Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

#13 One Vote Vernon A leading contender, 'Til he spoke on TV, Got nervous & flustered, Ran last out of three! BUT not with * WjePrompier JhaiHsu why. — ADVERTISERS PREFER TelePrompTer stations like WTVJ Channel 4 Miami WHO-TV Channel 13 Des Moines 0/0 U. S. Pat. No. Other Patents Pending TsUPromp/er Corpora/ion 300 W. 43 St., New York • JU 2-3800 LOS ANGELES CHICAGO WASHINGTON TORONTO GOVERNMENT SENATE STUDYING OWN ALLOCATION PLAN (Continued from page 23) room Thursday morning the Commerce Committee began the 1956 radio-tv hearings with testimony and senatorial comment that was certainly lively and somewhat enlightening. The first witness, FCC Chairman George C. McConnaughey, didn't even get to finish reading his prepared statement before being drawn by fiery Sen. John O. Pastore (D-R.I.) into the Hartford selective deintermixture case — one in which the Rhode Islander is fiercely partisan. Chairman Magnuson recessed the hearing to allow senators to get back to the floor where debate was in progress on the Natural Gas Bill. He postponed a planned second day of hearings (Friday) after several principals said they would have to be absent. On Friday Sen. Magnuson set Feb. 7 for resumption of the session with the FCC. But during the two hours these things took place: • FCC Chairman McConnaughey read part of and entered in the record all of a statement answering questions propounded by the Senate committee earlier this month. • Comr. Rosel H. Hyde, who with Comr. Robert T. Bartley, dissented to recent vhf grants in areas where deintermixture has been requested and denied, gave his own reasons why he thought the FCC majority was wrong in making the vhf grants. • Comr. Robert E. Lee went on record as favoring consideration of subscription tv for uhf stations under certain limitations. These limitations, he said, would be the possible regulation of subscription tv rates by the FCC and restriction of pay-tv time to a percentage, perhaps 10%, of a station's time schedule. • Sen. Andrew F. Schoeppel (R-Kan.) asked FCC views on: status of FCC negotiations with the military for new vhf frequencies, adequacy of the present allocations plan, selective deintermixture, a shift of all tv to uhf, status of the FCC's rule-making proceedings on subscription tv, specific suggestions on present problems. • Sen. Pastore said he thought the FCC's present allocations plan is in a "hopeless scramble"; that with present FCC philosophies deintermixture will never be achieved; that the FCC should deintermix Hartford, moving the single vhf channel allocated there to Providence and giving Hartford all uhf assignments. • He was challenged by Sen. William A. Purtell (R-Conn.), who wanted to know why Providence should get all the vhfs and Hartford the uhfs. (Although there are two uhf stations in the Hartford area, FCC approval of the sales of WGTH-TV Hartford, ch. 18, to CBS, and of WKNB-TV New Britain, ch. 30, to NBC, is pending. This would make probable the affiliation of contested ch. 3, when granted, with ABC. In Providence two vhf outlets, WJAR-TV and WPRO-TV, are in operation, but WNET [TV], ch. 16, has suspended.) Chairman McConnaughey in his statement outlined the FCC's plans and objectives in the $80,000 network study and said the special staff should complete the study by fiscal 1957 and submit a final report by the end of fiscal 1957. By the end of fiscal 1956, he said, "substantial" data will have been assembled on (1) organizational and financial development of networks; (2) revenues and costs of networks and their owned stations; (3) functioning of networks and national spot firms; (4) station choice of network and non-network program, and (5) affiliation contracts. He said that of 152 uhf stations which have begun operating, only 99 now are on the air and two-thirds of these operate at a loss. In the FCC's denial of the five selective deintermixture cases, he said, the FCC felt that petitions for individual deintermixture offered no nationwide solution. He cited the some 200 comments on the FCC's proposed rulemaking on tv allocations, saying they presented a large variety of proposals, some contemplating basic departures from the existing system and many mutually exclusive. Mr. McConnaughey said that the FCC ma Uhf Group Appeals to Congress, FCC A SPECIAL APPEAL to congressmen, emphasizing that more than a hundred of ihem "can't get on tv in their own district," was made to the nation's legislators last week by the Committee for Home Town Television Inc., an organization representing a group of "home town" tv stations in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. Timing its appeal to coincide with the opening of hearings by the Senate Commerce Committee in its current investigation of tv networks and uhf-vhf troubles (see story above), CHTT simultaneously sent copies of its statement to the FCC on the latter's allocations-deintermixture rule-making, to all congressmen and ran a full-page ad in Roll Call, a weekly tabloid circulated to congressional offices. CHTT, in commenting on the FCC's rulemaking procedure last December, asked for deintermixture, vhf drop-ins, restriction of a station's coverage to its trading area, simultaneous operation of a station on vhf and uhf until uhf conversion is 85% complete and changes in FCC policies and philosophy. The Roll Call ad, titled "Pity the Invisible Congressman," noted that many congressmen cannot appear before their own con stituents in this election year because the latter do not receive a tv service and warned that "there'll be plenty more if uhf-tv is scuttled." It was signed by Philip Merryman, WICC-TV Bridgeport, CHTT president. The ad noted the beginning of the Senate committee's hearings. At least one congressman reacted. Rep. Philip J. Philbin (D-Mass.) sent a statement to the Senate group urging "uniformity of reception in tv sets so . . . everyone . . . owning a tv set can enjoy all the programs" and asking that each community have its own tv outlet. Rep. Philbin commended CHTT and criticized failure of some stations to remain on the air in the evening (presumably because they have no network affiliation). He said only four of 22 uhf channels assigned in Massachusetts are operating and that these four are probably in the red. He said WWOR-TV Worcester (ch. 14) was forced to go off the air because of competition from Boston, Providence and Manchester vhf stations. He said the only way the four uhf outlets can remain on the air is to obtain vhf assignments from the FCC. Page 44 • January 30, 1956 Broadcasting • Telecasting