Television digest and FM reports (Jan-Dec 1946)

[.iASTia CODEl’ AUTHORITATIVE NEWS SERVICE OF THE VISUAL EROADCASTIN© AND FRE9UENCY MODULATION ARTS AND INDUSTRY PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY nil hi llsports COHHECTiCUT AVE. H.W.. WASHIHSTOH 6,D.C. TELEPHONE MICHISAN 2020 ‘yOL. 2, NO. 44 UP-TO-DATE DIRECTORIES: Just about all of the ra dio-specializing legal and engineering fraternity who went off to the wars are back at their old stands now. Hence we are revising our directories, starting with Supplement No. 11 A herewith covering attorneys specializing in practice before the FCC. Soon to come will be up-to-date directories covering consulting engineers and the FCC. DECISION WEEK IN FM: FCC this week rolled up its sleeves and made up last week’s lack of usual quota of FM grants by authorizing 25 CPs, 27 conditionals (Supplement 44D herewith). But more noteworthy than number of grants was fact that decisions on hearings in two cities (Pittsburgh and Ft. Wayne) were rendered — first since Washington decisions last spring. It also acted on Los Angeles applications, losing no time after Hughes dropout (Vol. 2, No. 43) had left enough channels to go around without need for hearing. Thirteen of L. A.’s 14 applications got conditionals; the 14th, Hollywood Community Radio Group, was continued because its application is vague and incomplete. “Two-to-a-customer” rule took a beating in L. A., CBS getting its fifth grant, Unity (ILGWU) and ABC getting their third each. Pittsburgh and Ft. Wayne decisions were among the easier ones to make, since there are enough channels to go around. However, Liberty Broadcasting Co., Pittsburgh, got proposed FM denial because of overlap with its station in Steubenville. But it did get a proposed AM grant — possibly as a consolation prize! Tightened situation in Springfield, Mass., necessitated designation for hearing, date not set. Channel scarcity in Tulsa, Okla. was relieved by finding two more channels by juggling assignments as follows; you should make these changes in your copy of the FM Channel Allocations (Supplement No. 43): Add Channels 257 and 259 to November 2, 1946 Tulsa; add 236, delete 232, at Pampa, Tex.; add 230 and 232, delete 238 and 240, at Elk City, Okla.; add 238 and 240, delete 257 and 259, at Oklahoma City. Publisher-broadcaster Gordon Gray got Class B conditional for Winston-Salem, N. C., contingent on moving studio of his pioneer WMIT, atop faraway Clingman’s Peak, out of Winston-Salem. IS OBSOLESCENCE OBSOLETE? If you’re worrying lest color TV render monochrome transmitters and receivers obsolete, big RCA says “don’t.” And this time the No. 1 proponent of immediate TV in black-and-white on low band backs up this advice with a revolutionary development — an all-electronic system of color TV that is “flickerless” and “practical without rotating discs or other moving parts.” Here’s the real significance of the company’s disclosures and demonstrations to radio manufacturers, FCC officials and newsmen at its Princeton Laboratories Wednesday: Even should TV move into the uhf band, present TV receivers, by means of a simple converter, would be able with RCA’s system to extract satisfactory black-and-white images out of color transmissions. And blackand-white transmitters can be used either to parallel the upper band system or, with additional equipment, to become part of the color system. Thus, neither receiver nor transmitter becomes obsolete. It was RCA’s first real powerhouse counterattack against CBS’s contention that the imminent advent of color TV will render monochrome obsolete, requiring new wave bands and entirely different receivers. In unwrapping it, RCA did not concede that color is here even with its system — Gen. Sarnoff emphasizing that his 5-year timetable for color TV (fixed last December) still holds. Despite Gen. Sarnoff’s disavowal of any desire to “quarrel” with CBS (“only we don’t want the public to get the wrong impression,” he added to copyright 1946 by Radio News Bureau