Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1962)

Airborne etv system to be made permanent The flying television "schoolhouse" is slowly but surely changing the way of life for thousands of students and teachers in the Midwest. The impact of this supplemental teaching aid promises to be even greater in the years ahead, based on initial results of the present experiment which also support the technical feasibility of uhf transmission in such an application. Even though Westinghouse was unsuccessful in winning acceptance of Stratovision during the television reallocations proceedings of the late 1940's, the technique is being tested by the Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction during the present school year with such favorable response that steps are well under way to establish the system on a permanent basis. A group of 75 leading midwest educators and administrators are to meet Jan. 12 at MPATI headquarters at Purdue U., Lafayette, Ind., to initiate formal incorporation steps. Papers are to be filed in that state by the end of the month. The initial experiment still in progress is a two-year project, a year to prepare and a year to operate on the air. Technical problems with the aircraft, however, delayed the start of the lesson programs until this fall. The cost of the experiment will top $8 million, about three-fourths of this amount coming from the Ford Foundation and the rest from other corporate and private gifts. Under the future permanent setup, financing would come from the participating schools and from private contributions. These schools ultimately would also control the system and choose its directors. High Visibility ■ How good is the signal? Not perfect, but very good, those involved in the midwest test report. Reception problems appear to stem more often from the quality of the local school installation rather than from any flaw in the airborne transmission. The engineers still are trying to identify phenomena that cause a light bar effect to sift through the picture, but it is much less pronounced now than it was originally. Apart from the fringe areas, the only other spot that causes some tricky reception problems is that within a 30-mile radius beneath the plane. Most all antenna installations must be carefully oriented to the plane so as to avoid out-of-phase reception of secondary reflected signals. The majority of installations are master antenna systems which translate the uhf signals into vhf for reception in the classroom on regular vhf sets. In some cases uhf sets pick up the telecast directly. The effective coverage radius is 200 miles, encompassing an area of six states and including cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Louisville. The pivot point is Montpelier, Ind., northeast of Indianapolis and south of Fort Wayne. The aircraft circles at 23,000 feet. Transmission on chs. 72 and 76 makes it possible for two lesson programs to be aired simultaneously. The program material is on video tape. It is produced and recorded at the MPATI studios at Purdue. The DC6 planes also base there (one plane is a standby) and are owned by MPATI. The planes were outfitted by Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. One of the problems overcome was kinks in the hydraulic gyroscope system, which keeps the 24-foot transmitting antenna pointed straight to the ground regardless of the angle of the plane. Another was a proper protective enclosure for the power generator, which had to be tucked into the tail section where critical aircraft control gear could be damaged should the generator fly apart unprotected. Down to Earth ■ MPATI associates are amused that they must continually explain that the teachers seen on tv really aren't cramped up in the plane all day long waiting their turn in some tiny aerial studio. Popular belief just doesn't seem to comprehend that the plane is full of electronic gear instead. At present, it's estimated that some 500,000 elementary and high school pupils in the coverage area are ac Delaney, CBS newsmen. Frank J. Shakespeare Jr., vice president and general manager of WCBS-TV, introduced the first program on Dec. 23. Specials ■ Purex Corp. and NBC-TV have set two one-hour specials for viewing next month. "The Lonely Woman" will be seen Jan. 4 and "The World of Jimmy Doolittle" will be telecast Jan. 18. Liebman comedy ■ Max Liebman, pioneer tv producer, has been signed by CBS-TV to develop a new one-hour comedy series. The multi-award-winning producer (Your Show of Shows) will begin development of the new series immediately. More information ■ WBBM Chicago, to meet awakened listener interest in information type programming, has started a three-hour interview program, Composite, in the Saturday 7:15-10:15 p.m. period. Interviews with educators, religious leaders, businessmen and others are in the five-minute segments. Really big shew ■ KYW-TV Cleveland has unveiled its new daytime spectacular, the Mike Douglas Show, a daily 90-minute live program featuring noted entertainers sharing m.c. duties with Mike Douglas. Audience participation also will be encouraged. Carmel Quinn, Irish singer, was last week's guest hostess. Accepted ■ WTVJ (TV) Miami announced that its locally-produced program, "A Question of Survival," has been accepted by Television Affiliates Corp. for showing to its member stations in 1962. The show originally was shown Oct. 26. First children's series ■ The first children's tv series produced by the Methodist Church will be released early in 1962. Breakthru consists of 13 halfhour programs aimed especially at nineto-eleven year olds. It will be presented by councils of churches or other cooperative agencies as a program of the Broadcasting & Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. British series ■ Production of Zero One, a half-hour adventure tv series starring Nigel Patrick and Bill Smith, has been started at MGM's British studios in Herts, near London. Lawrence P. Bachman, head of British production for MGM, is producer of the series, with Aida Young as associate producer. Elliott Baker, New York tv writer recently moved to London, is script editor. BBC is co-producing the series with MGM-TV and will carry it on the BBC tv network starting early next year. Asian art series ■ A new series called Far Eastern Art is being developed for broadcast on the National Educational Television Network. Dr. Didier Graeffe, artist, composer and professor at the U. of Florida, will be host on the fourprogram video-tape series, which is produced by WUFT (TV) Gainesville, Fla. New series ■ A six-part television series, Creative Man, is being developed for National Educational Television, New York, by San Francisco's educational 42 (PROGRAMMING) BROADCASTING, January 1, 1962