Radio annual and television yearbook (1938)

stance the cycle of Shakespeare's plays which Columbia gave last summer would have been, I think, disturbing to people if they could have seen the actors in their street clothes reading script to the microphones. On the other hand, there are certain current programs which would take to television with hardly any adaptation, Professor Quiz and Major Bowes' Amateur Hour are two examples that come to mind at once. SIGHT PLUS SOUND Perhaps twenty-five years from now the standard entertainment coming over the air will be sight-plus-sound. At the beginning sight-plus-sound will be a supplementary program. In order to make those early programs satisfactory we will -naturally look, for the programs which actively need a visual accompaniment; then we will take those which can use it, and as the last step only will add television to programs which are virtually complete without it. I would make one practical exception to this general principle: we will probably add visual background for musical programs even though they do not absolutely require it, right away. On the other hand, I should think that among the last types of program to require television would be news-reports and comedy programs based almost entirely on puns. TELEVISION PROGRAMS A lot of things which are now difficult for radio to handle will be made easy when television is working at full blast. I don't think that any program maker has really been anxious to demonstrate the theories of Einstein, but you can see that if any higher mathematics are wanted on the air, the blackboard which television could supply would be a great help. One of the favorite experimental programs in all studios is a fashion parade. Properly handled, this material actually gains a great deal through television. In England one of the popular programs is a visit either of animals to the studio or of the transmitter to the zoo and another is the practical preparation of food under the direction of an expert chef. In general all these programs are now rather held back because transmitting in formation or giving education on the air is difficult and cannot remain entertaining. I have been discussing studio programs for the last few paragraphs and rather taking it for granted that the possibilities of transmitting news events are clear to everyone. They do present problems of their own and balancing them with the other elements of a good show offers a near exercise in judgment. The third part of a good television program is, as I have said, a moving picture. Here again the basic thing is simple enough — you can take any movie and run it through a film -scanner and it will give you extremely good pictures at the receiving end. But movies are, after all, made to be seen by large numbers of people in front of a very large screen and it is quite possible that not all of them will be suitable for a group of three or four people sitting in a small room. Perhaps we will have movies especially made for our purposes or special versions of regular films. Television may be the great method of keeping good pictures alive because it is very unlikely thai any Hollywood studio would allow one of its costly features be shown before it has reached its natural audiences in the movie houses and revivals of good movies are still comparatively rare, so television may serve a good purpose in that field. GENERAL All of this is a very sketchy outline of what may appear on the television screen. We who are at work in Columbia's Program Department are like our engineering staff, tremendously excited by the unlimited possibilities of television and tremendously concerned by the difficulties and perplexities which we discover. On some days the difficulties seem too great and there are other days when something goes exactly right and we feel again that we are gaining ground. No one I have talked to in the last half year expects an overnight miracle and everyone is confident of an ultimate success. Here at Columbia we have worked out a sort of slogan to guide us and to keep a balance between sudden swings of over-confidence or over-anxiety. We say that it is not our chief concern to know when television should arrive, but it is our business to make sure that, whenever it arrives, it will give the American public the quality of entertainment to which it has become accustomed in radio and the movies. Technically, I am sure, the American standard of entertainment is the highest in the world; nowhere else does the public receive pictures and broadcasts made with so much care and presented witn so much consideration for the audience. It would be ruinous for television to start work on any lower basis. 481