Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1957)

Motion Picture Daily Monday, July 15, 195 Warns on Toll TV Decision ( Continued chairman Harris, Celler questioned the legal authority of the FCC to okay toll TV, and warned that it was likely that test authorization would commit the commission so deeply that it would have to follow through with full-scale permanent authorization of the system. "It is imperative," he wrote, "that no expedient be adopted that will impair the traditionally free television system authorized by Congress." He said toll TV would be fine if it were certain. to be a supplemental programming to free TV, but that present indications were that "improvident experimentation with subscription television may permanently frustrate existing national objectives for a nationwide and competitive free television service." Celler, who has introduced legislation to ban toll TV said toll TV would black out stations, siphon off the best programs, and inaugurate a method of broadcasting with "such an unparalleled built-in profit potential that it may drive free network television as we know it from the airwaves." 'Ducks' Classification Celler noted that the FCC's recent announcement wisely ducked any attempt to classify toll TV. He argued that it could not be classed as a common carrier, and that the law did not provide for regulating a non-commoncarrier public utility. If toll TV is classed as broadcasting, he continued, the question then is whether the FCC's existing authority is adequate to assure competition between free and pay broadcasting and to achieve from page 1 ) program responsibility among toll TV broadcasters. Citing FCC difficulties in controlling network practices, Celler said "subscription television would subject added and more complex relationships to regulation under the commission's already burdened licensing authority." Celler termed "disturbing" the FCC's claim to legal authority to okay toll TV. "For the commission to make its authority to license frequencies the sole basis for authorizing so radical a departure from existing methods in television would be to stretch the licensing authority to its very limits, if not beyond them," he declared. The New York Democrat warned that any such FCC conclusion would surely be challenged in the courts. "Clarification by Congress in advance," he stated, "will not only assure a more accurate reflection of the desires of the people, but will also go far to avoid costly, time-consuming litigation and possibly corrective legislation." All of these arguments, Celler said, apply as fully to authorization for tests as to permanent authorization. If the tests are broad enough to be meaningful, he argued, "investments are made and interests tend to jell, so that it becomes well nigh impossible to reverse the forces that have been set in motion. . . . Experimentation on any meaningful scale will inevitably create interests and unleash pressures which, in comparable situations, the commission has been unable to control. Such experimentation must therefore be regarded as a potential commitment to a course from which there may be no return." Asks Right to Install TV Antenna in Mich. Special to THE DAILY IRONWOOD, Mich., July 14.Sheldon Grengs, Eau Claire, Wis., exhibitor, has made a proposal to the Ironwood, Mich., city commission for the installation of a community television antenna which would improve reception in the upper peninsula city and, incidentally, provide the necessary distribution channel for cable theatres. Although the city fathers have indicated interest in the proposal and have ordered a study of the Grengs plan, it was apparent that the Ironwood Amusement Company would oppose any move to license an out-of-town company or individual to handle installation. Wants Theatre Control Alfred E. Wright of Ironwood said that the theatre owners felt that if a cable TV system is installed in Ironwood, it should be the local theatres who install and control the system. Ironwood, a city of 11,000 population, has two theatres, the 1,000-seat Ironwood and the smaller Rex, which has a capacity of 600. Gold wyn (Continued from page 1) oto, indicated at the outset of the trial that the charges of a Fox "monopolistic buying combine" for pictures will involve theatres all over the country. This prompted Arthur B. Dunne, defending 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation and three subsidiaries to challengeAlioto's premise and insist the case area can be at the most only the western states served by film exchanges from Denver, Colo., westward. Judge Murphy is expected to rule in the next few days on this important issue and also on violent disagreements between the opposing attorneys about how far back in time some evidence may be introduced. New Dates for '80 Days' Michael Todd has announced 14 openings of "Around the World in 80 Days" scheduled during July and August. The 14 new dates will bring the total of theatres now showing "Around the World" to 51, including the London, Paris and Caracas engagements. Television Today IN OUR VIEW WITH the theme expressed thus: "Television — A Member of the Family," the television industry this year from September 8 to 14 will mark the observance of "National Television Week." It is indeed a good catch-line and a strong institutional advertising campaign is planned, with the intention of dramatizing for the public the fashion in which television serves America, and Americans. The announcement of the plans for the campaign and the theme voiced by the heads of the two co-sponsoring organizations, Harold E. Fellows, president of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, and Norman Cash, president of TvB, Television's Bureau of Advertising. • The plan and intention is to unite individual stations and networks in an all-out effort to achieve a maximum impression on the public with the basic theme and its corollary facets. The contribution of television to home, community and nation is to be brought forcefully to the attention of the nation generally, and the theme surely lends itself to that kind of approach and follow-through. Mr. Cash, sounding for all the world like an advertising man, says: ". . . they (stations, etc.) will be sent a series of carefully documented capsule facts exploring the dimensions and dynamics of television and its abilities to move the goods of our country's rocketing production." A Television Fall Festival, with the theme, "Be a New TV Family," will be launched by the other two co-sponsors of National Television Week, RETMA and NARDA, for the manufacturers and dealers. It's big promotion, all the way down the line. _ • However, with all the fanfare and trumpets, and in a good cause, it would behoove the industry of television as a whole and all the component parts thereof, to give careful thought and consideration to the full meaning of that carefully-contrived theme slogan, "Television— a Member of the Family." It is precisely in the fact that television most certainly, by its very nature, is definitely a "member of the family" that its responsibilities are immeasurably heavier and more significantly important than other media of the same genre. The elements of the industry would do well on the one hand to give more than mere "lip service" to the Week's slogan during the critical period, and on the other hand to make that general conception an integral part of their everyday thinking, from one year's end to the other. It will pay. — Chables S. Aabonson Kintner and Sacks On Board of NBC Robert E. Kintner, executive vice president, television network pro grams and sales, and Emanuel (Manie) Sacks, vice-president, television network programs, have been elected to the board of directors of the National Broadcasting Company it was announced Friday by Robert W. Sarnoff, President of NBC. Sar noff also announced that the resigna tion of William E. Robinson as an NBC director, had been accepted Both Kintner and Sacks are members of the NBC executive council which formulates major company policies Fox Set to Testify In Baseball Hearings From THE DAILY Bureau WASHINGTON, July 14.-Skiatron president Matthew M. Fox will be among the witnesses when a House Judiciary Subcommittee resumes its baseball hearings this week. Fox is scheduled to testify Thursday. Skiatron has been involved in attempts to get the Dodgers' ball games ! and other big league games on toll television. Dodgers' president Walter : O'Malley earlier told the subcommittee he had negotiated with Skiatron up until the time the House hearings began. New York Giants president Horace Stoneham, who also has been mentioned in connection with Skiatron, is slated to testify Wednesday. The subcommittee is studying whether baseball and other professional sports should be covered by the anti-trust laws. Set Golf Series All-Star Golf, a weekly hour-long series of "medal play" tournaments between the top pros of the golf world, will make its debut on ABCTV October 12, 4 to 5 P.M., EDT. Miller Brewing Company and the Wildroot Company are sponsors. Haight Treasurer ( Continued from page 1 ) ments, with International Affiliates, Inc. Encyclopedia Brittanica Film s, Inc., in 1951 bought Films, Inc. Mr. Haight continued as president of the film activities and became a director. He lives in Stamford, is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Yale, and NYU economics courses, during the War was on the Treasury's 16 mm War Films Committee and the War Production Board's 16 mm advisory committee. He belongs to the University and Yale clubs, and is active in the Stamford United Fund, Youth House, in New York, the Berkshire Industrial Farm, and the Stamford Psychiatric Clinic for Children.