Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

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NAEB HAS ITS OWN TABLE UHF allocations plan, produced by computer, is offered in place of 'hand made' FCC table The National Association of Educational Broadcasters, using a computer, has designed a UHF table of assignments containing some 600 more allocations than the UHF plan recently proposed by the FCC. NAEB President William G. Harley unveiled the table at a news conference last week as a rival to the proposed FCC table, on which industry comments were invited two weeks ago (Broadcasting, Oct. 28). The NAEB is urging the commission to adopt the computer-drawn plan as "a new basic table" of allocations. It also says the FCC should use computer methods in the solution of future allocations problems. The association feels its pioneer computer study has proved the computer superior to conventional methods of making allocations. The NAEB table (which is reprinted in full beginning on page 102), contains some 2,600 assignments, 900 of which would be reserved to meet "minimum" ETV needs. None of the 2,365 new assignments would affect the 202 commercial and educational UHF stations now operating or holding construction permits. Also untouched are the 584 VHF assignments. The FCC's proposed table provides for 1,975 UHF assignments. Of these, 600 would be reserved for education. The existing allocations table contains about 1 .600 UHF assignments, including 230 set aside for ETV. These latter are in addition to the 100 VHF channels reserved for education. All 'Taboos' Considered ■ Unlike the experimental table the NAEB designed by computer last winter, the current proposal is said to embody all constraints and "taboos," including those resulting from international agreements with Canada and Mexico. The association's so-called feasibility study resulted in a saturated table of 3,298 assignments (Broadcasting, Jan. 21). The NAEB has informally asked the commission to issue the computer-drawn plan as an alternative to the one fashioned manually by the FCC staff. If this request is turned down, the association will submit the plan in the form of a comment in the rulemaking proceeding involving the UHF table. Mr. Harley said the NAEB feels the FCC plan falls short of meeting the future needs of ETV. He also said the association believes the computer-drawn table does a better job than the commission's in solving allocations problems of commercial stations. "Although there is a considerable amount of time neces sary to prepare basic input information and computer programs, the actual assignment procedure was conducted in a matter of hours," the NAEB said in an accompanying report. Mr. Harley said the NAEB plan contains more channels than the FCC's because of the capacity of the computer to work faster and more efficiently than engineers using conventional techniques. Recommendations ■ The report recommends that the commission adopt NAEB's table and that it use computer techniques in conducting periodic reexamination and possible reallocation of unoccupied UHF channels. The association noted that the data used to program its study is available to the commission. The data, stored on magnetic tape, includes information on 1,596 separate locations, covering virtually all of the inhabited areas of the country, indicating population, relative sizes of communities, shared uses by contiguous political subdivisions, and FCC engineering rules and regulations. NAEB also recommends that the ETV reservations contained in the table be considered only as meeting the "minimum educational needs." The report said the unreserved channels should be held available for either commercial or educational applicants "without a prejudgment that a number of educational reservations fixed at this time can serve all future educational needs." In this connection, the NAEB rejected an FCC contention that the 2,500 mc band, recently made available to educa New NBC grant to ETV NBC Board Chairman Robert W. Sarnoff last week announced a $250,000 contribution from NBC to Community Television of Southern California. The money will go toward construction of an educational UHF in Los Angeles. Mr. Sarnoff said: "NBC has always given strong support to the proper development of educational television, both as an urgently needed instrument of instruction and as a resource for intellectual and cultural stimulation." It was reported last August that CBS had contributed a total of $250,000 to CTSC for assistance with educational television (Broadcasting, Aug. 26). BROADCASTING, November 11, 1963