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powerful a medium as this, then, will undergo the strictest attention ever accorded any channel of communica' tions. Therefore Hollywood's poten' tially great influence as programmer must, in turn, be governed by an awareness of public relations it hither' to has not demonstrated.
Aside from these administrative considerations of the future, however, the foremost problems pressing on television at present are programming and payment — what to put on the air all those insatiable hours and who is to pay for the steep, ascending charges thereof. The former is, of course, re sponsible for the trend to films and the other is of merely secondary im' portance to Hollywood in that no matter the source, advertisers or subscrip' tions or theatres or all jointly, the revenues are certain.
TRACING briefly the vagaries of programming to this date, the most startling revelation is that of zooming costs. In the early period of television after the war, a thirtyminute show could be produced in New York for several thousand dollars, at the most. As circulation rose and as the coaxial cable spanned additional cities in the East and Midwest, these charges mounted to the point where advertising agencies are now protesting that television is pricing itself out of competition with the printed, outdoor and broadcast media of promotion.
To illustrate, sponsor Frigidaire is spending $140,000 for each of six hourly shows featuring Bob Hope and, since this is a live program kinescoped for delayed telecasting in the Far West, there are no residual incomes
October, 1931
such as accrue to films from foreign, 16mm. and other sources. One showthat's all. NBC's highly-touted
ing,
comedy cavalcade climbed to $50,000-360,000 per show bracket and sponsor and network alike complained of the fees. Despite numerous at tempts to turn costs downward or at I least keep them static, budgets for live | programs climb ever upward.
Important as this is, it is but one of j the many factors souring sponsors on ' live programs originated in Manhattan. Some of the most prominent are lack of space there, necessitating additional expenditures for set changes as well
as limitations of scenes; the dearth of talent in the East the absence of scope and technical effects that only motion pictures can pro-) vide; and, the mistakes frequently occurring in live programs that obviously could be deleted in films. New York's resistance to losing out cannot offset | these causes for shifting.
ANOTHER facet of the trenc JLx. Hollywoodward is the plight of stations throughout the country. Tele* vision economics demand that outlet be operated an increasing number ofj| hours weekly to defray heavy fixed| investments and operating assessments; live programs require skills' and personnel that are increasingly' excessive in their aggregate price. Stations have attempted to by-pass.