Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1961)

'Surrounding Sound' inaugurated at KALL Something new has been added to broadcast sound, an element that gives a listener the effect of "live" music and speech, as heard in a concert hall or theatre, to sound emanating from the single speaker of an ordinary radio or tv receiver. It's Surrounding Sound, an electronic device developed (at a cost of more than $1 million) and produced by Surrounding Sound Inc., a Los Angeles concern formerly known as Ecco-Fonic. Although the process is said to involve complicated electronic engineering, what it does in essence is to add an echo to any spoken word or musical note at a fractional second delay behind the original sound via a loop of magnetic tape or tape cartridge to produce the sought-after "live" sound effect. Surrounding Sound had its radio debut Dec. 4 over KALL Salt Lake City, which began 24-hour-a-day use of this new sound at 2 p.m. that day, following a demonstration at a luncheon of advertising executives in that city. The first use of Surrounding Sound on television is scheduled for tomorrow evening (Dec. 19), when it will be used for the background music of a panto Tv's perennial Official Films Inc., New York, has acquired the distribution rights to the Little Rascals tv series from producer Norbert Auerbach. The series consists of more than 100 one-reelers (6 to 9 minutes in length) and two reelers (12 to 18 minutes in length), which are sold to stations as a package. The series has been sold to tv for six years, but Seymour Reed, Official Films president, noted that "the durability" of the series is accounted for by its appeal to a new small-fry audience that grows up every two or three years. He added that WABC-TV New York, which has carried Little Rascals for the past four years, has renewed the contract for another two years. mime story, "Freddie and the Yuletide Doll," on the Red Skelton Show. Surrounding Sound Inc. now has 25 units of the device on the production line at its manufacturing plant at 5757 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, and full production is to be started after the first of the year, according to James Cox, vice president. The units will be available on a lease basis to one am station, one fm station and one~tv station in any market on a five-year contract, at $116 per unit per month. KALL, Mr. Cox said, is leasing two units, one to provide continuous availability of Surrounding Sound, the other for use as a production aid. Dual units will be provided for fm stereophonic broadcasting, he said. The device will be leased to networks on a per-performance basis, directly related to the AFTRA scale plus various engineering costs. The applications of Surrounding Sound range from the simple matter of adding richness to a local commercial announcement read by a staff announcer of an am radio station to fullscale production, it was explained. For the Red Skelton program, for example, the chorus and orchestra were recorded separately, with 17 effects added to the choral part and seven to the orchestral part of the musical background. Desilu Productions net up 10%, reports Arnaz Although the gross income of Desilu Productions for the first half of fiscal 1962, ended Oct. 28, 1961, was $1 million under the gross for the same period of last year, the studios' net income rose by 10%, from 10 to 11 cents per share, President Desi Arnaz said in a quarterly report to stockholders. The gross for the six-month period, May-October 1961, was $7,405,791, compared to $8,462,495 for the like period of the previous year, and the net income $130,295 this year compared to $120,917 last. "Despite the fact that we are currently producing only one show of our own, cash profits of $743,850 from operations were realized for the first six months," Mr. Arnaz reported. He attributed this primarily to "a high level of activity in furnishing production services and facilities to others and by a sharp reduction in our own overhead and operating costs." Economee sales up 47% Economee Television Programs, New York, reported last week that sales in the past year increased 47% over those of last year. Economee handles the rerun sales of more than 20 separate series sold by Ziv-United Artists during their first runs. Among the series sold by Economee during 1961, according to Pierre Weis, vice president and general manager, were Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, Bat Masterson, 1 Led Three Lives, Man Into Space, Man and the Challenge, Science Fiction Theatre and West Point. Mr. Weis noted that since 1954, Economee, though a division of Ziv-UA, has been a distributor of re-run programs, operating independently of and often competitively with Ziv-UA. BROADCASTING, December 18, 1961 NO ONE ELSE CAN MAKE THAT ; STATEMENT! ...JUST US! } Before you buy television in the Pacific Northwest, consider this one basic fact: Only KTNT-TV in this area includes five major cities of Western Washington within its "A" contour, and KTNTTV's tower is ideally located to beam a clear signal to aM of this major market. Ask your WEED TELEVISION man about dozens of other reasons you should include KTNT-TV in your advertising plans. TV stations in the Pacific Northwest only KTNT-TV includes all 5 cities* in its "A" contour 'SEATTLE TACOMA EVERETT BREMERTON OLYMPIA CHANNEL 11 > CBS for Seattle, Tacoma and Puget Sound area Studios in Seattle and Tacoma 52 (PROGRAMMING)