Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1957)

ADVERTISERS & AGENCIES ALL THE TV THERE'S GOING TO BE Advertisers can plan through 1958 on present tv station lineup FOR the first time since tv began its spectacular growth, the buyer of television advertising can now plan campaigns in many major markets without wondering what service will be available a month or a year hence. As far as advertising planning is concerned, the tv station system is now fixed. The advertiser can budget and the agency can buy through 1957, and at least through 1958, in the knowledge that few important television station changes will occur in major population centers. Except for a handful of cases pending I at the FCC, and a few stations now under ; construction, all the stations that will be operating a year, two years, from now jare already operating. The buyer placing a •■ campaign next year will make his selection from a station list that in the main exists 'today. For his purposes he can ignore talk lout of Washington about television allocations changes. And there has been talk, much of which I may sound like gobbledegook to anyone who does not closely follow federal regulation. There are references to deintermixture, the ; Craven Plan, TASO, mileage separations, drop-ins, military invasion of the spectrum. None of this talk is idle. Several proposals now under study in Washington could profoundly change the pattern of television — !a decade from now. None can lead to any significant change this year or next. I The various proposals now before the FCC have many names and come from many motives. In one respect, however, they are commonly conceived. They all stem from fthe realization that Television 1957 is not j as big as it ought to be and that the blueprint by which the present station system j was built was imperfect. But any change significant enough to eliminate the graver scarcities in tv station distribution must be a major change. In government regulation, major changes take I place slowly. Meanwhile, here's how tv stands today, and will stand for quite a I while. Two weeks ago, the third vhf assignment j to Boston proper was made, the Commission bestowing its nod on WHDH-Boston-Herald j Traveler. In another few weeks remaining I final decisions should be handed down in the Seattle, San Francisco-Oakland, Buffalo and Orlando, Fla., cases. With these actions, the end of the line will have been reached in those bitterly contested tv comparative hearings for top markets which began in July 1952 when the tv "freeze" was ended. The "freeze" was imposed in 1948 when it was discovered that many tv stations had been placed too close to each other, involving mutual interference. At the same time, the question of additional frequencies for tv came to the fore, as did color tv. In 1952, the Commission ended the four year hiatus. It established a nationwide table of channel allocations, meeting specified mileage separations between stations on the same and on adjacent channels. It intermixed both vhf and uhf (only vhf channels had been in use prior to that time) in many markets — on the express hope that the extra channels would, after a shake down period, provide added competition in cities where there were limited numbers of vhf outlets (one or two in many instances). It was this decision to intermix which has caused the Commission the grief it has been facing in more recent years. The contemporary deintermixture proceedings seem to afford the fastest relief. In about 20 instances the FCC added or deleted a vhf channel from an intermixed market. This has been done on the basis that there should be "comparable" facilities in as many cities as possible. This has usually meant three such outlets — either all vhf or all uhf. So, with the final decisions in FCC top market hearing cases and with the deintermixture or "drop in" proposals which have already been made final or are still pending, the tv look for the country for the next few years — probably the next 10 — can be pictured. It is a canvas on which there are 62 markets with three or more comparable facilities among the top 125 markets. In these 62 markets, networks can each affiliate Santa Barbara, Calif.); Harrisburg, Pa. (all uhf); Houston-Galveston, Tex.; IndianapolisBloomington, Ind.; Kansas City, Mo.; Little Rock-Pine Bluff, Ark.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Louisville, Ky. (if ch. 7 is finally allocated there); Memphis, Tenn.; Miami, Fla. (where a fourth vhf, ch. 6, has been allocated); Milwaukee, Wis.; Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans, La. (where ch. 12 was assigned to make three vhf outlets); New York City, N. Y.; Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Va. (where ch. 13 has been assigned to make three vhf outlets); Oklahoma City, Okla.; Omaha, Neb.; Peoria, 111. (all uhf if the FCC goes through with its plan to move ch. 8 to Davenport-Rock IslandMoline); Philadelphia, Pa.-Wilmington, Del.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; -PortlandSalem, Ore. (with a fourth vhf, ch. 2, proposed for Vancouver, Wash.); Providence, R. I.-Fall River-New Bedford, Mass. (where a third vhf, ch. 8, is proposed) ; RichmondPetersburg, Va.; Sacramento-Stockton, Calif.; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Tex. And San Diego, Calif.-Tijuana, Mex.; San Francisco, Calif.; Scranton, Pa. (all uhf); Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.; SpartanburgGreenville-Anderson, S. C.-Asheville, N. C; Spokane, Wash.; St. Louis, Mo.; Syracuse, N. Y. (if the FCC goes through with its plan to move ch. 6 from Schenectady, N. Y.); Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. (with a third vhf. ch. 10, proposed for New Port TV IN THE 125 TOP MARKETS A Two-Year Guide for Tv Buyers — See Next Two Pages with an individual station. Advertisers can pick and choose among equal facilities. In alphabetical order, the 62 markets which now have at least three comparable facilities are these: Albuquerque, N. M.; Atlanta, Ga.; Baltimore, Md.; Beaumont-Port Arthur, Tex. (third vhf, ch. 12, was just allocated there); Boston-Manchester-Brockton, Mass.; Charleston-Huntington, W. Va.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Chicago, 111.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; DallasFort Worth, Tex.; Davenport, Iowa-Rock Island-Moline, 111. (third vhf, ch. 8, was just allocated there); Denver, Colo.; Des Moines, Iowa; Detroit, Mich. -Windsor, Canada; Duluth, Minn. -Superior, Wis. (where the third vhf, ch. 10, was just allocated); El Pasco, Tex.-Ciudad, Juarez, Mexico; Evansville, Ind. (where all outlets will be uhf if the Commission goes through with its order to move ch. 7 from Evansville to Louisville, Ky.). And Fresno, Calif, (where the outlets will be all uhf, if the FCC goes through with its plan to move ch. 12 from Fresno to Broadcasting Telecasting Richey, Fla., near Tampa-St. Petersburg); Tucson, Ariz.; Tulsa-Muskogee, Okla.; Washington, D. C; Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton, Pa. (all uhf); Wichita-Hutchinson, Kan., and Youngstown, Ohio (all uhf). It also will be noticed that 10 of these markets are all-uhf. In addition, in 10 of these cities, a third vhf has only recently been allocated; in some cases there are bound to be protracted legal battles before these channels are permanently assigned. Since 1954, the anguished cries of uhf broadcasters who found they could not compete with vhf stations have rung in the corridors of the FCC and in the halls of Congress. The solution which has been urged has been deintermixture. In June 1956, the Commission reached a tentative conclusion— which, if taken at face value, indicated that serious consideration was being given to moving television to the uhf portion of the radio spectrum — or if not all tv, at least a major chunk of it. The move to uhf would solve many May 6, 1957 • Page 35