Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

VOL. 15: No. 47 23 AB-PT anticipates that 4th-quarter “gross income will be at record levels” and earnings will be “substantially better” than the 1958 quarter’s $1,224,000 (27^5 a share). Pres. Leonard H. Goldenson told the N.Y. Society of Security Analysts last week. Net operating profit for the first 9 months ended Sept. 30 was 26% higher than in the same 1958 period (Vol. 15:44 p22). Goldenson noted that the TV network had 90 advertisers this fall, compared with 60 a year ago; that the firm’s second biggest money earner, the movie-theater business, is ahead of last year; that ABPT will reduce its movie-theater holdings eventually from the current 500 to 350-400. He pointed out that the “ABC radio network is not showing a profit, as is the case with all radio networks, but the deficit this year will be cut when compared with 1958.” He also told the Security Analysts that ABC’s network TV ad rates are 25% to 30% lower than those of CBS & NBC. Allied Artists Pictures Corp. tallied a 5% -fold profit increase (Vol. 15:46 p24) in fiscal-1960’s first quarter ended Sept. 26, Pres. Samuel Broidy announced at the company’s annual meeting. He also noted that Oct. “has shown a black figure from unofficial computations,” and forecast “a reasonable black figure” for the current quarter. For the first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 26: Gross income Net income Earned per share . Shares outstanding 1959 1958 $5,241,000 $3,929,000 652,600 120,200 72<^ 124 888,855 878,256 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. net income dropped to $1,159,662 (49^ a share) in the 13 weeks ended Sept. 26, compared with $1,357,982 (58^) in the year-ago period. Revenue & earnings showed a greater decline for the 39 weeks ended Sept. 26: Film rentals, etc. . Net income Earned per share . Shares outstanding 1959 $85,933,864 2,930,532 1.25 2,338,536 1958 $94,136,723 6,590,991 2.87 2,293,186 Filmways Inc. reports lower earnings on increased revenues for the year ended Aug. 31, as compared with the preceding year (1958 share earnings & shares out standing adjusted to reflect stock dividend & split) : Revenue Net income Earned per share . Shares outstanding 1959 1,448,650 190,537 434 447,986 1958 5,758,317 224,870 134 307,076 CBS Inc., whose record 9-month sales & earnings were reported here last week (Vol. 15:46 p22), gives this break down for the 13 weeks ended Oct. 3, 1959 as compared with the 14 weeks ended Oct. 4, 1958: 1959 Net revenues & sales .... $103,201,938 Net profit 4,178,063 Earned per share 51^ 1958 $99,305,548 4,000,906 514 Foreign India’s first TV station is now on the air in New Delhi. The 500-watt transmitter, programmed by govt.-owned All India Radio, is on the air 2 evenings a week. The station has 4 camera chains and is being received initially by 35 sets installed in public places throughout the city. Russia has increased TV production goals for 1961 in a new 3-year plan designed to step up output of all consumer goods. The official Soviet announcement revealed that 1958 TV output totaled 979,300 sets and that the 1961 goal is 1,928,000. U.S.-Foreign TV Views: As U.S. networks edged cautiously toward more editorial control of program content last week, unanimous approval of the “magazine concept” of TV advertising was voiced in N.Y. by leading French, British & German TV executives at an Academy of TV Arts & Sciences seminar Nov. 17. Pierre Crenesse, dir. for North America, Radiodiffusion-TV Francaise; Norman Collins, deputy chmn.. Associated TV Ltd.; and Peter Von Zahn, U.S. correspondent Nord-West Deutsche, Fernsehen, were the foreign guests favoring a “no-sponsorship position on a 6-man ATAS panel. Other panel members included Wallace Ross, TV consultant recently returned from an Iron Curtain tour; Alfred R. Stern vp, NBC Enterprizes; Don Hewitt, producer-dir., CBS News. Highlights: Crenesse on French TV: “Commercial TV in France would not be feasible,” Crenesse said. “Our total TV-radio budget is 32 billion francs a year, while advertising could bring in only 4 billion.” He voiced opposition to the American form of TV advertising, but said he favored a commercial TV with “3 commercial min. per hour, no sponsor say about programming, and advertising being handled directly by French TV, not through an agency.” French TV, supported by a $12 annual tax of each set owner, won’t go commercial for many years, he predicted. Programming is “50% live, 44.6% film and 5.4% Eurovision.” (Eurovision, “which originated in France in 1954,” consists of French, English & German programming, has 12 subscribing nations “with the Soviet joining next month.”) Collins on British TV: Explaining the development & growth of Britain’s magazine-concept commercial TV system (11 contractors, franchised for key TV areas to provide programs & sell advertising aired on a single independent channel) as “a reflection of the English love for compromise,” Collins stated it had worked out very well indeed. He foresaw no change in the future either, even in the event of a 3rd TV channel, because of the classic dislike of the British “to change something that they have learned to live with.” Independent TV profits (not gross) last year, Collins stated, were “around 15 million pounds” (some $41 million). He reiterated his hope for a transatlantic TV link (Vol. 15:46 pl4). Von Zahn on W. German TV : German TV is on “a high level, with emphasis on opera, cultural programs & children’s shows,” although he admitted the present patchwork system reflects the philosophies in different German zones of the occupying countries. In any event, he doubted there will be any change in the present policy of “having sponsors without programming say.” There are 3.5 million sets in W. Germany, with 10 million expected within 2 years. Ross on the Soviet: “They have ambitious TV plans, and we must compete with them or join them,” said Ross, who described incidents on a survey tour of Czechoslovakia, Poland & the Soviet Union. By 1961 Russia expects to have an interconnected non-commercial network within the Soviet Union, Budapest, East Berlin, Prague and Warsaw as well as a hookup to Nordvision (Scandinavia). Stern, speaking on the world market for US. product, suggested that “If we’re going to exchange programs and expand overseas, we must put foreign entertainment shows on local stations here.” Film programming, used for economy by most countries, works against our best interests because film tends to create quota problems. Hewitt, in discussing the networks’ efforts to report news, via tape, the same day an event occurs in Europe, announced that CBS is outfitting a DC-4 with 3 live cameras and an Ampex recorder to cover President Eisenhower’s tour next month.