Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1956)

10 POLITICAL “EQUAL TIME” bill— another one — was introduced this week by Chairman Priest (D-Tenn.) of House Commerce Committee. His bill (HR-10529) would waive equal-time rules for minor-party candidates for President, VicePresident & Congress as well as bona fide candidates for presidential & vice-presidential nomination by major parties. Stations would be obliged to offer equal time in each case among various major party candidates. Priest bill differs from Johnson-Knowland bill (S-3308) and Harris bill (HR-10217) in that latter 2 apply only to presidential & vice-presidential candidates. CBS v.p. Richard Salant testified before House Commerce communications subcommittee this week, requesting that pres. Frank Stanton be permitted to appear in May to support new CBS “compromise” proposal. He said CBS still prefers original CBS-drafted “Lincoln-Douglas” debates bills (Vol. 12:8) but would endorse Priest bill in preference to Johnson-Knowland and Harris measures. Meanwhile, White House news secy. James C. Hagerty and J. Leonard Reinsch, exec, director of WSB-TV & WSB, Atlanta, and TV-radio consultant to Democratic National Committee, agreed that there was no practical reason why minor party candidates should be granted equal TV time. They participated in political broadcast panel at NARTB convention. Hagerty called for elimination from air of “splinter parties,” while Reinsch stated: “With the present Section 315 (of Communications Act), we are not in position to completely fulfill our public service obligation. For if we give time to candidate No. 1, we must give equal facilities to candidates 2, 3, 4 & 5. With modern means of communication, the American people are entitled to see and hear the national candidates, but that obligation should not carry to a dozen other splinter candidates representing the Vegetarians or the Greenbacks or any otherspecial party.” Hagerty and Reinsch differed on when equal time should be granted. Former said that distinction must -m-NVESTIGATION of anti-trust consent agreement with 1 AT&T (Vol. 12:4) was pledged by Chairman Celler (D-N. Y.) of House Judiciary Committee after scathing attack on Justice Dept, handling of case from floor of House by Rep. Roosevelt (D-Cal.) April 17. Calling the settlement “the lowest point in modern times in the disposition of major anti-trust litigation,” Roosevelt excoriated Govt, for accepting decree which did not split Western Electric from AT&T. He said the agreement, which freed Bell System patents, would be worthless unless Govt, wins pending “patent pool” suit against RCA, quoting Justice Dept.’s chief trust-buster Stanley N. Barnes: “In the RCA pool, there are patents over and beyond AT&T or Bell Labs patents, which may well be necessary before you can get into an open-handed, free and easy production of electronic devices.” Said Roosevelt: “With respect to the alleged 8600 patents involved in the consent decree, RCA has the unrestricted right to sublicense, retain royalties, and sue for infringement on a substantial number of these patents— the exact ones being unknown to the Dept, of Justice. The consent decree does not affect these rights of RCA . . . “A substantial number of the payments involved [are] not sufficient to enable the licensee to manufacture and sell FM or TV commercial broadcast transmitters or receiver.s without an RCA package license. In brief. Judge Barne.s admits that many of the licenses allegedly made be drawn between Mr. Eisenhower’s utterances as President or Republican party leader. He said that every time the President takes action affecting welfare of people, he is entitled to go on air to explain his views, and networks should not be required to grant equal time. He said President’s recent TV speech on reasons for vetoing farm bill was non-political — but Democratic National Committee did receive equal time for reply by Sen. Johnson April 23. Reinsch urged Republican chairman Hall to accept invitation from NBC-TV’s Today for split-screen debate with Democratic chairman Butler once a week starting April 20 and running up to national convention time. Butler himself later accused Hall of making “carefully conceived effort” to keep Democrats from getting equal air time. He said Hall refused Today offer “because he knows we haven’t any money, and it deprives us of the air.” Hall called Butler’s speech “cry-baby” tactics, said they represented “utter bankruptcy” of Democratic program. Butler told Democratic National Committee that No. 1 priority was raising $2,109,000 to finance TV-radio time. TV figured prominently in panel discussion on political coverage at American Society of Newspaper Editors convention in Washington this week. George Cornish of New York Herald Tribune stated that “TV is not our rival, it is our collaborator,” adding that TV viewers want the “bits and pieces fitted together the next morning into a whole that makes sense.” A. H. Kirchhofer of Buffalo Evening News said TV may make some events at political conventions seem more important than they are and that “the printed medium, particularly the daily newspaper, still will have to add up the score for the reader.” Charles Lucey of Scripps-Howard said job of newspapermen “is to try to get and tell the story the TV cameras cannot catch — to try to know the campaign of maneuver, the pressure and persuasion being waged in these smokefilled rooms.” Gould Lincoln of Washington Star said “newspapers cannot hope to beat live TV in seeing and hearing campaign speakers, but the eye and ear are often fleeting recorders. This is whei-e the majesty of the printed word comes to the fore.” available to others by the consent decree are worthless . . .” Meanwhile, AT&T announced plans for record $2.1 billion expansion this year — biggest in American history. Equal access of TV-radio with other media to court trials and legislative hearings was urged by ABC v.p. John Daly in freedom of information address at NARTB convention. He alluded to recent decision of Colorado Supreme Court to permit individual judges to decide whether to permit TV-radio coverage as a “partial victory,” but cautioned: “To claim Colorado as a majorvictory is to delude ourselves. It does constitute a victory in that we may now sometimes enter where we never could before. But it also creates new dangers in that it may set the precedent — and provide our critics with a convenient way of keeping us out while pretending to give us our right.” Sigma Delta Chi awards for journalistic excellence: public service in TV journalism, KAKE-TV, Wichita, for coverage of tornado in its community last May 25 and its efforts to aid victims; TV reporting, Paul Alexander & Gael Boden, KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, for coverage of airliner crash on Medicine Bow peak; TV-radio newswriting, Charles Shaw, WCAU, Philadelphia, for description of French reactions to baseball game; public service in radio journalism, WMAQ, Chicago, for programs on juvenile delinquency; radio reporting, John Chancelloi-, WMAQ, for on-the-spot reporting of gun battle.