Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

Section of RADIO DAILY, Monday. December 19. 1949 — TELEVISION DAILY is fully protected by register and copyright COSTS OF NATIONWIDE TV STUDIED Analysis By Faught Co. Puts Annual Cost For 1000-Station System At $1,740,352,500; Sees Box-Office TV As Supplementary Service (Continued from Page 1) of $80 billion in new business would be necessary to pay the TV bill, calculated on the percentage of total dollars spent on advertising in 1948 — 2.1 per cent. The 101-page report, written by Dr. Millard C. Faught, does not hold that TV will substantially reduce ad budgets for other media in the long run. "If television really justifies itself as an advertising medium," it states, "it should so add to the total national income as to stimulate more new advertising dollars than it will steal from other media." Conclusions Itemized Other conclusions in the study include: (1) "The inexorable laws of profit and loss, rather than potential usefulness will set the iron curtains of limitations on television's future if it follows the pattern of radio. (2) "Only a small portion of TV's total potentialities will be realized if the ecomomics of advertising must alone shoulder the heavy costs involved. (3) "In the desperate effort to overcome these costs, compromises in programming and elsewhere will force television to reach a level of inadequate mediocrity, as compared to its potentialities. (4) "The FCC may ultimately force the telecasting industry to provide rural area coverage as a public service obligation in return for li censes in the more profitable metropolitan centers. (5) "As part of the 'cost compromising' radio stations and television stations will combine and operate as combination radio-video stations. (6) "The pressure will steadily intensify to find other sources of revenue to help advertising bring television to its ultimate fruition." Faught contends that a system of box-office TV, "besides building bigger audiences and thus heightening TV's advertising uses," has several advantages. Such a supplementary system, he said: Says Hollywood Would Benefit "Would enable Hollywood to increase its own box office take from the movies by one million dollars per day, plus another half million per day of income to the television transmitting stations and the telephone companies. "Would make possible '$25,000,000 gates' for such sports spectaculars as the World Series, the Rose Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, etc. "Would offer a potential new solution to the 'tuition crisis' in our colleges and universities by taking up where the correspondence school's leave off in selling almost every kind of education via television. "And possibly even bring church services to folks who can't seem to get up and dressed early enough on Sunday morning." October Tube Sales Up 100%; Large-Picture Trend Strong TELE TOPICS CIX DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMEN, all with responsible positions in the field, j spoke very frankly about programming and production at the ATS meet last week. What they had to say is not new. Each of them has expressed the same ideas I many times in the past and similar thoughts have been put into print by virtually every reviewer in the business. But I the problems they discussed are so important that they should be constantly repeated until they are eliminated. In 1 essence, the six speakers agreed that a | good script is the heart of a program and without this solid foundation all production techniques and tricks have no value. They said also that the writer who can ' turn out a good video script is a rare specimen and that there is a shortage also of other truly creative personnel. The speakers, all especially qualified, were: Tony Miner and Jerry Danzig, of CBS; Charles Brown, of Masterson, Reddy and Nelson; Jim Caddigan, of DuMont; Burke J Crotty, of ABC, and Henry White, of World Video. • kilNER, PRODUCER OF "Studio One" and "The Goldbergs," said that script and the preparation that goes into I it constitute the fundamental production problem. "The script itself will impose what you use or don't use" in the way of production effects, he said, adding that TV writing is perhaps the most difficult I of all. . . . White, president of the package house that produces the Peabody Award winner, "Actors Studio," said, "We're absolutely at the bottom of the i barrel for writers." There is a constant search for new writers going on, he said, and if they are not found, TV will make the same mistakes as radio and the * movies. White introduced what was to become a recurrent note in the discussion when he said that TV must develop inexpensive program formulas or else it would "run out of sponsors." The industry, he added, must attract those adver| tisers with budgets in the million dollar , or under class. • CROTTY SAID THAT the major problem today is a "lack of imagination," 4 citing the innumerable carbon copies of every successful show. There are too many "mechanics" in the field, he said, and not enough creative directors, defining a "mechanic" as one who can direct cameras but not people. ... To help beat the script problem, Caddigan said, DuM i has created teams of writers and directors working together on a show. Pointing to his web's daytime shows, he said that good programming has been developed at a reat sonablc, saleable cost. . . . Brown urged that creative men be paid more and given more importance instead of being moved to exec. jobs. Washington Bureau of RADIO DAILY Washington — October sales of cathode-ray tubes for TV receivers increased more than 100 per cent over the sales average for the third quarter of 1949, RMA revealed on Friday. October report marks a change from quarterly to monthly compilations of TV picture tube sales by the RMA tube division. October sales of television receiver-type cathode-ray tubes totalled 456,375 units valued at $11,719,674. compared with a third quarter monthly average of 216,274 units valued at $5,718,150, or increases of 111 and 105 per cent, respectively. The trend toward larger picture screens was further emphasized as it was reported that more than 48 per cent of tubes sold to equipment manufacturers were 12 through 13.9 inches in size; tubes nine through 11.9 inches accounted for 30.8 per cent of the total and tubes above 14 inches for 17 per cent. Tubes smaller than six inches and six-through-8.9 inches amounted to only 3.4 per cent. Projection-type cathode-ray tubes represented .02 per cent of October sales. TV receiver type cathode ray tube sales totalled 2,585,585 units and $73,959,136 during the first 10 months of this year with 2,423,589 units and $69,352,495 representing sales to set manufacturers in the period. Sales of all other types of cathode-ray tubes, including oscillographs, camera pick up, etc., amounted to 5,880 units valued at $318,509 in October, according to RMA Magnavox In Plunge To Air Holiday Film Magnavox will make its initial use of TV time on Christmas when it sponsors a 30-minute filmed version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" on 22 stations across the country. Campaign is being handled by the Maxon agency. Produced by Mike Stokey and Bernie Ebert and filmed at the Jerry Fairbanks studios in Hollywood, program features Vincent Price as narrator, and Taylor Holmes as Scrooge, with a cast of eighteen. In nearly all of the 22 cities, the film will be carried on Christmas Day in the afternoon or evening. Kine Repeat Planned Of Thanksgiving Show Chicago — The Elgin American Division of the Illinois Watch Case Company will sponsor a kinescope recording of their all-star one and a half hour Thanksgiving Day show over 14 NBC television stations. The show will be aired this week over a non-interconnected web. Program, which was aired live originally, features Milton Berle. the Ritz Brothers, Frances Langford, Phil Regan and emcee George Jessel. Max Liebman produced the program. Gene Hoge, NBC midwest sales manager, announced the unique deal here. Agency is Weiss & Geller. BBD&O Named Agency For Luckies TV Account American Tobacco Co. announced Friday that N. W. Ayer & Son has withdrawn as agency for Lucky Strike TV advertising and that the account has been switched to BBD&O. which handles all other media for the brand. As previously reported in Radio Daily. BBD&O's first show for Luckies will be an hour-long dramatic series with Robert Montgomery. Morse Joins WOIC Washington — Appointment of Joseph C. Morse as art director of WOIC was announced yesterday by program manager James S. McMurry. Morse formerly was with Creative Arts, a commercial art studio: the Washington Daily News, and the State Department