NAEB Newsletter (Feb 1958)

RUSSIAN OFFERED ON TV What is believed to be the nation’s first televised course in the Russian language has been announced by General Electric station WRGB, cooperating with the Mohawk-Hudson Council on Educational Tele¬ vision and the local section of the American Chemi¬ cal Society, in a pioneer move to help crack a major technological problem. The problem: The United States is receiving much technical literature from Russia, but a great deal is ignored because only a few of our engineers and scientists understand the language. Some scientists, for instance, believe that the first Sputnik may not have been such a big surprise had more Americans been able to read Russian. Occupying an early spot from 6:30 to 7 a.m., the 12-week series will reach a potential audience of more than one million upstate New Yorkers. It will start Feb. 4. RECOMMENDED READING The 12th edition of the World Radio Handbook, an annual publication by O. Lund Johansen of Copen¬ hagen, Denmark, is a valuable reference work for everyone concerned with radio or TV broadcasting. The 175-page, illustrated publication contains in¬ formation On broadcasting activities throughout the world. It also features a worldwide “Who’s Who” in broadcasting under which prominent personalities and organizations in the field are listed'. (The NAEB is listed on page 123.) The price of a single copy is 20 cents. Interested persons can order through writing to World Radio Handbook, 1 Lindorffsalle, Hellerup, Denmark. N. M. ETV STATION GETS 4 SETS OF CALL LETTERS Not one but four sets of call letters have been as¬ signed to the new educational TV station, Channel 5, owned and operated by the University of New Mexico and the Albuquerque Public Schools. The letters that the viewing public will know are KNME-TV-the K denoting the western part of the United States and the NME-TV standing for New Mexico Educational Television. These call letters originally were assigned to the schooner Albert D. Cummins, but were removed from registry in 1937. Nonetheless, they had to be released by the Bureau ^ of Customs before they could’ be assigned to the new station. The other three sets of call letters are KKT-911, call letters from the studio to the Sandia Crest trans¬ mitter site; KKU-322, Crest call letters back to the studio; and KOG-34, call letters of the studio to transmitter link. Dr. Bernarr Cooper, radio and TV director at the University UNM hopes that the station will go on the air shortly after the beginning of the second semester. GREATER ACCEPTANCE OF TV SEEN Public acceptance of TV was mirrored in a report by Dr. Paul Witty, professor of education at North¬ western University, on a continuing eight-year study of the reactions to TV of elementary and high school pupils, their teachers and parents. “There has been a marked change in the attitude toward TV on the part of many parents and teachers,” Dr. Witty said in a report to the Ameri¬ can Assn, for the Advancement of Science. “At first, large numbers were skeptical concerning any desirable outcome from TV. Today,” he added, “more parents and teachers accept televiewing as a part of our design of living. They cite problems less frequently and indicate that children actually appear to read more because of interests awakened by TV offerings.” Witty also said, “Let us cease to attribute to TV misdemeanors in children and youth. Let us instead try to gain the greatest values from this appealing medium ... by guiding children to choose programs with greater discrimination and by associating this strong interest with other desirable activities.” TV TECHNICAL TIPS — Cecil S. Bidlack On Jan. 15, I had the privilege of attending a dem¬ onstration of the new RCA color video tape re¬ corder in Camden, N. J. More than 100 broadcasters and engineers attended the afternoon demonstration including Fred Remley and Larry Griewski of the University of Michigan, Dr. W. J. Kessler of the Uni¬ versity of Florida, Cy Braum of JCET and the writer. We saw Art Hungerford in the group attending the morning demonstration and there may have been other ETV representatives we missed seeing. We were very much impressed by the performance of the equipment. Some observers thought the quality of the recordings as good as live pick up. Sections of the Perry Como Show of the previous Saturday, and a portion of the same day’s Howard Miller Show FEBRUARY, 1958 7