Television digest and FM reports (Jan-Dec 1946)

DIG BOUT SSSH BOOMING TV: As NBC announced exclusive rights to telecast Louis-Cona fi^ht June 19 via its WNBT, with Gillette as sponsor, its TV v.p. Jack Royal called big bout "springboard for the greatest boom television has yet seen." Promoter Mike Jacobs said it should do for TV what 1921 Dempsey-Carpentier fight did for radio. (Neither mentioned inability of public to get sets yet, though Royal told an NAM audience in Philadelphia Thursday that TV sets will be in dealers' hands "within a few months" in cities having stations, and will cost §200 to §300.) Pi^izef ighting, being confined to small enclosure, is particularly well adapted to TV coverage, and black-and-v;hite is just as suitable as monochrome movies. Covered by 5 TV cameras, including 3 RCA Image Orthicons, bout will be viewable on most of the 10,000 TV sets now in hands of public — in New York on WNBT (w'hich resumes regular schedule May 9), in Philadelphia on Philco's WPTZ (piped via coaxial), in Washington at private shov/ings planned for special guests and Capital VIPs. Curiously enough, though NBC got TV rights, ABC holds network broadcasting franchise, Gillette also sponsoring. And if Paramount v/ants to carry through on its proposed theater TV projection of the bout (Vol. 2, No. 15), it will have to make deal with NBC which holds TV rights on all Madison Square Garden boxing. TV FOHCHS COUNTED CBS: CBS's Peter Goldmark returned from West Coast this week in time to deliver paper on color TV before technical meeting of Society of Motion Picture Engineers in New York next Friday, but he was noncommittal (as was TV v.p. Adrian Murphy also) on reports the netv/ork is preparing Los Angeles and Chicago color demonstrations. Unless these are planned of f-the-line , they are unlikely, for a while at least, since CBS still doesn't hold experimental uhf licenses for those cities as it does for New York, though it has applied for frequencies. And so seriously intent is CBS on uhf color that, lacking its own manufacturing facilities, it has discussed with Raytheon a purchase or exchange-of-stock deal — but that company, itself an applicant for low-band TV in New York, Chicago and Waltham, Mass., is understood to have shown no interest. There have been intimations before (Vol. 1, No. 1) that CBS might itself go into manufacture of receivers capable of picking up its chromatic images. Meanwhile, in addition to its recent license to Westinghcuse (Vol. 2, No. 10), CBS this week also licensed Federal Telecommunications Laboratories Inc. (IT&T) to m.anufacture uhf color transmitters under its inventions. Meanwhile, the let's-go-now forces were mioving to counter CBS's highly effective campaign for uhf color as against low-band monochrome. DuMont, in new booklet on color TV to be published next week, asserts flatly it will take minimum of 6)2 years "before commercial color television can proceed on an orderly basis." It reckons 3 years for development of color, 1 year each for standards and field tests, 6 months minimum for FCC approval, I year for stations and receivers. This week, Sonora's President Joseph Gerl, also an RMA director, loosed bl_ast against CBS for what he called its "campaign of irrelevancies and falsehoods, designed only to confuse the American people until CBS has tim6 to catch up with its more astute competitor, NBC.... a campaign of obfuscation designed entirely to bewilder and delay." He spoke to South Bend Chamber of Commerce. Then NBC, also as countermeasure to CBS campaign, seised upon Television Magazine poll of 35 consulting engineers for publicity blast. Asked to predict when color TV would be ready, 29 replies were recorded; 20 reportedly predicted TV was this far away (the rest being noncommittal); 1 year: Frank H. McIntosh; 2 years : George C. Davis, Henry B. Riblett ; 5 years : Victor J. Andrew, John H. Barron, William E. Benns, Joseph A. Chambers, John Creutz, A. James Ebel, Alfred N. Goldsmith, John J. Keel, Andrew D. Ring, Harold C. Singleton, Ernest J. Vogt, V. Watson; 6 years: Everett Dillard; 7 years : Benson D. Gille ; 10 years : H. Verne Anderson, Paul F. Godley, Garo Ray. There v/ere enough ifs, nnds and buts in answers, we're told by some of the engineers, that precise dating is not altogetlier accurate; so you can expect CBS will soon see to it that another poll is conducted, another result reported.