The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

March-April, 1953 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 45 from doing this by the high charges made by the promoters who dreaded a fall in " gate " or boxoffice returns if people could see their performances in their own homes. On the other hand, the television presentations of United Nations sessions or other important political events interfere with regular advertisers' schedules. The United Nations programmes have long since been dropped; here are the comments of Fortune (September 1952) on television's experiences at the Chicago Conventions: " The industry went to Chicago and for two solid weeks in July kept TV's large and earnest Eye fixed on the antics of some 7,500 politicians. . . . But the Eye also emerged from the conventions looking rather bloodshot. Unforeseen expenses, huge overtime wages, and the loss of revenue from regular programmes put the Chicago operations in the Red. N.B.C. figures its costs for TV and radio coverage would run up to $4 million, including the cost of pre-empting such hallowed hours as ' HowdyDoody,' ' Gangbusters,' ' Ask Me Another,' for which N.B.C. TV had to forego a total of $400,000 in advertising revenues ... A guess is that the networks stand to lose a total of something over $2 million on the whole business." It is partly the great expense of television which has caused sponsors to concentrate on " crime drama " which is sensational enough to catch the largest audiences while cheapest to produce — other kinds of drama require higher acting talent and more careful production, etc. Other programmes which have undue programme time allocated to them are boxing and all-in wrestling. The quality of performances has been going steadily down for the past three years. The following extracts illustrate what is happening: Extract from " Information Service " published by the Federal Council of Churches in America, Summer. 1950: " Wayne Coy, Chairman of the Federal Communications Committee, speaking at the University of Oklahoma Radio Conference on 16th March, criticised sharply ' livery stable humour ' and ' horror programs ' on radio and television saying that the ' bad taste ' of some of the humour verged on ' obscenity,' as defined by the Communications Act. Complaints have been piling up so that he appealed to the industry to clean house rather than to force public action concerning such delicate matters as good taste. " Some of the reasons for this statement were emphasised by the fact, as reported in Variety for 22nd March, that two stations on the C.B.S. television network had refused to carry henceforth one of the highest paying commercial television programmes, because of the character of some of the jokes — described on one occasion by a well-known station manager, as ' The most obnoxious and filthy ' that have been ' inflicted ' on TV viewers. " Horror programs, particularly on television, have also brought pointed criticism. Norman Cousins, in the Saturday Review of Literature for 24th December, John Crosby, radio and television critic for the New York Herald Tribune for 2nd January, and Harriet Van Home, of the New York World-Telegram and Sun, for 28th March, have all commented sharply on the number of horror programs. Said Miss Van Home: 'I want no more blood on my living-room rug.' " Jack Gould, Radio and Television Editor of the New York Times, was saying at the same period (5th April, 1950): " For the first time in history the child, regardless of his family's economic station in life, has every cultural advantage. If he can't commit a crime without blotching the job it's only because the parent has not had the set turned on long enough." A Manchester Guardian correspondent who visited America in 1951 made the following observations (21st August, 1951): " Programmes will be put on in the United States which sell goods; thus programmes which attract and hold most listeners (or ' lookers-in ' as they are now called) will always remain the most honoured. This I found to my own cost when recently asked to give my impressions of American Universities on television. I found I had four minutes sandwiched between the rival claims of a puppet show and a remarkable exhibition of women wrestlers. . . . My talk must surely have had little, if any ' impact value.' Not so the women wrestlers or even such fine shows as ' HowdyDoody,' ' Lucky Pup,' and ' Life with Sharky Parker.' " Fortune, August 1951, commented: " It should be obvious, from the very urgency of TV's economic problems, that telecasters could not long tolerate the continuance of lowpaying or non-paying programs. Under the pressure of costs, many public service and educational features have been squeezed from the scheduling and replaced by a panoply of mayhem, homicide, arson and malignant disease. In between the murders, blood baths — which totalled forty in one week — the audience was given a workout on non-participation snorts; Beowulf de-arming the Wildman of Wrestling, and Mother McMans, a^ed seventy, giving son John the elbow treatment in a ' jam ' of the Roller Derby. United Nations' programs, whose daily representation during the Soviet Summer of 1950 had earned telecasters well-deserved applause, were dropped from regular scheduling and used at unpublicised times to fill a hole. " All of this presaged something considerably more serious than a temporary return to jungle ways." The New York Daily Herald correspondent, Leonard Coulter, 16th May, 1952, wrote: "A group of San Francisco mothers, members of a school education committee, recently kept a record of an average four-hour TV mornine programme. This was the result. Murders and assorted killing — 13; beatings-up— 14; kidnapping— 6; hold-ups — 5; explosions and dynamiting— 3; blackmail and extortion — 3; theft — 3; armed robberies — 2; arson cases — 2; torture and induced miscarriage — 1 each. In the children's serial ending the bedtime hour, 104 gunshots were clocked. Another 20-minute serial described death in gruesome detail fourteen times." " At this year's radio and television conference in Chicago it was reported that 70 per cent of children's TV programs analysed Editor's note. — 242 channels have now been set aside by the Federal Communications Commission for educational stations