Sponsor (Nov 1946-Oct 1947)

but solid network coverage, but because their standards of what constitutes coverage is higher at the start of the first industrywide listener measurement than the measuring organization's. Despite the increase in number of AM stations, the possibilities of a fifth network are still nebulous. Until the American Broadcasting Company and the Mutual Broadcasting System build themselves into the NEC-CBS class, a new network, unless it is designed to fill a need which has not even been researched yet, will have an overwhelming job ahead of it. It will require millions, and with TV on the verge and FM actually getting underway, money will flow into these two new broadcast outlets rather than a competitive AM web. Televisicn (TV) is ready to go, despite the fact that station operators have discovered that it's going to cost millions to get into the field and build an audience that will justify a sponsor's putting his advertising budget to work with pictures. Present status of TV is reported upon in detail in "Television and the Sponsor Now" on page 26. It's the number two facet on the broadcasting diamond. CBS's presentations on color in video have had the net result of forcing license applicants out of the field unless they were willing to take great chances. Television color is not here, for even if the new tube being developed on the West coast is found practicable it will take from two to four years to set standards for it and to get stations operating. Color is the great plus, it's not the basic entertainment. It will enable the medium to sell better but it won't revolutionize pictures that fly through the air into the heme. The same thing is true of frequency modulation (FM). It's a better, finer manner of transmitting sound into the home. It will make the enjoyment of bio. dc?.sting available to certain sections of the nation which have never before been able to hear it without a background of noise that took away most of the enjoyment of listening. FM will enable stations to deliver to a sponsor an exact unvariable coverage picture. It will permit an almost infinite number of stations to serve an almost infinite number of areas which now take their radio from a remote point. In quality of a delivered signal into a home it's tops. Technically it has what it takes. What it does program-wise to justify its existence is still a big question mark. No live music may be heard over frequency modulation stations at present— and FM is the best carrier that music has ever had. No live instrumental music may be heard over a TV outlet either. This is a union problem. It has not retarded the growth of TV, for TV has been able to reverse the motion picture formula and impose a live person on a recorded song and make it appear as though the star were singing herself. Motion pictures do it by having the voice matched to the picture, TV by having the picture matched to the sound. Automatic relay stations may make it possible to cover the U. S. without A. T. & T. wire charges. This would make an FM network less expensive to operate and deliver a higher quality program, technically, at a lower cost per thousand. The Westinghouse plans to link a network of TV and FM stations through the stratosphere, with transmitters in airplanes, is still in the Buck Rogers stage but it appears to be more than a Glenn Martin dream. This would also reduce the cost of delivering the programs and tests are continuing with the sanction of the FCC. The final big gun in the four facets of broadcasting. Fax (facsimile), is very much in the experimental stage — operationally. It has however passed through the experimental phase technically in the fieldtesting area of its develor-ment. Both J. V. L. Hogan (Radio Inventions, Inc.) and Captain William (i. II. Finch have transmitting and receiving equipment in the field and a number of newspapers are cooperating with both of them in turning 0U1 Fax four-column newspapers that ccme through the air (four pages each 15 minutes) with the clarity of good printing. The field of Fax is being tested also by the networks as part of their daily operations, idea being that last-minute changes sent to stations via Fax can avoid the errors which occur through the use of Morse code or the conference call (Mutual Broadcasting) routine. The cost of Fax receivers will be comparatively inexpensive (they add about 563 to the cost of a good frequency modulation receive! I. Fax will start as a.i integral part of FM station operations with many licensees expecting their first prof.H from Fax sharing their FM band rather than FM operations themselves. Moduplex cpsrations, the sending of both Fax signals and regular FM programs on the same wave band at the same time, has not yet been okayed by the FCC, but that's not because it isn't feasible but because thus far any station moduplexing creates problems for the non-duplexing stations. The commission doesn't want to issue any rules which would force regular FM stations to go to the expense of installing special shielding and other electronic equipment just in order that some other station can use its waveband for a dual purpose. In other words at present an FM licensee must use his waveband for Fax or FM, not both at the same time. At present only AM, of the four broadcasting facets, is a profitable advertising medium. TV is the current program and commercial experimental medium. FM receivers are beginning to move off the production line, and the Fax status is that of being field-tested, electronically and program-wise. AM Better coverage, better measurement of circulation and top promotion and programing mark the present status of standard broadcasting. Local competition will be stiffer with licenses now past the 1000 mark. TM Receivers and transmitters for the new band are at long last coming off the production line. The staticless, high-quality, intensivecoverage medium will get again started proving itself as a factor in broadcasting. TV Television is in the area of experimental program and commercial development. Despite its many false starts it is the medium that holds its fans against all other entertainment fields. Its pay-off is in the future. TAX The broadcast medium that combines the advantages of black-and-white advertising with the accessibility of radio is getting its field test baptismal. It's 1 5 monthsaway from becoming commercial in the hcrr.e.