Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1944)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD 'April 8 , 1944 TELEVISION IN HIGH STATE OF SUSPENDED ANIMATION Film Industry Working on Post-war Plans but Has Conservative Attitude by JOHN STUART, Jr. A television boom is under way — a publicity boom. In glowing forecasts from salesmen, advertisers, some engineers, equipment manufacturers and sectors of the financial and trade press, visual broadcasting has reached a state of activity which matches the splash of World's Fair Days of 1939 when it was about to make its first experimental commercial debut. Behind this flurry of activity, however, there is little actual change in the state of suspended growth in which the industry was frozen by war. There is much talk. But little capital is being expended by the many groups interested in television. Equipment makers paced by Radio Corporation of America, Philco, Allen B. DuMont Laboratories and General Electric are occupied 100 per cent on war production. There has been no cutback in the manufacture of radio and electronic equipment for the armed services. Television of necessity can occupy only a small part of the attention of research staffs and production engineers. Provision in Government contracts for institutional advertising and promotion expenses, however, has spurred the. rush for four-color advertisements and extensive publicity on television's promises for the post-war world. But the key executives who are responsible for watching and charting the moves toward development of this new industry are much more conservative. They 'are enthusiastic about television's future. But privately they will admit that no one really knows how and where the television gold rush will start. Heavy Expenses Ahead In Planning Programs Comparing currently predictable costs with the overhead of both radio and films they find staggering expenses ahead in television Programs produced in the studio, or arranged outside, now have limited distribution over one, or at most half a dozen television stations. The cost of coaxial or wireless relay is likely to be much higher than the line charges paid by radio networks. Although the American Telephone and Telegraph Company has promised coaxial links to 46 cities from coast to coast, and is embarked on the development of wireless relays, there are no promises that such services would be cheap. Rehearsal time, program planning and actual studio production, according to some television producers, costs almost as much as the production of a comparable amount of film time. Television has none of the extended amortization which can divide film costs among many outlets. In New York, a week ago, the Newell CBS DEFINES TELEVISION "Television is a new and inclusive art. It embraces many attributes of stage, screen, radio and news reporting; yet it is none of these. It is not merely a derivative art, but an individual one, owing no more than a respectful gratitude to its ancestry. . . . It should allocate to itself the dignity of an independent standard. "It is the business of television to report the transient experience vividly and immediately, constantly alert to those unpredictable fragments of action and reaction that give life to the elusive moment. Television is the immediate truth presented in a pattern of deliberate selection." Thus Worthington C. Miner, television director for CBS, defined television last week to the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. He warned film men to study not film versions of television but the new medium itself. "Your future may depend on it," he said. Emmett advertising agency produced the first of a series of sponsored half-hour plays over DuMont's W2XWB. With a Broadway cast, special settings and direction, the one-act play required a month of preparation, 18 hours' rehearsal, and was reported to have cost several thousand dollars. Motion picture interests, including major distributors, several important circuits and such New York theatres as the Radio City Music Hall, Paramount, and Roxy theatres are interested in television. But they view it from the conservative side. According to one home office executive the film industry concensus foresees for television : 1. Theatre exhibition of special events at advanced prices. Prize fights, races, baseball and other events of national interest would supplement film entertainment in first run houses. 2. News pictures, flashed to theatres for recording on quick developing film, to be shown as programs permit, or transmitted to theatres, after editing on film at hours when they would fit into the regular screen program. 3. A home television industry which would supplement, and perhaps supplant radio. It is expected to be a long time before it would offer more competition than radio. Not even the most optimistic television advocates predict a television receiver for every theatre. Most engineers and executives doubt that any but large first run houses could afford the investment in equipment which would be used occasionally. Before the war RCA showed a theatre large screen television apparatus quoted at $30,000. Secret wartime research is reported to have brought the price of RCA, and other equipment down, and quality up. But it is still likely to run into five figures, engineers say. The tempered pace of film interest in visual broadcasting is seen in the response of major companies to invitations to membership in the new Television Broadcasters Association. All major companies have received applications for associate membership. Majors Reluctant to Join Television Association But at the TBA directors' meeting Friday Paramount was the only film company represented. Paul Raibourn, in charge of Paramount television interests in DuMont and Television Productions, Inc., is an active director of the association. RKO is studying membership, according to Ralph Austrian, in charge of television. The other major film companies have not responded. Warners and MGM are understood to have forwarded the matter to studio executives who have been watching west coast television. Twentieth Century-Fox is studying participation. Related to film industry participation , in television have been recent inquiries into the field by the Eastman Kodak Company. The film and camera company is reported very much interested in the possible application of its lens and optical systems to theatre television projectors. Engineers from Rochester visited New York last week end for a' series of conferences with Mr. Raibourn at Paramount, with Allen B. Du Mont and other New York experts who have been studying various systems of large screen television. Although primarily interested in television use of its lenses, Eastman is reported watching the possibility of applying 16mm reversal film to the field. Many of the quick developing, low cost films developed for military uses can be applied to television news and "transcription" use, it is reported. A number of advertising agencies are reported studying the use of film to carry television commercials and programs to television stations not on a network. New members admitted to Television Broadcasters Association last week included National Broadcasting Company stations in New York and planned for Chicago and Washington; General Electric's outlet in Schenectady; Philco's WPTZ in Philadelphia ; Crosley Corporation, Cincinnati ; Don Lee Broadcasting Company, Los Angeles, active members. Affiliate memberships were granted to Time, Inc. ; RCA Victor Division, Camden, N. J. ; Capitol Radio and Engineering Company, Washington, D. C. ; Midland Broadcasting Company, Kansas. City. With six new license applications filed with the FCC in recent weeks there are more than 50 applications pending. The FCC has granted eight commercial permits, and 27 experimental licenses.