Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

SPECIAL REPORT ON TOLL TV continued BARTLESVI LLE REVISITED Telemovies has ups and downs, but it's too early to predict outcome Nine weeks ago when Video Independent Theatres Inc. started piping movies into Bartlesville home tv sets by wire, BROADCASTING Associate Editor Earl B. Abrams was on the scene [LEAD STORY, Sept. 9]. Since then there have been many conflicting reports on the project's progress. To get a clear picture, Senior Editor J. Frank Beatty last week revisited Bartlesville for this on-the-spot report. The eyes of the entertainment and media worlds are on the high-income city of Bartlesville. in northeastern Oklahoma, but hardly anyone in the city is aware that there is anything historic or unusual about the paid living-room movies that go into 545 homes. Two months of Telemovie (TM) service have produced important lessons on the way a new communications service should be started. Business observers and pulse feelers who have swarmed over the place have left with a lot of TM information but few conclusions. No careful observer has been willing to predict flatly that TM will work, won't work or even that it may provide an extra income for movie theatre operators — somewhere between the dollars gained from popcorn and from screen advertising. Even Henry S. Griffing, president of Video Independent Theatres Inc., doesn't figure he can decide in less than a year whether TM will work. He has a lot at stake — a possible $50,000 loss for the first year. In addition he has plans to hook up over a score of cities, including such places as Oklahoma City, if this new medium catches hold in Bartlesville. The 545 homes hooked up Nov. 1 will produce a TM box office take of $5,000 in November, plus any income from new subscribers joining early in the month — provided they all pay their $9.79 monthly bills. This $9.79 caught quite a few subscribers by surprise, since the list price of TM is $9.50. Local folk are accustomed to taxes, so they seem to be accepting the extra levy without much grousing. The extra 29 cents is caused by a 2% state tax (19^) and a 1% city tax (10«0. The city tax is levied on Video Independent's TM subsidiary, Vumore Co., and passed on to the consumer. "Our collections are very good," said C. O. Fulgham, vice president of Video Independent Theatres. Not all was bright in Bartlesville at the end of October, however. A little flurry of cancellations was apparent to an observer around the beautiful Vumore TM plant. These apparently could be traced in part to unhappiness about the October films fed over the two TM circuits — first runs on ch. 3 and reruns on ch. 5. Video Independent people conceded privately there had been some dogs in the programming, nothing new to theatre operators. But they brightened when they looked over the list of November features. An unexpected hazard hit Bartlesville at the month end when the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Committee got into the act. Video Independent executives were wondering what senatorial snoopers might do if they started prowling around Oklahoma. Most every home in Bartlesville received a letter from Sen. William Langer (R-N.D.) and mostly they thought it was pretty strange business for a senator to send what was widely deemed a loaded questionnaire. A lot of them were impressed, however, and sent in answers (see Langer story, page 60). After two months Vumore is getting ready to do its first hard-selling of TM. Thus far the promotion has been designed to let Bartlesville and the nation know that TM was in operation. Now Vumore is getting ready for door-to-door selling and would like to see at least another 200 subscribers by Dec. 1. Bartlesville revisited offers these observations: • Tv sets in TM homes are working overtime. • Movie attendance doesn't seem to have suffered: any drop-off could easily be ascribed to such things as flu. • Censoring of movies isn't an apparent problem and scarcely any complaints have been heard about the moral aspect of TM films. • The quality of TM signals isn't considered any better than the three Tulsa tv signals by most TM subscribers contacted by Broadcasting. Some complain of fuzzy edges, cropping of people in the scenes and Page 64 • November 4, 1957 Broadcasting