Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

PROGRAM SERVICES continued TV'S THE COMPETITION— JOHNSTON Speaking last Wednesday to the Theatre Owners of America convention in Miami Beach, Eric Johnston pinpointed areas in which television is affecting the life of America and the business operations of movie makers and exhibitors. The president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America told delegates that tv will not eliminate movies and vice versa. Accordingly, he urged a realistic appraisal of tv in this portion of his address. (See main TO A story page 66.) Today more people in the United States are seeing motion pictures than ever before. The total weekly audience is estimated at 250 million. For us there's only one trouble with this remarkable statistic. Only about 45 million on the average see motion pictures in theatres. The rest see them on television. Today more people see baseball than ever before. In season, the weekly viewers run into the high millions. For the baseball owners, there's only one flaw in this glowing figure. These millions aren't crowding the bleachers and grandstands. Most are watching on television. These are just two symptoms of change in America's leisure time, in the new habits and customs and activities of the American people in the past decade. The change in leisure activities is still in hectic process. In the motion picture business, the change is" revolutionary. . . . Today the world is in the midst of an electronic revolution. Already it has had a tremendous effect on people everywhere. One of its developments, television, is reshaping the entertainment business. The impact on the motion picture industry has been far-reaching. Prudence requires us to understand its meaning for us. There are two aspects of television I'd like to discuss. One is the existing system of commercially-sponsored broadcast television. The other is the still unborn system of pay television. They are separate and we ought to separate them in our minds. With respect to commercial television there are four facts we ought to face squarely. ( 1 ) Commercial television has put 40 million screens into the homes of America within 10 brief and spectacular years. Today 80% of America's households have television sets. Their number will increase and they will improve in technical quality in the years ahead. (2) Commercial television has supplanted our 19,000 theatres as the chief purveyor of mass entertainment in the United States. Its audience is almost five times bigger than ours. Television competes directly with us for the leisure time of America's population. (3) Commercial television has an insatiable appetite for program material of all kinds. It relies heavily on motion pictures, on filmed programs. Television's appetite for film will increase — it will not diminish — in the years ahead. (4) Commercial television can pay for what it needs. It is already a gigantic industry. This year, television's total advertising revenue will come to $1.3 billion — Page 70 • November 25, 1957 more than the total annual receipts from all the theatres in the U. S. It is estimated that in five years tv's income will reach $2 billion. This is almost as much as American pictures take in annually at the box office in all the theatres in the world. Why do I mention these four facts about present-day commercial television? I mention them because tv is obviously our toughest competitor today and may get tougher tomorrow. There are some in our business who say we should compete with television by ignoring it. Some say we should fight it at every step. Some would do this by keeping our stars off tv. Some would do it by keeping our films off television. Let's examine these proposals. What about ^^^^^^^^^^^j keeping ^the stars off MR. Johnston firmly-contracted stable of stars. Today the stars are independent entrepreneurs. They make their own independent decisions. Really, does anyone who knows our business believe the stars could be kept off television? Now what about keeping old films off television? That brings up a question or two. First of all, is it true that television grew mighty on old Hollywood films? To believe this is to deceive ourselves. Television was born and made its great early advance on live programming. This period of television's sharp rise was also the period of our most precipitous drop at the box office. In those years, we were not competing with our own films on tv — we were competing with television itself! The revolution that hit the entertainment business hit Hollywood just as hard as it did the theatres. I can tell you quite frankly that some of the studios were lucky to get through that period. The studios had pictures in the vaults in which the theatres were no longer interested. At this point, television came along to buy old films. I assume we all believe in the free enterprise system, in the open market place. Certainly we do when our own interests are at stake. If you had old films on the shelf and someone wanted to buy them, would you drive him indignantly from the prem ises? I don't think so. I don't believe you think so either. I think we can only plan wisely and boldly for our future if we realize that we cannot eliminate television . . . and if we realize just as confidently that television cannot possibly eliminate us. Let's now switch off commercial television and turn on pay television. Nobody knows the future for pay tv, or subscription television, or toll television, or whatever it may be called. But we do know one thing — that its future will be determined by the American public. We know this because pay television must eventually put to the public this basic question: Do you want a box office in your home? Reduced to its core, that's what pay television is really about — whether the public wants to pay in the home for motion picture and other entertainment. If the public answers "Yes," it will have a profound effect on our business, on television, on the entire entertainment field. If the public votes "No," then television will continue on its present advertiser-supported course. Pay television is now in a testing period. What should our attitude be toward these tests? I think we should look upon them all as research projects, out of which might come developments that could affect our way of doing business, the business of us all — the exhibitor, the distributor, the producer. George Liberace Sets Up Firm George Liberace is ending a long professional association with his pianist brother and is setting up George Liberace Enterprises at 5800 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, the violinist-orchestra leader has announced. George Liberace Enterprises will handle personal management of television personalities and packaging of tv shows. Mr. Liberace also is considering personal appearances on tv and is developing his own show. Formation of the new company signifies no rift between the brothers, Mr. Liberace's announcement said, but is a move that had been under consideration for some time. PROGRAM SERVICE SHORTS Spotlite News, N. Y., announces 1958 Manhattan Newsfilm Directory. Printed compilation of tv news and motion picture contacts, phone numbers and addresses in New York City, Connecticut and Philadelphia. Free copies are available from Spotlite News, 60 W. 46th St., N. Y., 1958 Southland Newsfilm Directory, providing similar listings of newsreel organizations in southern California, also is available from N. Y. office. Len Simpson & Assoc., L. A., publicity firm, announces move to 6331 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood 28: Alan C. Russell Marketing Research Inc. announces acquisition of additional space at 147 E. 50th St., New York 22, N. Y. Telephone: Plaza 1-3990. Broadcasting