Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1963)

JWT blames quality loss on cartridges MANUFACTURERS DISAGREE; INDUSTRY COMMITTEE STANDARDS NEAR The belated awakening by advertisers and agencies to the fact that a great many radio stations for several years now have been dubbing their spot transcriptions onto tape cartridges appears to be still arousing concern that the quality of the commercials is lost in the process. Cartridge tape manufacturers and stations using the equipment, of course, stoutly maintain that quality is not lost and they offer to prove it if agencies and advertisers will give them a chance. They are quite dismayed about the misunderstanding of the subject which has developed during recent weeks (Broadcasting, June 17, 3). A major agency, J. Walter Thompson Co., and a regional advertiser, Ozark Air Lines, however, are not convinced. Both have newly raised the issue and have asked stations not to transfer their commercial ET's onto cartridge tapes. JWT made its point scarcely a week ago in a memorandum accompanying orders sent out to stations in connection with a buy for Ford and possibly other accounts. JWT asked that in cases where stations are fully automated and must use tape they should exercise due care in dubbing. Ozark, through Katzif-George-Wemhoener Advertising, St. Louis, has placed a notice upon its radio spot transcriptions that stations are to play them from the disc and not to dub them onto tape cartridges. Standards Near ■ Meanwhile it was learned last week that nearly two years, of labor on uniform cartridge tape standards by an industry committee of the National Association of Broadcasters is quickly nearing fruition. Final standards could be established by the first of the year. Ross Beville, engineering vice president of wwdc Washington, president of Broadcast Electronics (Spotmaster) and chairman of the magnetic cartridge subcommittee of the NAB Recording and Reproducing Standards Committee, said his group plans to meet in late October or early November to adopt final standards proposals. NAB's engineering manager, George L. Bartlett, indicated that the final standards should be adopted and published by the NAB soon after that. Mr. Beville pointed out that most of the tape cartridge equipment manufactured during the last two years is capable of reproducing better quality than the transcriptions, assuming reasonable operating care is taken by stations. Continual Improvements ■ He noted that his large NAB subcommittee in 46 (BROADCAST ADVERTISING) eludes representatives from nearly all of the cartridge equipment makers. He recalled that after each meeting they have incorporated into their gear any quality standard points raised if they did not already have them. Other equipment spokesmen, including Automatic Tape Control, Collins Radio Co., Gates Radio Co. and RCA among others, said cartridge tape today generally exceeds by a good margin existing disc quality performance. NAB's Mr. Bartlett admitted there have been some station problems in transferring the disc commercials to tape "but the problem has been in the technician and his knob twisting and not in the equipment." All of the present cartridge tape gear "seems good," he said. The JWT memorandum was sent out to radio stations over the signature of Harold V. Taylor, director of radio recording in the agency's New York office. It went to station managers with copies to traffic managers and chief engineers. Cartridges At Fault ■ "Recent auditing and air checks of radio broadcasts on local stations and networks indicate an alarming deterioration in the quality of transmission of recorded commercials," Mr. Taylor wrote. "Further investigation has shown that this loss of quality is occurring on stations and networks using tape cartridges for the broadcasting of recorded commercials," he said. "Since the forms of distortion prevalent in most cartridge transmissions negate the costly quality built into our clients' transcriptions and the frequency response limitations of present cartridge dubbing systems severly cut down on the effective coverage and impact of OK toy spots listed In preparation for the Christmas season, the code authority of National Association of Broadcasters has approved 100 toy commercials for TV, the NAB TV Code News reported last week. The code monthly told member stations that absence of a commercial from the list does not mean necessarily that it failed to measure up to code standards, however. The list includes only those slots which have been screened. Commercials still in production will be published when approved, the Code News said. recorded commercials," Mr. Taylor said, "this agency for itself and its clients is seriously concerned about the problem. "In fact, one of our large accounts has expressed unwillingness to approve any further radio campaigns until they can be assured that their commercials will be aired with the same quality transmission afforded phonograph records." Consequently, the agency memo added, "We are requesting that you do not use tape cartridges to broadcast any commercials produced by the J. Walter Thompson Co. until improvement and standardization of equipment and procedures make it feasible for us to send you prerecorded tapes. We request that you broadcast only from the pressings you receive from us using high quality pickup equipment." The memo explained that if the station's operation is so completely automated that broadcasting directly from the pressings is not possible, "we request that you exercise extreme care in dubbing our commercials to cartridges so that they will be broadcast with as little loss of quality as possible." Information, Please ■ Mr. Taylor asked the radio stations in the meantime to send to the agency as soon as possible detailed information on the technical performance of their cartridge tape gear. JWT wants to know about make and model of equipment, tape speed, noise level, below peak record level, flutter and wow, speed accuracy in percentages, frequency response plus or minus 2db, type of cartridge used, what head alignment tape is used and frequency alignment check. "It is our belief that an all-out effort to guarantee good broadcast quality on broadcast commercials is an urgent necessity," Mr. Taylor concluded, "and will be of equal benefit to advertisers, agencies and radio stations." Mr. Taylor reported Thursday (Sept. 26), that station response to his letter has already been considerable. He said the replies ran the full range of opinion on the subject. Hue And Cry Unfair ■ Collins Radio Co. considered the alarm that has been raised "is a gross injustice to the broadcasting industry as a whole. It's an indictment of the industry because of the actions of a few members of the industry, a few stations that improperly maintain the equipment." Collins suggested it was unfair for JWT "to say that this process is not good in the industry as a whole because it is." The company said that like its BROADCASTING, September 30, 1963