Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1962)

The last half-mile of the trip up Eureka Mountain, Utah, is negotiated via footpath. Here are the receiving antennas that pick up Salt Lake City's tv stations for an Emcee translator system that feeds the town of Eureka, mountain-surrounded, and another valley on the opposite side. The system was installed by Electronic Sales Corp., Salt Lake City. TWO MEN'S STAND GAVE TV TO MANY Governors made possible booster service in western area Two prominent Coloradans have observed the development of translators with keen interest. They are Gov. Steve McNichols and ex-Gov. Edwin C. Johnson, at one time chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Both watched television spread over most of the nation a decade and more back, only to find that Colorado's towering mountains were partially blind because of television's vulnerability to rugged terrain. Ex-Gov. Johnson made television and governmental history when he defied the FCC's rules, with their barriers to local tv booster equipment, by issuing a proclamation calling on a citizen, W. R. Webber, "to continue to serve the people of Steamboat Springs without charge by 'boosting on-channel' the tv signal of KOA-TV Denver to the extent he has its permission to do so, and to the extent that he does not interfere . . . with interstate communications." Signed in 1956 ■ This executive order was issued Aug. 3, 1956 by the governor. It's impact was soon felt in the halls of Congress and the corridors of the FCC. The proclamation, the former governor recalled as he sat high in a roomy apartment overlooking Denver and distant mountains, made this point, "Mr. Webber's booster does not interfere electronically or otherwise in any degree with any tv broadcast intrastate or interstate or affect adversely the reception of any broadcast or telecast to anyone anywhere." Mr. Webber saw his duty as a Coloradan and loyal citizen of Steamboat Springs. He operated an electronic business there, retiring in September. He felt it was his duty to make tv available in Yampa Valley by means of a booster and with a gubernatorial proclamation in his hands, decided to obey the state's mandate. "It looked like either television or Leavenworth would get me for a while," he recalled. The Steamboat Pilot in its Aug. 16 issue put it this way, "Mr. Webber had to fight weather, interference and the FCC but with help of other citizens he brought television to Steamboat." Currently Mr. Webber is president of Colorado Television Repeater Assn. Gov. McNichols succeed Gov. Johnson and soon found himself neck deep in booster crises. A favorite quote attributed to him at a session with some FCC officials goes like this, "It will take more than the U. S. Army to shut down these boosters." Mass Medium ■ Gov. McNichols said he still feels tv is a mass medium and calls it "inconceivable that its benefits should not be equally available to every citizen by the most convenient and inexpensive methods consistent with sound technical procedures and safety. It has long been my view that low-powered boosters are a most effective and inexpensive means of providing tv program service to small clusters of people in outlying areas." Translator audience count to improve Many tv stations claiming important tv circulation in remote areas served by translators claim national research services aren't able to reflect adequately the extent of this audience. In Salt Lake City, where the three stations cooperate in translator promotion, a special Amer ican Research Bureau survey will be conducted in translator areas. ARB explained its translator-counting role this way: "ARB assigns from four to 10 sampling points to each outer area county, and at least 20 points per metro rating area. Individual sample locations are chosen in ARB's regular systematic sampling pattern designed to represent every television-owning rural and urban telephone home in a specified area." Special Study ■ In its November 1962 and March 1963 U. S. sweeps, ARB will conduct a special survey for the three Salt Lake stations, "assuring a minimum of 25 usable diaries per county throughout the entire survey area. All diaries will be tabulated and included in the Salt Lake market reports for those two months." At the end of the March 1963 survey the total number of diaries for the two sweep months (50 per county) , will be processed to produce a county-by-county coverage study. The effect of this larger sample, ARB said, will be to provide more precise audience viewing data, particularly in the counties served by catv and translators. A. C. Nielsen Jr., vice president of A. C. Nielsen Co., said the firm's local station index (NSI) reflects total viewing in areas. "The index goes as far as stations, translators and cables reach," Mr. Nielsen said. MORE KANSANS VIEW KTVH THAN ANY OTHER KANSAS TV* * Nielsen, February 1961 Diversified economy, stability, over $1,500,000,000 effective buying power, 290,000 TV families — all within the BIG UNDUPLICATED CBS COVERAGE OF KTVH. To sell Kansas ... buy KTVH ! KTVH^ THE WICHITA HUTCHINSON STATION ■■■■^^ 1/ II KIH A H BROADCASTING, October 8, 1962 31