Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1954)

3 with NBC, CBS & DuMont. It opens up new primary coverage area, being 51 mi. from Albany, 60 mi. from Schenectady, 70 mi. from New Haven. It uses 1-kw RCA transmitter with 600-ft. Stainless tower at Port Ewen, some 10 mi. from Poughkeepsie. Pres. Joseph Close also controls WKNE-TV, Ch. 45 grantee for Keene, N.H. Robert Peebles is v.p.-gen. mgr. ; Robert Sabin, TV operations mgr. ; Robert Perry, program mgr. ; Carl Egolf, chief engineer. Base rate is $100. Rep is Meeker. WSEE, Erie, Pa. (Ch. 35), first local competitor for pre-freez WICU (Ch. 12) links with CBS April 25 as a primary interconnected affiliate following week of test patterns that elicited good reception reports in its tri-state area. Station uses 12-kw GE transmitter, 700-ft. Stainless tower with 4-bay GE helical antenna, located about 5 mi. south of city. New stockholders recently added include George J. Mead (16.6%), now president, and John J. Mead Jr. (13%), co-publishers of the Erie Times. Also a stockholder is John W. English (6.9%), who is pres, of WNAO-TV, Raleigh, N.C. Charles Denny is v.p.-gen. mgr. ; Donald Boyce, commercial mgr. ; Frank Palmer, program director; Ed Zellefrow, chief engineer. Base rate is $200, rep is Avery-Knodel. * ♦ # * XEJ-TV, Juarez, Mexico (Ch. 5), across border from 2-station El Paso, is now testing, plans May 17 inaugural program. It's first of 2 projected all-Spanish language stations, Gordon McLendon's KELP-TV, El Paso (Ch. 13) having June 15 target. It's third Mexican border station seeking to derive main sponsorships from U.S., the others being in Mat amor os (opposite Brownsville, Tex.) and Tijuana (near San Diego). Owner Pedro Meneses Hoyos says programs will be built around sports, including films of bullfights in Mexico City and other films and kines in Spanish, R. Hurtado is program mgr. ; J. L. deLira, chief engineer. RCA 500-watt transmitter is used. NO DRASTIC UHF PLANS UP FCC's SLEEVE: Don't look for FCC to advance any radical proposals when it presents its testimony before Senate communications subcommittee at the uhf hearings scheduled to begin May 4. Certainly some drastic suggestions will be submitted — but not by the FCC. Newly organized UHF Industry Coordinating Committee (Vol. 10:16), for example, will ask reallocation of the nation's TV channels to minimize or eliminate intermixture of vhf & uhf stations in same communities. Hearings v;ill be held against backdrop of mounting concern over the future of many uhf stations now near end of their financial rope. Two more suspended operations this week — WKLO-TV, Louisville, Ky. (Ch. 21) and WBKZ-TV, Battle Creek, Mich. Ch. 64) — and 2 other CP-holders relinquished their grants, deciding not to build. Some well-situated uhf operators say business is good, and insist that some dropouts are inevitable due to the too-rapid buildup of new stations. As against 9 uhf outlets which went off air, they point to 129 now telecasting (including 2 new ones which went on air this week; see p. 2). We've been told by several telecasters that nothing has hurt their business so much as recent uhf scare-talk, and some fear is expressed that the Senators may not be told there are some successful uhf stations. Here's general thinking on uhf problems among the commissioners — likely to be reflected in Chairman Hyde's testimony as lead-off witness: One way to help uhf is to liberalize multiple ownership rules to permit ownership of 5 vhf & 2 uhf , as proposed by FCC. (Hearing will consider Sen. Johnson's substitute measure to permit ownership of as many as 10 uhf on sliding-scale basis, depending on how many vhf are owned; see Vol. 10:11,13.) Commission will oppose as impractical proposals to take over part of FM band to provide more vhf channels, or to move all stations to xihf — and it certainly won't be receptive to suggestions involving compromise in engineering principles, such as reducing station separations, etc. FCC will consider granting immediate STAs for satellites or boosters ( p . 4 ) — but only to fill in a station's local service area, not to expand it. The commissioners feel it's too soon to determine whether TV service should be extended by such means rather then by regular stations. To help uhf stations get more network programs, some commissioners are interested in plan to bar interconnected stations from carrying network shows on delayed