Year book of motion pictures (1951)

ELEVI8I0N DEVELOPMENTS ★ *★★*★*★★★ By LARRY GOODMAN Staff Writer, THE FILM DAILY w HEREVER AND WHENEVER anyone connected with the him indusiry <^ot together with anyone else during 1950, the conversation either started with television or got around to it sooner or later. Usually, it was sooner, and it came right after the question, "how's business?" There are very few hardy souls around in 1951 who will deny that television left its mark on the industry during the past year. With 7,213,700 families, or 17.9 per cent of the population, having receiver sets right in their homes by September, and upwards of 500,000 more sets being turned out every month, filmdom faced a serious challenge for the entertainment dollar. Complicating the problem were added sidelights including FCC rulings, Phonevision tests, Kefau^er crime hearings, "freeze" and color confusion, theater television and sales of films to TV stations. At times, it appeared as if the film industry had found its way out of its dilemma; at other moments, the situation looked dark indeed. The best plan, it was decided individually and jointly by leaders in exhibition, production and distribution, would be to embrace the new medium and harness it for film's best use. Paramount, continuing work on its color tube, 20th-Fox, picking up an option on the Swiss Eidophor system for theater television; leading exhibitors like Mitchell Wolfson and Sherrill Corwin going into TV station operation; and finally, alert exhibitors of the Si Fabian-Sam Pinanski-John Balaban ilk, as KcW as Wolfson and Corwin, urging more ilieater men to join them in securing largestreen equipment, were all prime movers in a determined bid not to be "left out." Trueman Rembusch, stumping for channel allocations and urging his Allied meinbers to use TV trailers as effective advertising, led the way for the smaller independent exhibitors. While those in the industry were deciding what to do about television, the latter was not standing still. The coaxial cable pushed as far west as Omaha, and the first order for full-time service from Omaha westward to the Coast has been received by AT&T from the ABC network. There were 103 stations n 60 markets by April, or just a scant few less than was permitted by the FCC after its "freezing" of channel allocations on Sept. 30, 1948; }800,000,000 worth of retail TV set business was estimated for the year— and at least half was via time payment plans. RCA brought out its three-gun color tube at the end of March, and sent color out over the coaxial cable the following month. Company also announced the development of a new theater TV system which featured a 625line picture on an eight megacycle channel, compared to the 525 lines going over four megacycles in a six MC band for home sets. DuMont patented a three-color tube in May, and General Electric and Paramount readied their color tubes by August. Predictions by RCA and Paul Raibourn of Paramount, among others, indicate that color TV will be ready for home receivers by the end of '51, with Raibourn going out on the limb for color reception in theaters, too. CBS came up with a color system in 1950, too, and the FCC left itself wide open for trouble when it announced, on Sept. 1, that it had chosen the CBS system over the others (KCA and Chromatic). RC.\ took action, filing suit against its competitor and the FCC, but the suit was dismissed just before Christmas. Ultimately, the question will be decided by the Supreme Court, in view of RCA's appeal. Main objection industry-wide to the FCC /decision to standardize with the CBS system is the fact that CBS requires a mechanical color disc attached to the receiver. Biggest news in tele\ision came after the year's end, when the FCC indicated, in March, that the freeze would soon be lifted. Several by-products of television also developed during 1950 to further discomfort **********★★★★******★★*★*★★*★* 115