Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

WSES (TV) FIRST TO SEEK PAY TV • Philadelphia uhf files toll application with FCC • Proposed fees: $30 annually plus $1 per program of the House Un-American Activities Committee, ran afoul of the Rayburn ban last summer when he permitted live television coverage of hearings in San Francisco [Government, July 1]. Excise Tax Subcommittee of House Ways & Means Committee: This subcommittee, headed by Rep. Aime Forand (DR. I.), met two weeks ago in executive session to decide what recommendation it would make on the removal of the 10% excise tax on uhf tv receivers. The committee has four such bills pending. No announcement of the committee's planned recommendation has been made, and conflicting reports have circulated as to whether the group has decided on any definite stand. The parent committee's new chairman, Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D-Ark.), in the past has been an outspoken foe of any tax cuts. Under the House seniority rules, Rep. Mills is slated to become chairman following the death of Rep. Jere Cooper (DTenn.) [Government, Dec. 23]. Legal & Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee: A subcommittee, headed by Rep. John A. Blatnik (D-Minn.), held hearings last summer on cigarette and weight reducing ads and plans more hearings during 1958. Tranquilizers are slated as the next target, with hearings also planned on the advertising by cold remedies, vitamins and other products. The committee currently is awaiting a staff report on last summer's hearings. FCC Would Deny WLOF Protest The FCC has issued staff instructions denying a protest by WLOF-AM-TV Orlando, Fla., of the Commission's action last February granting WESH-TV Daytona Beach, Fla., permission to move its transmitter to a point of almost equal distance between Orlando and Daytona Beach [Government, Feb. 11]. Also originally protesting the WESH-TV grant were WDBO-AM-FM-TV and WKISAM-FM, both Orlando. The FCC ordered a hearing on the move but refused to stay the grant [Government, April 15]. The Commission's instructions do not constitute a final decision but is an announcement of proposed disposition, the FCC stated. FCC Sets Hearing on Ch. 8 Move Acting on a protest filed by ch. 22 WWLP (TV) Springfield, Mass., the FCC last Thursday postponed the effective date and set for hearing the authorization for ch. 8 WNHC-TV New Haven, Conn., to move its transmitter site. WWLP claimed the ultimate consequence of the shift would be the economic destruction of WWLP and ch. 40 WHVN-TV Springfield. The grant, made without hearing Oct. 30, shifts the WNHCTV transmitter from its present location nine miles north of New Haven and 26V2 miles southwest of Hartford to a point 20 miles from New Haven and 14'/2 miles from Hartford. A uhf permittee in Philadelphia won the honor of being the first applicant to the FCC for permission to charge for telecasts. Ch. 29 WSES (TV) Philadelphia— which has held a construction permit since March 28, 1956— last Thursday asked the Commission for authority to operate a toll tv outlet. It proposes to use the Skiatron system of punch card decoding and plans to offer a series of sports events to an expected 300,000 subscribers. Subscribers will be charged a yearly fee of $30 for each home receiver connection, plus $1 per program (or $100 and $5 for "commercial" establishments). There also will be a "nominal" installation charge. WSES said it plans to buy encoding and decoding equipment from manufacturers and retain title in its own name. The station plans to maintain and service this apparatus itself, the application said. The permission sought is the result of the FCC's announcement last October that it was prepared to accept applications for a three-year trial period of subscription tv from stations only [Government, Oct. 21]. The FCC also said then that it would not grant any pay tv authority until March 1, 1958. This has been taken to mean that Congress may, if it desires, take some legislative action to guide the Commission. Pending are several bills prohibiting the charging of fees for television broadcasts (see page 54). Experimental pay tv is confined to those cities which have at least four Grade A tv signals. Philadelphia meets this requirement, WSES noted. The Commission's notice also said that no system of toll tv would be permitted if it interfered with other radio services or causes degradation of the tv signal. There is none such, according to WSES. The Commission also qualified to three the number of cities in which the various pay tv systems could be used. WSES is licensed to Philadelphia Broadcasting Co. It is owned by William L. Jones, 57%; Isadore B. Sley, 29%, and Murray Borkon, 14%. Its address is Western Savings Fund Bldg., Philadelphia. Mr. Jones is in the coal business. Mr. Sley is a parking lot and garage owner, and Mr. Borkon is associated in the community tv system building and operating business. At one time, Theodore R. Hanff, a stockholder in a highway toll bridge company, was president. In its application for the ch. 29 pay tv facility, WSES proposed to spend $445,000 for construction and $520,000 on first year operating costs. In its toll tv application, WSES said that the transmitter coding equipment is contained in three portable cases, each 8x24x17in. Two of the cases weigh 25 lbs. each, the third, containing the power supply, weighs 65 lbs. The total number of tubes in the transmitting gear is 93, the application stated. The system to be used was described as follows: "In the Skiatron system, the coding of the video portion of the broadcast is achieved by continually and randomly shifting the phase relationship between video signals and the horizontal synchronizing pulses on a field-to-field basis. Inversion of polarity causing whites in the picture to appear black and vice versa is also employed to provide a higher degree of scrambling. Privacy of the audio portion of the broadcast is achieved by displacement of the sound to higher audio frequencies which remain unintelligible until restored to normal range by the decoder." Since most if not all receivers in Philadelphia are vhf (Philadelphia has three vhf stations operating, ch. 3 WRCV-TV, ch. 6 WFIL-TV and ch. 10 WCAU-TV, plus ch. 12 WVUE (TV) Wilmington, Del.), WSES proposes to use an all-channel converter to convert receivers to the uhf band as part of the decoder. The key to decoding is an IBM punch card, containing printed circuits which will activate the decoder and provide a record of the programs viewed. The decoder circuit has 8 tubes. The package for handling coding, phase shift, audio unscrambling and associated circuits is an 8x1 lx31/2-in. plastic card. The subscriber uses the card in the decoder, then turns the selector to the desired program and presses a button on the decoder. This punches the card (for billing purposes) and activates the decoder. The cards will be mailed periodically to subscribers and will have printed on them a list of the special events other than the sports series, like movies, opera, concerts, symphonies, legitimate theatre presentations, etc. Subscribers will be billed quarterly for the annual fee. They will have to mail in their punch cards, so WSES can bill for the programs seen. The sports series — which is similar to the program outlined by the ch. 29 grantee in its filings on the pay tv docket — will include the Philadelphia Warriors, professional basketball team; Philadelphia Phillies, National League baseball team; U. of Pennsylvania, Villanova U.. Temple U., St. Joseph's College and LaSalle College, all of which play at the U. of Pennsylvania's Palestra Stadium, and the Philadelphia Eagles, National Football League team. WSES said it already has a contract agreement with the Warriors and that it was engaged in negotiations with the other sports groups. In addition, the applicant said, it will offer, free of charge, other special sporting events like boxing, intercollegiate sports (track, golf, polo, swimming), etc. The uhf permittee emphasized that "without exception" there would be no commer Broadcasting December 30, 1957 • Page 57