Washington report (May 15, 1964)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Requests for Federal assistance for the expansion of existing stations range widely from $15,000 to $500,000, and it is difficult to predict the average amount to be requested in the future. The range for new stations is understandably narrower and the average grant award continues to remain very close to the average of $175,000 upon which estimates have been based since the beginning of the program. It seems unlikely that the average grant for a new station will go below that amount; on the contrary with the short supply of used equipment and a trend to increased technical sophistication it is probable that cost averages will rise. Evidence of the large number of citizens benefiting from these expenditures is provided by the 26 applications for new station grants so far received. Based on total populations reported within proposed grade B contours we find 1,860,000 persons to be the average number within the service area of a proposed new station. It is reassuring to note that the total expected activations reported by respondents is not inconsistent with the rate of authorization requests being made to the Federal Communications Commission. Construction Permits which were granted on the average of 8 a year in the period from 1951 to i960, jumped to 20 in 1962 and to 29 in 1963* At present there are 27 outstanding Construction Permits and 37 pending applications of which 7 were received during the first quarter of this calendar year. In short, application activity before the FCC lends credence to the survey result. A principal controling factor in development will be the availability of State and local non-Federal matching funds. While our knowledge is unavoidably sketchy, what we do know is encouraging to the realist. Information is largely limited to funds appropriated by State legislatures specifically for ETV construction. Of the new activation applications so far accepted by HEW, only a third are dependent for assistance on State ETV construction appropriations. It seems a reasonable guess however, that as much as 50 $ of the new activations in 1965 will have their non-Federal matching provided through earmarked State appropriation. We know now that at least 19 of the stations planned for fiscal 1965 have non-Federal matching funds already available through State legislative action. Because the legislatures of the large majority of States meet on odd years, 1964 will see few appropriations for educational television, but several millions of dollars are already assured. Furthermore, it is evident that the sessions beginning in 1965 will have a sizable number of carefully drawn ETV construction bills supported by seasoned advocates with several years of spade work behind them. There is a realistic basis for planning on approximately 25-30 station starts during fiscal 1964 and, barring the unexpected, on as many as 50-60 additional starts during fiscal 1965. This rate of growth will impose a tremendous burden upon the profession for which it must prepare if the movement is not to be stunted or fall into disarray because of a failure to resolve the administrative and management problems which will accompany large scale activation.