Television digest and FM reports (Jan-Dec 1946)

tion plan authorized by last Congress (it doesn’t have to), the reduced number of committees will throw traditional seniorities all askew. Normally, Rep. Lea’s House Interstate & Foreign Commerce Committee chairmanship goes to Rep. Wolverton (N. J.), Senator Wheeler’s Interstate Commerce Committee chairmanship to Senator White (Maine). These are the committees having to do with radio. Senator Wallace H. White Jr., co-author of the two radio acts, is the best-informed man on radio on Capitol Hill. But he has been minority floor leader, presumably now becomes majority leader, leaving him little time for committee work. If he so chooses, his committee rank devolves on Senator Tobey (N. H.), who is also ranking member of Banking & Currency, which he may prefer to head. In that case, 75-year-old Senator Reed (Kan.) would take the committee. As for the Blue Book, Leader Joe Martin, next Speaker of the House, has promised a probe, and GOP Chairman Carroll Reece has attacked its “freedom of speech” implications. But that was before the elections — indeed, before the Chicago “love feast” where FCC’s Denny and NAB’s Miller stopped their name-calling and, as lawyers, averred in friendliest fashion that they would welcome a court test of their different interpretations of the Blue Book’s purport. Lots of broadcasters would rather not have the Blue Book aired by any Congressional committee, as against the courts, in frank fear that its criticisms of excessive commercialism might strike a popular chord among many legislators. They fear it might even lead to legislation they don’t want — such as restrictions on kind and amount of commercials, fixing percentages of free time as a license condition, etc., which lawyers say Congress has full power to enact. (This is a non-partisan subject. Talk to Senator White, for example, and he will berate the broadcasters for overcommercialism and bad taste — has often said Congress ought to do something about it.) The plain fact is that it’s pretty hard to arouse the ordinary citizen on the “freedom of speech” issue when he regularly hears Drew Pearson, Upton Close, Walter Winchell, Fulton Lewis Jr, — and the politicians themselves — in provocative and constantly controversial discourses on the air. v/ithout any apparent let or hindrance from Washington. As for the legislators, who use the radio for their own speeches and who regularly participate in such free discussions as Town Meeting and the American Forum, it will be harder yet to sell them the idea that freedom of the air is being infringed — at least, not until frequent and egregious case examples are forthcoming. COLOR TV SHOWDOWN: RCA’s disclosure of its allelectronic color TV development last week (Vol. 2, No. 44) apparently caught CBS totally unaware, as it did just about all the radio industry — including most of the 30 members of RTPB’s TV Panel. CBS’s Dr. Peter Goldmark, in company with other RTPB panelmen, saw a special demonstration at Princeton Tuesday. But he had nothing to say. In fact, official CBS policy is to say nothing for the present, although informal reactions seemed to be that anything that promotes color TV is to the good. Inasmuch as electronic and mechanical systems are incompatible, it would appear that the Dec. 9 FCC hearings, sought by CBS, will assume a somewhat different complexion from that contemplated at time of the hearing order (Supplement No. 45). It’s a fair guess that CBS will claim its mechanical system is as good as, if not superior to, the RCA system. It’s to be expected, too, that CBS will plump hard for color now, as against the 4-5 year developmental period RCA regards as necessary. And it may be assumed also that CBS will stop deprecating black-and-white; this is the one feature of its color campaign that has obviously gotten under the skin of those who want TV now under the monochrome standards approved by the FCC. As for the mechanical vs. electronic systems, their relative qualities are capable of measurement and comparison, which presumably the FCC will demand. As for CBS’s claim that color TV is ready now, so why v/ait, the burden of proof as to immediacy (standards, equipment, field tests, etc.) falls upon that company and those who go along with it — presumably Federal, Bendix and Zenith and possibly V/estinghouse. Against mechanical scanning, as such, the electronics advocates are expected to make less of a case than their publicity to date indicates — for a lot of engineers pooh-pooh RCA’s attack on “moving parts”, which they say would be no more annoying in a TV set than they now are in mechanical refrigerators. On the other hand, there isn’t any question about the “sex appeal” of an all-electronic system, both to the scientist and to the electronic-minded public. It all boils down to this, which the FCC may be expected to insist upon having fully and satisfactorily answered; Granting that color is the desirable end to be sought, which system holds present or reasonably near future possibility of ideal performance? And wliich is the most practic?ble? Thus far, besides CBS and RCA, the only certain witnesses are those from RTPB’s panel—