Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1954)

8 Telecasting Notes: Farm TV audience gets analytical attention of March 27 Tide, which notes at least 60 stations now telecasting programs designed for farmers and concludes that “farm TV can, and perhaps should, be reckoned with now.” It studies CBS’s recent county-bycounty figures on TV set ownership (full text published by Television Digest, Feb. 27) and notes national TV set saturation is 68%. Then it takes the 2359 farm counties as defined by J. Walter Thompson Co. (i.e., those with no city of 25,000 and where majority do not live in urban areas), and finds 617 with 40% or more TV saturation, 636 with 20-40% . . . Map shows farm counties with TV are generally closely grouped, usually circle an urban county; thus an advertiser using TV in these major cities has a good chance of reaching farmers: Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, Dallas, Denver, Des Moines, Ft. Worth, Grand Rapids, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Lincoln, Louisville, Memphis, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, San Fi’ancisco, Tulsa. Article, with its state-bystate breakdown of farm saturation, is excellent ammunition for station sales force . . . Howard Hughes’ acquisition of RKO for $23,489,478 (at $6 a share) leaves up in air again whether its backlog of 700 films, carried on books at $1, will be made available to TV ; trade reports have it that MPTV’s Matty Fox once offered $12,000,000 for them, DuMont $8,000,000 . . . 5-year rights to 10 major feature films, including 1949 Technicolor production Tulsa (Susan Hayward & Robt. Preston), were sold this week for $300,000 to Samba Pictures Inc. (Jerome Hyams, pres.) for TV distribution, which will be by Hygo films; others in package are Big Cat, Black Book, Down Memory Lane, Lost Honeymoon, Mickey, Port of New York, Man from Texas, The Spiritualist, Trapped ., . . Empire State Bldg, proposes the 7 N. Y. stations occupying its 222-ft. tower sign 15-year leases and pay annual rental of $85,000 each, starting April 30, as against $70,000 they now pay; they’re balking, and dispute may go to arbitration . . . U. S. Senate now has new, bigger, more modern TV-radio studio for taping and filming; it’s in Capitol, run by Mr. & Mrs. Robt. Coar . . . More rate increases: WBTV, Charlotte, N. C., raises Class A hour from $750 to $900, special Class A A min. rate from $175 to $225; KWTV, Oklahoma City, base hour from $465 to $600, min. $93 to $120; KOMO-TV, Seattle, hour from $700 to $800; KPRC-TV, Houston, hour from $700 to $770; WWLP, Springfield, Mass., hour from $250 to $300; WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge, hour from $200 to $250; CFPL-TV, London, Ont., hour from $200 to $275 . . . W. Va. Network “package” being formed by ABC-TV, comprising new WJPB-TV, Fairmont (Ch. 45); WKNATV, Clarksburg (Ch. 49); WTAP-TV, Parkersburg (Ch. 15) ... KHJ-TV replaces KTTV April 1 as DuMont Los Angeles affiliate. To WKY-TV, Oklahoma City, goes distinction of getting first commercial color camera shipped to station other than NBC and CBS New York key outlets. Camera was received March 21; rest of chain was due March 22, while second complete chain and a spare camera were to follow shortly. Mgr. P. A. Sugg said tests would begin in April and he hoped to have regular local live schedule before May 1. Station’s order has been on file for 3 years. Other stations due to get cameras soon: WBAP-TV, Ft. Worth; WBEN-TV, Buffalo; WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee; WCCO-TV, Minneapolis; KTLA, Los Angeles; WDSU-TV, New Orleans. Big screen color: Skywriter Virgil E. Noble, of Venice, Cal., claims that after 12 years of experimenting he’s prepared to sky-write in 4 colors — ^just as soon as he finds someone willing to pay for it. Details of 2 tv tape recorders were revealed for first time at IRE convention this week, together with novel plan for putting color TV pictures on black-&-white film and technical reports on 2 color film scanners. Engineers for both RCA and Bing Crosby Enterprises Inc. (Los Angeles) said they expect to have color TV tape recorders ready for commercial production in about 2 years — each using a different engineering approach. RCA Labs’ Harry F. Olson gave engineers technical data on RCA’s color tape recorder which was demonstrated at Princeton last Dec. (Vol. 9:49), then told newsmen that in the 3% months since demonstration, RCA engineers “have brought the tape speed down materially and have been able to reduce the width.” The recorder shown by RCA and described in this week’s technical paper uses %-in. magnetic tape running at 30 ft. per second, but RCA is aiming at %-in. tape at 20-ft. per second. Bing Crosby Enterprises’ chief engineer J. T. Mullin described system first demonstrated in 1951 (Vol. 7:46). Although it has been used only for monochrome recording to date, he said color model will be demonstrated in 6 months. Black-&-white model uses %-in. wide tape running at 100 in. per second, carries about 1.7-mc of information, but apparent definition was described as much better than 1.7 me. Unlike RCA’s 5-track color recording, BCE’s system uses 10 tracks to carry black-&-white information, 2 more for sync information and sound, can carry color with addition of 2 more tracks. System is based on “time division multiplexing” — recording one track at a time for intervals of 10 microseconds each. Mullin said monochrome system is “already better than the average kinescope recording,” and that 16-minute program can be recorded on 17-in. reel. When color is added, tape will probably be speeded up to about 150 in. per second, he said, giving “more than 3-mc. definition,” or about same as RCA’s. “Color film and tape aren’t the only ways to store color TV images,” said Iowa State College’s Wm. L. Hughes in technical paper at the convention. For the small station, he believes it may be more feasible to use black-&-white film. Advantages over color film would be in cost of film itself, and in processing, which can be done at station just like any black-&-white film. Equipment cost would be less than tape, he said, and pictures could be taken with completely mechanical camera using no electronic gear. Playback would require electronic setup. He described experimental work he’s doing for Iowa State’s WOI-TV with 35mm monochrome film which he said should give definition equivalent to 16mm color film. Film doesn’t record 3 separate images simultaneously, instead uses switching system to provide brightness signal at 60-field rate and alternate pieces of color information at 30-field rate, giving color bandwidth of 1-1% me, which “meets NTSC standards.” Using such a system, he said, small station can take “color” pictures or kine recordings and show them within an hour in color. He emphasizes he hasn’t built complete equipment yet but said that its practicality has been proven. Jesse H. Haines described DuMont’s 16mm color film scanner as giving “better picture than the original 16mm print itself” through use of “electronic masking” which compensates electronically for deficiencies in color film. He said scanner’s development is now complete and disproves theory that any color film smaller than 35mm is unsatisfactory. He added that DuMont will have 2 of the scanners in continuous operation at NARTB convention in Chicago week of May 23. Philco’s color film scanner was described in paper by Joseph F. Fisher.