Television digest with AM-FM reports (Jan 1951-Jan 1952)

4 known to be losing |20,000 per month. Biggest bargain of all, KING-TV. was losing $1000 a month when Mrs. Bullitt purchased it in early 1949. All other sales took place in 1950 and 1951 (see issue of Television Digest indicated for full details). * * Sales point up eagerness of broadcasters, to say nothing of many non-radio interests, to get into the TV swim — especially now that the business shows great profit promise. Veritable "gold rush" for new station permits is certain after FCC ends freeze, but some well-heeled interests have chosen to make haste by buying. It takes blue chips to go into telecasting business, as compared with radio, which is reason why Howard Stark, broker formerly associated with Smith Davis, plans to set up company to help finance grantees by buying and leasing costly equipment required — sure-fire idea so far as demand is concerned but requiring FCC blessing. Stark says he has Wall Street money interested, predicates plan on belief local banks and insurance companies, usually requiring brick-and-mortar collateral, will hesitate about financing new TV stations, as they did about radio in the past — and many broadcasters simply haven't the necessary resources. COLOR LABS RACE CBS's 'HEAD START': Developments in all-industry compatible color system, plus CBS's redoubled efforts to make its system "stick" as its investment in system mounts daily, foreshadow fiercest kind of showdown this fall and winter. From one of industry's top color experts, and one of most confident. Hazeltine v.p. Arthur Loughren, we have these comments on status of compatible system: (1) Agreement on system standards, among National TV System Committee members, should be reached by September. Exhaustive field testing will then be conducted until end of year, by which time it should be ready for presentation to FCC. (2) Cost of now complex compatible color receivers will be reduced drastically and rapidly. "By year's end," Loughren predicts, "at least 15, if not 20 tubes will be removed from RCA's 54-tube set — with no loss in performance." (3) Controversy over RCA's "pastel" colors vs. CBS's more "brilliant" hues (Vol. 7:28) is something of a joke to Hazeltine engineers, he says. "During RCA's demonstrations, we varied controls on our receiver, got more saturated colors, but our men thought they looked much less natural. " Loughren also reports tri-color tube now in operation, calls it "excellent" — a big relief from looking down "dichroic tunnel" required with 3-tube sets. Schedule of compatible colorcasts will be issued bi-weekly by NTSC's field test panel under DuMont's Dr. T. T. Goldsmith. Next demonstrations to be obesrved by Loughren' s standards panel: Aug . 6 , GE , at Syracuse; Aug. 7, Hazeltine. Little Neck, L. I.; Aug. 8, RCA, Princeton; Aug. 9, Fhilco, Morrisville, Pa. Tour will wind up in New York Aug. 10 with discussion of observations. FCC this week granted Philco authority to begin compatible colorcasts over WPTZ's Channel 5 facilities, using experimental call KG2XDT, running 90 days from July 23. Transmissions are limited to periods outside regular programming hours. Then, around Aug. 22, RCA starts public demonstrations (Vol. 7:29). ^ ^ ^ Meanwhile, CBS is making most of its best promotional prospects to date: (1) Nine top-flight eastern football games (Army, Navy, Penn, et al), banned on black-and-white, to be colorcast. Sept. 29-Nov. 24. These will be fed to stations able to clear time. Availability of games may spark purchases of adapters, to get games in black-and-white, whether or not it moves color sets and converters. (2) Tieup with 20th Century-Fox on theatre TV, employing CBS system with Swiss-developed Eidophor large-screen system (Vol. 7:29). This week, GE agreed to make color camera for combined systems, said it will have definition greater than black-and-white's 525 lines — but doesn't say how much greater. Demonstration of large-screen color, says 20th Century-Fox, may come before year's end. In Cincinnati, CBS reports, color proved such hit that WKRC-TV extended programs second week. Signals are received on set rotated among Kroger stores.