NAEB Newsletter (December 1, 1960)

Convention Comment Response to the questionnaires regarding the NAEB convention has been good. Answers are presently being compiled, and the January Newsletter will carry a summary report. Among favorable comments else¬ where was one by Leon C. Fletcher, broadcasting and speech instructor at Taft [California] Union High School and College, which was printed in the Taft Midway Driller. Fletcher summed up his convention stay as “the most intellectually stimulating two days I’ve ever experienced.” ETV in the National Magazines A picture taken inside the studio of educational WIPR-TV, San Juan, Puerto Rico, appeared on the inside front cover of a recent Saturday Review. The picture and accompanying copy were presented as an ad by the Commonwealth to induce people to live in Puerto Rico. • Dr. W. W. Jackson, chairman of the Southwest Texas ETV Council, says that a story in Time maga¬ zine about the projected area ETV station in San Antonio “is full of factual inaccuracies which are misleading.” Dr. Jackson emphatically denies the story’s statement that the station “will be strictly a platform for great teachers to shame poor ones.” Network Offers Varied Schedule The NAEB Radio Network begins its 1961 service to members with an impressive program offering com¬ bining domestic and foreign series in a ten-hour-per- vveek schedule for the January-March period. New foreign series scheduled to begin in early 1961 are The Splendor of Ancient Mexico, produced by Mexico National University Radio in cooperation with KUT-FM, University of Texas; Interviews from Sweden with Marjorie Lundin; Radio Sweden’s Famous Swedes; FBS’s Vocal Art in France; and a new CBC University of the Air series, Humanistic Values in English Literature. New grant-in-aid series scheduled are WKAR’s Oral Essays on Education and KFJM’s Heritage of American Humor. Other new series include H Is For Joy (a study of the nature, status, and treatment of drug addiction); a folk song series, Songs of the People; a panel series on Religion in Life; a study of contemporary music, Composers On Composers, fea¬ turing composers discussing themselves and their contemporaries; another series from Michigan State University’s annual Asian Institute Lectures; and a series of talks on John Dewey in the Light of Recent Philosophy. In addition, network members may obtain a study of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Aside From Shake¬ speare; lectures from a recent Newport Jazz Festival on Jazz in American Life; a new Voice of America Forum Lecture series on music; and a new series from the Cooper Union on The Individual. Foreign produced shows continuing from 1960 are the Canadian and French press reviews, RAI’s Italian Composers, and the French Broadcasting System’s Contemporary Music From France. The series Ger¬ many Today, produced both in the U. S. and in Germany, will continue also. Continuing domestic series include the children’s series, Stories ’n Stuff and Carnival of Books, the Georgetown Forum, and the Voice of America Forum Lectures: Chemistry. Two grant-in-aid series, Listen to the Land and Medical Research round out the series continuing from 1960. Medical Research is the first of four sub-series in a 58-part series on Human Behavior: Social and Medical Research pro¬ duced by WUOM, and other sub-series will be avail¬ able later in the year. Anyone desiring further descriptions of any of these series may obtain free single copies of the first- quarter network offering. Write to NAEB Head¬ quarters. News of Members GENERAL ► At the University of Illinois, a study was done to test the hypothesis that persons attracted to WILL- TV by the “Play of the Week” dramatic series would increase their viewing of the locally produced “Mo¬ saic” program. Telephone calls were made to 400 faculty homes on October 6 and again on November 10. Results showed that viewing of “Mosaic” in¬ creased about 28 per cent in the month between the two studies, while the increase in viewing of “Play of the Week” was less than 2 per cent. However, “Play of the Week” viewers were more likely than others to increase their viewing of “Mosaic” as well as their over-all viewing of the channel. ^ The University of Utah has received program test authority from the FCC to operate two UHF channels with ten-watt transmitters to determine whether or not standard quality transmission is pos¬ sible with such equipment. The university is con¬ ducting experimental work on the installations through a research grant from the U. S. Office of Education. If the low-power system proves itself, the way is opened up to use ETV on an extensive basis for a fraction of present costs. Transmission equipment was manufactured by Adler Electronics and the CCTV studio equipment was manufactured by RCA. ► ETV stations last month had a chance to broad¬ cast an exclusive interview with Red China Premier Chou En-Lai. The NETRC program was recorded in Peiping by Felix Greene. h New York University is offering a new scholar¬ ship of $500 annually to be given to a student who shows outstanding promise in the area of creative writing for radio and TV. The scholarship was estab¬ lished through support of the Mogul Williams & DECEMBER 1960 3