Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1956)

Television Today A CONCISE REPORT AND ANALYSIS OF THE SIGNIFICANT NEWS AND EVENTS Spotlighting the News The Big Night ► Tomorrow is the Big Night for the electronic brains of the country, namely ABC's Elecom 125, CBS' UNIVAC and NBC's IBM 705. Last week as the election neared its climax, as the issues became hopelessly confused and as world affairs deteriorated to a new low, one shining thought cut through the smog of uncertainty — the knowledge that man, who has somehow let the world go to hell, has succeeded in putting together several machines that can theoretically, anyway, tell us the outcome of our national elections after only a fraction of the population has cast its vote. Underwood's Elecom will give us its "unadjusted" computations on the outcome at half-hour intervals, drawing on a magnetic tape memory of more than 100,000 statistics to arrive at its conclusions. Remington Rand's UNIVAC, already a veteran of two national elections (in one of which it suffered a nervous breakdown) will analyze, predict and even change its mind. IBM's 705 electronic brain will do the same, manned by 300 people who, with their brains, will weigh collectively about four tons. The ultimate in all this will be the day when we can all stay home and cast our ballots by thought waves which, in turn, will be recorded by one huge electronic memory device, presuming, of course, we still know how to think. In the midst of all this electronic wizardry, Newark's WATV stands alone with oldfashioned, unreconstructed faith in the human animal. It announced, with some bravado, that it will use only one news ticker, perhaps a slide rule and four political experts, whose total weight is not given. Deductible ► The Internal Revenue Service finally ruled last week on the tax treatment of expenses incurred trying to get a television license. The Service said that if the company fails to get the license, then the travel expenses of witnesses, any legal, engineering and ac EVERY DAY ON EVERY CHANNEL 113 BROOKS COSTUMES 3 Weil 6IU SI.. N.Y C..T.I. PL. 7-5100 counting fees, and other expenses incidental to the attempt, are deductible from the firm's gross income in the year in which the application is finally denied. However, if the company wins the channel, then the expenses must be capitalized for tax purposes; that is, they must be added to the cost of the station. And, since the useful life of a TV station cannot be determined, these costs cannot be depreciated but can be recovered for tax purposes only when the station is eventually sold, at which time they can be used to reduce the capital gain or increase the loss on the sale. Big Cake ► A great big cake was cut last week for NBC-TV's Matinee Theatre, that grandiose, ambitious, adjective inspiring mid afternoon series of live dramatic items with which one year ago the network sought to entice the housewife away from the ironing board and to the TV set. The occasion was well and happily marked, and laden with statistics. Albert McCleary, executive producer, made 30 round trips from the coast to the east, and a trip to France and back. The scripts weighed an aggregate of 12 tons, covering 1,750,000 pages, the equipment used for air-conditioning the studio would keep 75 homes comfortable for a year in Texas, etc., etc. Matinee's big birthday cake was completely covered with lighted statistics. Prepare Report ► The House Judiciary Subcommittee which held lengthy hearings on monopoly problems in the television industry is now starting to prepare its report and hopes to have it out by the end of the year. Subcommittee members and staff officials have been reading through the hearing transcripts and the mountains of additional information supplied by the witnesses. De spite earlier reports of possible further hearings in November, none is now planned, officials said. CBS Program Notes ► One new film series and two special programs were given firm schedules during the week by CBS-TV. The series is Air Power, a 26-part program depicting the development of flight and its impact on the 20th Century. The first segment, making its debut next Sunday evening, will be an hour show depicting a simulated nuclear attack on North America. Subsequent segments will be seen on succeeding Sundays and to half-hour in length. The ser produced by CBS Public A and sponsored by Prudential ance Company of America next Sunday, in the half-ho ceding the Air Power deb network will present a speci gram, "Revolt of the Sate dealing with the current Communist flareups in Hu and Poland. The second program will be an hour-long covering the National Autom Show, Sunday, December 9, one, however, depends to a extent on the whims and wa {Continued on folloiving pd, In Our View MR. JACK GOULD, the skillful, articulate alert television critic-in-chief of The New Yo Times, this week leaped into the saddle, tilt his lance and dashed headlong at the networks, attac ing their failure to offer on-the-spot coverage of t momentous United Nations Security Council sessions the Middle East crisis. He called it a disgrace and stup and in a word gave the three big networks hell. And su is the influence, such is the awesome position of T Times, such is the "respect-amounting-to-fear" in whi it is held, that the networks' publicists came galloping the defense of their executive decisions in the matter The citations of the networks that they did cover 1 meetings, but in edited form later in the day and eff ning, and that they had a constant flow of news bulleti spotting their schedules, some on preempted time, m not unreasonable. As a matter of fact John Daly, vici, president, took the rap for the ABC decision, saying n other general management division of the company ws asked for an opinion before the decision. That decisio was made after logical consideration of the factors it volved, it would seem, and it was decided an "edited story later would be better than an on-the-spot reportin; what with uncertain time, length, translations, etc. NB and CBS likewise contended their coverage was extei sive, informative and complete. On the basis of their pas records in such matters, we are inclined to agree. Perhaps the networks might have given more extei sive coverage to an afternoon session — for the hous1 wives to see — but they cannot in this view be condemne because they did not go as fully into it as Mr. Goul would have wished. However, the tempest which M j Gould has stirred in his Times tea-pot does emphasiaj the necessity for constant alertness on the part of ne work television, that it be ever mindful of and alwa) responsible to the obligations inherent in its publ: service character. — Charles S. Aaronsc \ 6