Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1957)

Trade Report January 5, 1957 GE, RGA BOOST INDEPENDENT SERVICE ROLE: Reassurance for the independent service industry that its importance would not be minimized in any build-up of factory service came this week in statements by GE and RCA. For the former, it apparently represented a reversal of policy; for latter, strong reaffirmation of existing policy. GE took 2 major actions; (1) Removed distribution of TV replacement parts from GE Supply Co. branches, and returned it to its franchised tube distributors. (2) Established training program for qualified independent servicemen, to handle service "on all makes of receivers and on the many electronic items which the home of tomorrow will contain." The training program will be backed by GE's national advertising in support of independent servicemen. GE gave no official explanation for its actions, which seemed to run contrary to its previously-announced plans to establish factory service branches in markets where adequate independent service was unobtainable (Vol. 12:34). But there was considerable speculation that the storm of opposition from service organizations had forced GE to modify its program. There was no clear indication, however, that GE planned outright abandonment of its factory service plans. "Our national product service advertising campaign in Life and the Saturday Evening Post has been discontinued," announced J.H. Miller, mgr. of product service for GE's appliance & TV receiver div. , in formal statement released Jan. 3. "In addition, we have taken ^teps to insure that any ad mats supplied to our distributors and dealers for local newspaper advertising will not contain expressions which can be interpreted by independent servicemen as derogatory to them." More than 95 out of every 100 service calls made on GE's TV sets in 1956 were handled by independent service dealers, said Miller. "In the vast majority of markets throughout the United States," he said, "our distributors have appointed, and we expect will continue to appoint, independent service organizations as the authorized stations for the repair of GE's TV receivers." Service training for dealers, to be conducted by franchised GE tube distributors, will include detailed courses on accounting and business training, merchandising techniques and technical proficiency, said J.E. Thompson, mgr. of GE tube sales to distributors. He said that local seminars would be conducted "in response to many dealer requests generated by a recent exploratory program." GE has established service school at its Syracuse facilities for both color and black-&-white , he said, adding; "Any service dealer who successfully completes the training we will offer, and who measures up to other requirements as established by our franchised tube distributors, will have the opportunity to be identified as a member of this national network, and to capitalize on the prestige that will result." « 4c « « RCA's statement was issued day after GE's announcement, took form of open letter to servicing industry from pres. Frank M. Folsom. After recalling that the $2.8 billion volume achieved last year by servicing represented about 25% of entire electronics industry's $11 billion-plus gross income, he reaffirmed these policies: (1) RCA will continue to make available to servicing profession the information and knowledge it acquires in its own operations. (2) "Independent service organizations must have equal opportunity to compete with RCA factory service for consumer service arrangements on RCA Victor TV sets. It is our further belief that in any plan under which the original price of the TV receiver includes service through the warranty period, dealers must have full freedom to provide their own service or provide the service through independent service organizations or RCA factory service. In the exercise of this choice, the dealer must not be restricted to 'captive service.'" 11