Television digest and FM reports (Feb-Dec 1947)
Reading and Downloading:
Record Details:
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!
Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.
Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.
View OCR Text
We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
pressroom for Series; reporters literally "ate it up"— as did their colleagues at Press Club, watching on large-screen Philco and direct-view RCA sets, one seemingly as popular as the other. During food appeal telecasts by Truman, Luckman, et al, first ever from White House, each participant took turns looking in on others' TV appearance on monitors in cloakroom adjacent to diplomatic reception room. Reaction of bigwigs and staff invariably was enthusiastic, one cabinet officer remarking he was going to order set for his family for Christmas. Over-all consensus on V/orld Series telecasts: If TV can do as good a job as that on perhaps the most difficult
of all subjects to televise, then it really has arrived. Proof of pudding: Washington distributors report they’re moving all the sets they can get, echoing what they're also saying in New York and Philadelphia.
TV IN MILWAUKEE ii HOUSTON: You_ can add one more TV station (the 14th) to your log
of commercial outlets now authorized — Milwaukee Journal's WTMJ-TV. On Friday, FCC granted it an STA, effective immediately, v/hich permits commercial operation, though plan is not to accept commercials for several months yet. So, in your TV Directory (Supp. 18-D) , simply move WTMJ-TV from CP category to "Stations on the Air" column, as you did Washington Star's WMAL-TV last week. And with Journal's strong penchant for promotion, you can count Milwaukee as a major TV set market — although its T-Day is still officially Dec. 3.
One new TV application was filed this v/eek — from Houston's wealthy W. Albert Lee, owner or lessor of 9 Houston hotels, who recently was granted CP for fulltime 5 kw AM outlet on 920 kc there (AM Directory 1-E) , winning over opposition of Bob Bartley, ex-NAB, nephew of House Democratic Leader Sam Rayburn. Mr. Lee asks for Channel No. 2 (54-60 me), 5 kw visual power, 2 Yz kw aural; proposes to spend §166,750 on RCA plant (in addition to AM-FM) , §15,000 monthly on operation, with transmitter at Aldine, Tex.
First application from that booming Texas metropolis, entitled to 4 channels, is expected to hasten others — possibly from Houston Post's KPRC (NBC), Roy Hofheinz's KTHT (MBS), and from millionaire oilman Glenn H. McCarthy who is currently negotiating to buy KXYZ (ABC) from Tilford Jones, Jesse's nephew. And FCC sources note unusual interest in TV lately in several Texas communities. Dallas situation — 2 grants so far and Interstate Circuit Inc., part-owned by Paramount, hell bent on getting franchise — may be enlivened soon, with Dallas News pretty sure to apply also for city's third and last channel.
PINNING DOWN TY-F M COVERAGE: Today's bare bones data on TV and FM coverage should
get some padding from planned joint FCC-Bureau of Standards vhf propagation studies. With all their charts and graphs, they admit they don't know much yet — especially after hearing of freakish long-distance receptions. For example: New York's WCBS-TV seen in St. Charles, 111. (1,000 mi.), Chicago's WBKB in New York (715 mi.), St. Louis' KSD-TV in Kenosha, Wis. (350 mi.), Philadelphia's V/FIL-TV in Hartford (180 mi.), WINC-FM, Winchester, Va. in Stamford, Conn. (250 mi.). Standards’ Dr. K. A. Norton, of high-low FM band controversy fame, says you can expect such reports to flock in until February, but they're freaks attributable to sunspot activity.
Too consistent to be freakish, however, are stories of "Bonus" TV coverage. Washington's WNBW has more or less regular viewers in Baltimore (40 mi.). Los Angeles' KTLA and W6XA0 have been seen in San Diego (115 mi.), Chicago's WBKB in Milwaukee (85 mi.) and in St. Joseph, Mich. (60 mi.), Cincinnati’s W8XCT (WLW) in Dayton (45 mi.), Philadelphia's WFIL-TV in Atlantic City (55 mi.). Phila. and N. Y. are also tuned by Louis Baltimore (WBRE, Wilkes-Barre) on mountain 100-105 mi. away. TV engineers' interpretation of all this is not that signal is going farther than predicted — and they point to WNBT's proof of performance (Vol. 3, No. 29) — but that signals under 500 uv/m frequently provide excellent service. Then there's possibility of stretching coverage with high receiving towers or special antennas, such as those of Lapoint-Plascomold Corp., Unionville, Conn., and Technical Appliance Corp., Sherburne, N. Y.