Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1955)

Tv Week in the combined Dallas-Fort Worth market. J. B. Anger, assistant sales manager of Motorola Inc., noted electronics has become the second largest durable goods industry in the world within eight years. He predicted that Dallas-Fort Worth would purchase 106,000 tv and 175,000 home and automobile radio sets in the next six months. Adv. Federation 7th District i Elects Atkins as Governor GEORGE W. P. ATKINS, Southern Adv. Service Inc., Birmingham, last week was elected governor of the Seventh (Deep South) District of the Advertising Federation of America at the district's annual convention. Mr. Atkins succeeds Arthur E. Burdge, Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, as representative of the district on the AFA board of directors. Other officers elected were: Lester Gingold, Sears, Roebuck Co., Memphis, first lieutenant governor; John L. Daniel, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., Baton Rouge, second lieutenant governor; Martin Johnson, social security administrator, Mobile, third lieutenant governor; Hal Yockey, Pan American Southern Corp., New Orleans, treasurer, and Clarence Bishop, Protective Life Insurance Co., Birmingham, secretary. Georgia Broadcasters Name Institute Committee W. C. WOODALL Jr., general manager, WDWD Dawson, Ga., has been named chairman of the 1956 Georgia Radio & Television Institute, to be held at the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism, Georgia U., next Jan. 25-27. Other members of the committee, as named by Glenn Jackson, WAGA Atlanta, president of the Georgia Assn. of Broadcasters, are: Hugh K. Tollison, WGIG Brunswick; Archie Grinalds, WBIA Augusta; Dwight Bruce, WTOC Savannah; Charles Smithgall, WGGA Gainesville and WRGA Rome, and ex-officio, John E. Drewry, dean, Henry W. Grady School of Journalism. Hyde# Weber, Bailey to Address Transmission Group of IRE SPEAKERS for the uhf-vhf panel discussion at the Sept. 23 banquet of the fifth annual fall symposium of the Institute of Radio Engineers' Professional Group on Broadcast Transmission Systems will be FCC Comr. Rosel H. Hyde; Fred Weber, WHTN-TV Huntington, W. Va., and Stuart L. Bailey, Jansky & Bailey Inc., it was announced last week. They take the place of FCC Comr. Edward M. Webster and C. M. Jansky who have been called abroad for an international conference, it was explained. Dr. W. L. Everitt, engineering dean, U. of Illinois, will be banquet toastmaster. The IRE meeting, whose theme is "New Perspectives in the Field of Broadcasting," will take place this Friday and Saturday in Washington's Hamilton Hotel. The meeting will hear papers by various broadcast industry engineers, ranging from color tv to fm multiplex arrangements [B»T, Aug. 29]. Call MUrray Hill 8-1088 Venard, Rintoul & McConnell, Inc. W J T N ^ Jamestown, New York GOVERNMENT FCC WONT HURRY TO TAKE UP TOLL TV Chairman McConnaughey says other problems — like uhf-vhf and de-intermixture come first. Meanwhile, staff studies subscription tv comments. ANY hope that the future course of the FCC's study of subscription tv would become known soon was dashed last week when FCC Chairman George C. McConnaughey said that the problems of uhf and vhf television, including de-intermixture, came first. Meanwhile, Mr. McConnaughey pointed out, the Broadcast Bureau's Rules & Standards Division was engaged in digesting the comments and countercomments which have been filed with the Commission. These digests will be furnished to the commissioners, the FCC chairman said, so that they can study them before the subject formally comes up before the commissioners. When that may be, Mr. McConnaughey said, was unknown. He emphasized that the uhf-vhf problem was scheduled to be gone into early in October and that it was one of the most important subjects that the FCC has had before it. Still unanswered is the question whether the FCC will require oral argument, a full-fledged hearing and demonstrations on the controversial pay tv proposals. Mr. McConnaughey's remarks reveal that the answer to that question may be a long time coming. On other toll tv fronts: • A full-fledged forum — running for three days — began last Thursday night over WCPOTV Cincinnati. Panelists for the first show (7-7:30 p.m.) were Ted Leitzell, Zenith; Robert Hall, Skiatron; Paul McNamara, International Telemeter. The Cincinnati Posfs editor, Dick Thornburg, was moderator. Code Security Challenged The Friday night show (6:30-7:30 p.m.) was to comprise the above plus Milton Shapp, Jerrold; Greg Flettelan, Zenith, and Trueman Rembusch, Allied Theatres. Dr. John D. Millet, Miami U. president, was to be moderator. Mr. Shapp was expected to issue directly to the pay tv proponents his challenge to run a test on the security of their code formulas. He has declared on several occasions that the security element of the scrambled signals proposed by the three adherents of pay tv could be broken easily and that over-the-air pay tv would institute an era of bootlegging. On Saturday, a demonstration of the three subscription tv systems was scheduled (3:304:30 p.m.), following which an on-the-air news conference was to be broadcast (5:30-6:30 p.m.). Cincinnati Mayor Carl Rich was scheduled to moderate the news conference, with all members of the panel on hand to answer questions. • Call for Theatre Network Tv to furnish its pickup of tomorrow's Marciano-Moore fight free to veteran's hospitals was made last week by Ted Leitzell, Zenith public relations director. In a letter to Nathan L. Halpern, Mr. Leitzell said that it was Zenith's intention, if Phonevision were authorized, to make all pay tv programs available free of charge to VA hospitals. "There can be no legitimate criticism of your purchasing tv rights to this fight, or to any other event, for exclusive showing in theatres," Mr. Leitzell wrote. "It is your inherent competitive right to bid against everybody for any event, and it is obvious that tv advertising sponsors cannot bid successfully against the theatre for good box office events. While it is unfortunate that this fight should be blacked out for everybody except the small minority that can pay $3 to $5 admission at the theatre, it is equally obvious that televising the fight into the home would wreck your theatre box office." • In addition to KGUL-TV Galveston, the Washington (D. C.) Star's WMAL-TV was the only other station which filed reply comments on the subject of scrambled toll tv [B»T, Sept. 12]. WMAL-TV, which furnished scrambled signals for the Zenith pay tv demonstration during the NARTB convention in Washington last May, said that it had concluded that fee tv "is completely incompatible with the operation of a regular broadcasting station." Declaring that its decision was based upon philosophical and ethical grounds, WMAL-TV said: "Regular television broadcasting stations cannot intermingle fee-tv in their present programming because this would create a conflict of purpose that would make it impossible to operate equitably in the public interest, convenience and necessity." The Washington station's opposition was based on the fact that fee tv income would be so tremendous it could outbid all others for programs and for station time. This would not occur, WMAL-TV said, if WMAL-TV channel 7 in Washington, D. C, is now Greater Coverage of the multi-billion dollar Washington market Greater ABC-TV Programs backed by unparalleled audience promotion 1 UREASE II RATES Ask the Katz Agency Broadcasting • Telecasting September 19, 1955 • Page 201