Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1955)

0 NARTB CONVENTION interested delegates who ignored the warmish surroundings to look and learn. Co-chairmen of the Convention Committee were Clair R. McCollough, Steinman Stations, for tv and Henry Clay, KWKH Shreveport, La., for radio. A topical summary of the week's principal developments follows: THE PRESIDENT Historically, the one truly notable event of the meeting was President Eisenhower's tribute to the role radio-tv are taking in keeping the nation and the world informed, a role that offers the way to win the cold war and insure world peace. His appearance, the first made by a president at a broadcasters convention, moved him to hope that future presidents "will find it not only convenient but practically necessary to appear before you and tell you, in their turn, what is on their hearts at the moment." This suggestion moved FCC Chairman George C. McConnaughey to urge broadcasters to see that the President appears at the convention every year "for the next five years" — an informal reference to the 1956 elections that drew a chuckle from the 3,000-plus audience. President Eisenhower spoke without text or prompting apparatus. He found a sympathetic audience in prescribing government's role to decisions on who is to use channels and adherence to the rules of decency. He counseled stations on their responsibility to the public and in effect urged separation of news and editorial matter. Finally he urged broadcasters to work out ways of keeping their "great media free in the truest sense of the word." CAPITOL HILL Assurance that the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee will conduct a fair and objective study, with the hope that service to the industry will serve the public, was given Thursday noon by Chairman Warren G. Magnuson. He said the "study" will begin after recess of Congress, probably before mid-August, and will not be an "investigation." The chairman firmly declared his faith in the American system of free broadcasting and promised to work for deletion of the excise tax on tv sets as a way of helping uhf. He said network-station relationships will be reviewed as well as the FCC allocation plan. A better-listen-to-daddy approach was taken by Sen. Magnuson's opposite number, Chairman J. Percy Priest (D-Tenn.) of the House Commerce Commitee. The way heat is being turned on legislators, he said, it's doubtful if broadcasters would be able to get the freedom specified in the 1927 and 1934 radio laws if the act were being written today. He warned that demand for repeal of the charter of freedom, or at least a change, may come if the feeling grows in Congress that broadcasters are abdicating responsibilities to networks and advertising agencies or advertisers. Nearly a dozen state associations held breakfast meetings with the lawmakers. THE COMMISSION A packed ballroom tuned in for the annual face-to-face meeting with the seven FCC Commissioners. The banter, and banging, were good listening even if few major issues were solved. The regulators cheerfully submitted to the open-door Commission meeting, and let go an occasional shot at each other in a healthy swapping of ideas. If a decision were rendered on the oratorical point system, Comr. Frieda Hennock probably would get the fans' nod. At one point she and Comr. John C. Doerfer stood toe-to-toe on the matter of free political time. The matchmakers had ruled out the prime topic of all— subscription tv. This is a pending question at FCC and it was relegated to official procedure rather than the convention forum. Topics discussed included newspaper ownership, which Comr. Lee favored and Comr. Hennock opposed, with Chairman McConnaughey not opposed to the idea; daytime station uniform hours; higher power for 250 watters; military grabbing of spectrum space; educational reservations, and revision of the j protest rule. Turn about is fair play, it was decided, so the Commissioners asked broadcasters to list the regulatory questions that concern them most. In his separate speech Tuesday noon Chair | man McConnaughey said FCC will soon dispense a plan to up the maximum power of uhf stations from one million to five million watts. The FCC staff, he said, is working on another let's-help-uhf project — a probe of the chance of getting set-makers to turn out more sensitive uhf receivers. He favored an FCC study of | networks, and the whole industry, as well; wondered if license renewals were being processed with out-of -fashion tools; held out for I quick decisions on long-standing daytime-sky | wave and clear-channel proceedings; urged a ! speedup in FCC operations and flatly came out for as few government controls as possible. Chairman McConnaughey's belief that three | tv networks can survive, expressed before Rep. j Priest's committee last month, was relayed to j broadcasters by the Tennessee Democrat. When the committee head brought this out, I the FCC Chairman readily confirmed the state ' ment, saying he wasn't sure about a fourth or | fifth. RADIO There was one encouraging sign that no delegate missed — the dramatic evidence that radio once more is on the march. A year ago, they ■ recalled, a speaker had chided radio broadcasters for their weak-kneed selling and defensive attitude. Kevin B. Sweeney, Radio Adver i tising Bureau president, put it eloquently in I these words, "... the biggest, fastest growing, most changed and America's newest advertising t medium." Wednesday was Radio Day, and homeward ' bound broadcasters felt a new confidence as ad j vertisers themselves told how the medium brings , in customers. Corridors buzzed all day and j into the night after David J. Mahoney, president j of the New York agency bearing his name, called it a "vibrant medium" going through a | "transitional period" and then proceeded to j show how powerful radio advertising now is and | how powerful it is going to be. CBS Radio stuck to recent convention tradition by coming up with a radio rate revision J but ran into affiliate objections. Instead of j cutting night rates (1954 convention) or revising 1 the card downward (1951 convention), CBS Radio offered its affiliates a single rate for all | time periods. The CBS Radio Affiliates Assn. board agreed I to this single rate but it balked at an allied plan to cut affiliates compensation 25%. To offset this 25% cut, CBS Radio offered to give stations more 70-second station breaks for local sale, day and night. Affiliates and network will continue to study j rate revision. They have until Aug. 25, when the present contracts expire. Radio can learn a few public relations tech | niques from the tv code of ethics, it was pointed out by E. R. Vadeboncoeur, WSYR Syracuse. MBS announced a plan for more flexibility in network selling. It includes six-second commercials within the network's identification cue. Mutual made clear that it intends to survive despite predictions that only one or two radio j networks may be operating in two or three years. ABC flatly declared itself against further cuts in network radio time costs, no matter what j others do. ABC President Robert E. Kintner and other top officials defended network radio Broadcasting • Telecasting B»T GOLF trophies are awarded to Joseph M. Higgins (I), general manager of WTHI Terre Haute, Ind., and Marshall H. Pengra, general manager, KLTV (TV) Tyler, Tex., by Vice President Richard Nixon. The tournament took place May 22 at Goose Creek Country Club, Leesburg, Va. [see story, page 92.] Page 28 May 30, 1955