Television digest and FM reports (Jan-Dec 1946)

Review of Literature on ABC, its top personalities and its problems — first, it is said, of a series designed to "distill the Columbianness of CBS, the Kationalness of NBC, and the Mutuality of MBS." ^ ^ ^ Must reading, if the rampages of the ineffable James Caesar Petrillo affect you in any way, is New York Post's Victor Riesel on "Petrillo of the Musicians Union" in the July American Mercury. It will help you understand the mental complexes of labor's thickest skinned, most arbitrary and most powerful boss (he can change the AFM constitution at his personal will or whim). Some excerpts v/orth quoting : "At Toots Shor's celebrity-packed restaurant, a paunchy, petulant gentleman was grousing to a local night club editor. Between long swigs of beer, the chubby customer was complaining bitterly over the then current elevator strike: 'I hadda walk down thirty-four flights. It's hard on an old man like me. Those gahdamn. unions I They'll ruin this country. ' "Was this a Wall Street playboy speaking? No, the lament came from America's highest-priced labor leader — James Caesar Petrillo, president (some call him boss, czar and dictator) of the American Federation of Musicians. He was the leader of 180,000 musicians — from the fiddler at Polish weddings to Jose Iturbi and even Tommy Dorsey, the hep-cat's delight. His union had provided him with sufficient power to defy successfully Franklin D. Roosevelt, the State Department, the OWI, Elmer Davis, Congress, the Army and Navy, and to ban production of musical records in the United States for two years, to order Army and Navy bands off the air, to cancel broadcasts scheduled by Presidents and Vice-Presidents, to prevent child orchestras from being used by the radio chains. He was all of this, yet he was slamming the unions. .. .because to little Caesar Petrillo only one union counts — the AFM which pays him $49,000 a year including expenses." TV STUDIO: in anticipation of a commercial TV license. Paramount will open a second video studio shortly on company lot in Hollywood to accommodate projected stepup in programming for its experimental outlet W6XYZ. The new studio, measuring 59x75 ft., will be followed by an announcing-type studio for interviews. With the present small studio using 4 cameras, equipment will be increased accordingly. Film pickups will be put into operation for both 16mm and 35mm projection. An additional mobile unit — company now has one — is also scheduled. BIStj^ST FM YET; New York FM hearing, starting there Monday with largest roster of competing applicants yet, will doubtless last several weeks, winds up FCC's schedule of hearings to date. At end of Federal work week last Wednesday, there were 18 applicants docketed out of original 24, slated to compete for 9 channels — possibly only 5 if FCC goes through with its proposed "reservation plan" (Vol. 2, No. 23). New York FCC legal staffman A1 Guest, who also conducted New York TV hearing, is slated to sit as examiner in Room 110, Federal Bldg., Foley Sq. On one point rival applicants were reported preparing to stick together; in petitioning FCC to make New York City an exception to reservation plan under v/hich 4 of city's 20 allocated channels would be "frozen" for one year. Withdrawal of Atlantic Broadcasting Co . (WHOM, Newark), which Co w 1 e s brothers have sold to Generoso Pope, publisher of New York Italo-Ainericano , leaves these applicants for the area's remaining FM channels: WBNX Broadcasting Co. Inc. ; News Syndicate Co. Inc. ; WMCA Inc. ; Debs Memorial Radio Fund Inc. (WEVD) ; Frequency Broadcasting Corp. ; American Broadcasting Co. (WJZ) ; Hearst Radio Inc. (WINS) ; Bernard Fein, WLIB Inc. ; Peoples Radio Foundation Inc. ; Metropolitan Broadcasting Service; NMU Broadcasting Co. Inc. ; Amalgamated Broadcasting System Inc. ; Unity Broadcasting Corp. of New York (ILGWU) ; North Jersey Radio Inc. (WBYN) ; Radio Projects Inc. (Newhouse Newspapers) ; North Jersey