is extremely effective." Atlantic City, N. J., in 1947. The ITU convention is designed to accommodate all frequencies within the radio spectrum, with 50 or 60 participating nations pledging themselves as signatories. Other members of the U. S. delegation are expected to be: Harvey Otterman, State Dept. Telecommunications Staff, serving as vice chairman; Louis DelaFleur, engineer, FCC; Florence Trail, John D. Tomlinson, Sidney Cummins and Muccio Delgado (Voice of America), State Dept.; Capt. E. D. Bertholt, Defense Dept. (Navy); Philip Siling, RCA; Chauncey McPherson, American Cable & Radio Corp. (AT&T); C. K. Collins, AT&T; Fred Meinholtz, New York Times, an ANPA member. Benedict Cottone, FCC general counsel, was originally named to the delegation but was later withdrawn by the Commission. FARRELL DAYTIMER Examiner Proposes Grant1 STATION on 1470 kc with 500 w daytime for Farrell, Pa., is proposed in an initial decision released Sept. 18. Sanford A. Schafitz, applicant for Farrell, is a transformer design engineer for Westinghouse Electric Crop., Sharon, Pa. the cornerstone of every advertising campaign in New Haven and New England WNHC represented by/the Jtalz tyency KPRC OFFERS Equipment to Educators TELEVISION facilities valued at more than $150,000 have been placed at the disposal of the Houston, Tex., School Board by the Houston Post Co., licensee of KPRC-AM-FM-TV that city. Offer was made by former Gov. W. P. Hobby, Houston Post Co.. president, and Oveta Culp Hobby, executive vice president. A similar offer was made to the U. of Houston Board of Regents. The two educational organizations are joint licensees of Channel 8, Houston's non-commercial educational outlet. Acceptance of the offer was indicated by Holger Jeppesen, chairman of the school board's TV committee, who said: "I find this one of the most generous offers we've ever had. There was no price tag on this but by checking I've found that we stand to get equipment valued in excess of $150,000." The Hobbys in a letter to the board noted their interest in educational TV and "for these reasons, the Houston Post Co. has decided to offer to you, as a gift, certain of its present facilities. . . . These include without attempting to be specific, the studio building; sets and props; transmittal building; office, storage and shop space; 500foot tower and its facilities. ..." The letter pointed out that should the offer be accepted, Channel 8 would be on the air sooner than anticipated. The gift will be effective about Feb. 1 when a new plant being constructed for KPRC-TV will be ready for occupancy. CBC REPEATERS Will Add 20 Stations TO GIVE more adequate coverage of network programs to isolated Canadian communities, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is building 20 additional 50-w transmitters to act as repeaters throughout Canada. This brings the total of such CBC repeater stations to 47. Most of these are located in railway telegraph offices and connected to the main CBC network landline system. They require little service, operate automatically, are started and stopped by the local telegraph operator and take their programs from the nearest CBC station. The new repeater stations will be located, from East to West, at Grand Falls, N.B. ; Megantic, Que. ; Chapleau, Long Lac, Geraldton, Beardmore, Red Rock and Jamestown, north of Lake Superior in Ontario; at Jasper, Banff, Coleman and Blairmore in Alberta; at Natal, Hutton, McBride, Foster, Golden, Grand Forks, Greenwood and Lytton in the Rocky Mts. . region of British Columbia. Date construction starts, when stations will go on the air, frequencies and call letters, have not yet been announced. THEATRE TAX Councilman Asks Repeal PHILADELPHIA Councilman Victor H. Blanc has asked for the end of the theatre tax in order to take people away from television. He thinks the city ought to drop entirely its amusement tax, which he called discriminatory and unfair. Mr. Blanc spoke as a member of City Council's finance committee which has been hearing a proposed ordinance to make tax free entertainment presented by religious, educational and charitable institutions. Mr. Blanc said the city should do something to encourage people to go to theatres and movies "where everybody benefits" because the citizen also enters stores and restaurants. It would be a good idea "to get them away from television," he said. Kobak Talk Slated EDGAR KOBAK, business consultant, owner of WTWA Thomson, Ga., and president of the Advertising Research Foundation, will make an address titled "No Charts, No Graphs, No Facts, Just Bare Hands" at the 11th annual luncheon of The Pulse Inc., broadcast audience measurement organization, to be held Oct. 22 at New York's Hotel Biltmore. Mr. Gene Edward Markit Man Buchanan-Thomas Adv. Agency Omaha, Neb., U.S.A. Dere Gene: TW boss sez yourself a new you done went and got job with a swell outfit. We got a fine s h o w f r u m your company for thim Tidy House producks and our promoshun man h a z b in o ut callin' on grocurs with your man. Whin you take a luk at this markit, be shure and not u c e t h e t WCHS with 5.000 on 580 covirs 32 counties in t h' State. A feller with th' initials of B.M.B. sez thet more peeple in th' state I i s s e n s to WCHS then to any othur stashun. T h at s share a good reckord and we're a tryin' to keep makin' it better. Yrs. for DeXoL, Algy. WCHS Charleston, W. Va. ROADCASTING • Telecasting September 29, 1952 • Page 107