Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

VOL. 15: No. 24 11 TV CODE SHOWDOWN: Sticky problems of what to do about TV code subscribers who defiantly carry proscribed commercials for hemoi'rhoids Preparation H (Vol. 15:17-20) again confront NAB’s code I’eview board & TV board at Washington sessions this week. The revolt against TV’s self-disciplinary authority, which led TV board to withdraw code seals from 8 stations in April, already has brought the publicized resignation from NAB itself of John W. (Duke) Guider’s WMTW-TV (Ch. 8) Poland Spring, Me. There were reports that other penalized subscribers also had walked out. The code review board under chairman Donald H. McGannon of the Westinghouse Bcstg. Co. meets June 15 to take stock of the situation and make recommendations to the full TV board, which has the Preparation H matter high on its June 18 agenda. As is usual when code policies are at issue, nobody at NAB headquarters would talk freely last week in advance of the sessions. But one NAB source told us that “undoubtedly” the review board would move for further action by the TV board in an unspecified number of other Preparation H cases. “The review board has not reversed its unanimous stand on the issue,” he pointed out. The number of code subscribers stood at 303 just before the April disciplinary sessions. It now is reported down to 284 — a loss of 11 in addition to the 8 whose seals were revoked. “They’ve bitten off a big chunk here,” WMTW-TV’s Guider told us last week. “They’ll have to back down. Who are these little tin Caesars to set themselves up to tell you what you can broadcast?” In his formal NAB resignation letter, Guider protested that the review board is “100% wrong” in its policy against Preparation H, whose commercial WMTW-TV carries late Sat. night. He complained bitterly that otherwise nobody had ever questioned “highest ethical” operations of his station, which joined NAB when it went on the air in 1954. Guider himself was a communications lawyer in the Washington firm of Hogan & Hartson before taking command of the Poland Spring outlet as pres.gen. mgr. He was a spokesman for broadcasters as long ago as NRA days in 1934. Image Project Progress: NAB’s TV “image-improvement” committee completed its work at a special meeting June 5, and chairman Clair McCullough (Steinman stations) sounds optimistic about approval of the committee’s program by the NAB board at its Washington meeting June 17. “The committee is satisfied with its recommendations,” he said, “and we’re quite hopeful that the boai’d will endorse them. If approved, the program could move ahead immediately.” He added that he was optimistic not only about the proposed techniques for putting TV’s best foot forward but also about the prospects of raising funds — reportedly about $600,000 annually for 3 years. Serving with McCullough are: C. Howard Lane, KOINTV Portland, Ore.; Dwight W. Martin, WAFB-TV Baton Rouge, La.; G. Richard Shafto, WIS-TV Columbia, S.C.; and Willard E. Walbridge, KTRK-TV Houston, Tex. ■ Colorcast feature movies on a regular schedule began June 12 on WRCA-TV N.Y. “The Purple Plain,” starring Gi'egory Peck, initiated the series in the Friday-night Movie U Saturday Children’s Theatre will also be in color. ZENITH MOVING ON PAY TV: In its first official statement on pay TV in many, months. Zenith confirmed last week that it hopes to go ahead with on-air tests of its Phonevision system under the strict FCC test regulations (Vol. 15:13). Addressing the Security Analysts of San Francisco June 11, Zenith pres. Joseph S. Wright indicated his company is still as enthusiastic as ever about the subscription-TV concept. He said Zenith is “actively exploring what needs to be done to initiate an operation under the terms & conditions of the latest FCC order.” He added that preliminary discussions have been held with people & companies in the entertainment & broadcasting fields and the company hopes “to begin shortly to negotiate arrangements which may make it possible to proceed with an initial operation.” Zenith is ready to start field-testing its latest equipment which can be “produced and maintained for pennies a day.” While giving credit to networks & telecasters for “a magnificent job of programming within the economic limitations of advertising support,” he classified TV fare as a whole as “a big medicine show.” He credited telecasting’s present status largely to the availability of old Hollywood films. When these are gone, pay TV is the next logical step in the distribution of fine programs, he said. He reiterated Zenith’s scorn of proposed closed-circuit pay-TV projects: “Don’t be taken in,” he said, “by statements that someone is going to wire up San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York in some huge coaxial wire network for this purpose. The costs of such projects are fantastic. Subscription TV is inevitable, and when it comes it will be on an over-the-air basis.” ♦ * * Pay TV will eventually provide the public with the cultural programs they , desire, actor Ralph Bellamy told the House subcommittee on education last week. Testifying in favor of a bill to create a Federal Advisory Committee on the Arts, he said he didn’t think that there was a basic anti-cultural feeling on the part of many people in the U.S. Responding to a question by Rep. Giaimo (DConn.) as to why there aren’t more symphony & ballet programs on TV, the actor said that toll TV would prove that there is a very great demand for them. He asserted that TV is programmed according to some ad agency’s policy, some sponsor’s opinion of what the public wants, and someone’s estimate of what will reach the greatest number of people. Demand for culture is so great, he said, that a subscription-TV Sanskrit program would make money at 5<f per viewer. 4: ♦ Sponsor of anti-pay-TV bills killed in the Cal. legislature last week (Vol. 15:22), criticized what he calls the “Hollywood lobby” (unions) and Skiatron for their opposition to the 2 measures. State Assemblyman Louis Francis accused Skiatron of “misleading representations,” adding that every time Skiatron’s Matty Fox announces a “definite” plan to begin televising San Francisco Giants baseball games (such as was promised last April) “only one thing happens: Skiatron stock goes up a point or 2.” ■ A made-in-Mexico video tape of bullfights will be telecast by WBKB Chicago in a late July or early Aug. salute to the forthcoming Pan American Games. The tape was made by Telesistema Mexicano in Mexico City. WBKB program mgr. Dan Schuffman told us last week that the tape will be carried as a one-shot.