Sponsor (July-Dec 1951)

His Sponsors Alone Make a Sizable Audience Fulton Lewis, Jr. is sponsored locally on more than 340 Mutual stations by 572 advertisers. The roster of businesses represented is too long to detail here, but this brief summary shows their scope: 93 automotive agencies 19 auto supply and repair companies 6 bakers 51 banks anil savings institutions 26 brewers and bottlers 58 building materials firms 29 coal, ice and oil companies 14 dairies 30 department stores 23 drug stores 16 food companies 43 furniture or appliance stores 17 hardware stores 14 jewelers 14 laundries 25 real estate and insurance agencies 94 miscellaneous His program is the original news co-op. It offers local advertisers network prestige, a ready-made and faithful audience, a nationally known commentator — all at local time cost with pro-rated talent cost. Since there are more than 500 MBS stations, there may be an opening in your locality. Check your Mutual outlet — or the Cooperative Program Department. Mutual Broadcasting System, 1440 Broadway, NYC 18 ( or Tribune Tower, Chicago. 11). A. Phonevision, the best-known system, is owned by Zenith Radio Corp. of Chicago. Its method is to send out over the air a garbled image of the telecast being sold. This garbled image makes no sense on the subscriber's screen unless he calls the telephone company, asks to receive the "unscrambling" signal over his telephone wire. Through a connection between telephone and TV set, an operator sends through the unscrambling signal. At the same time, customer has a specified charge added to his bill. Phonevision did nicely in its 90-day Chicago test. Take was $6,694.00 from 300 test families who paid "admission" to televised movies. One uncertainty remaining is the phone company's willingness to cooperate with Phonevision on a big scale. It would mean more equipment and servicing, adding a complete bookkeeping operation to an already over-loaded telephone system. Subscriber -Vision is a self-contained attachment to the TV set, designed by Skiatron Electronics & Television Corp. of New York. Here, too, a scrambled signal comes over the air. The unscrambling is done by inserting a perforated punch-card into the small decoder which has been hooked up to the TV set. These punch-cards (similar to the IBM cards used in mechanized arithmetic) would be sold by mail from the company's office, might be broadly distributed through chain stores and newsstands. Each card would be good for a single performance, or could be used for a week's subscription depending on firm's policy. With F.C.C. approval, SubscriberVision will launch a test of its system over WOR-TV, New York in the middle of September or beginning of October. According to Skiatron's president, Arthur Levey, one or more college football games will be broadcast this fall over the system. He's also planning to approach non-profit organizations like the Red Cross and Cancer Fund on the possibility of raising money for them via special charity performances. Levey sees rates eventually falling to as little as 10 or 15 cents an hour when the subscribers total 500,000. Telemeter is the newest wrinkle in pay-as-you-go TV. Developed by a group of Hollywood film executives, it recently got backing from Paramount Pictures which bought a 50% interest. Telemeter works much like SubscriberVision, but uses a coin-box attachment 180 SPONSOR