Television digest and FM reports (Jan-Dec 1948)

MARTIH COREL’S authoritative news service OF THE VISUAL IROADCASTIN6 ANO frequency modulation k arts and industry a February 28, 1948 AT&T STEPS OP INTERCITY LINKS: You can take it from AT&T Long Lines topkicks — as ' TV booms, telephone company intends to come right along with intercity network fa * cilities . coaxial or microwave. As an example of how they’re keeping pace with TV ^ expansion, they point to v.p. Bartlett T. Miller's press statement this week rei porting acceleration of intercity links, assuring Buf f alo-to-St . Louis coaxial by October, 1948 instead of early 1949 as heretofore planned. Miller referred to 2,000-mi. connection via Cleveland, Toledo, South Bend, Chicago, Terre Haute, with 2 circuits between Cleveland-St . Louis, one from Buff alo-Cleveland. He also said that by December these Midwest circuits will be connected with Easterns .seaboard hookup (Boston-Richmond) via cable from Cleveland to Philadelphia. [For all projected AT&T coaxial-microwave circuits, see map in our Vol. 3, No. 50.] There's suspicion TVers* preoccupation with private radio relays, given impetus by last week's FCC okay (Vol. 4, No. 8), might have prodded behemoth AT&T into quickening pace of its TV connections. But company officials say installation step-up has been in works last 3 months. Yet it's hard to believe they aren't aware of telecasters' sentiments, summed up by Dr. Duf;Iont before American Television Society the other day when he said TV operators would set up own intercity networks unless AT&T rates for coaxial and microwave are within means of telecasters. AT&T says it "has no idea yet" what the TV tariffs ordered by FCC by May 1 (Vol. 4, No. 7) will be — but history of AM network line charges, FM demands, company policy to defer to big potential new customers all would seem to point to reasonable proposals. We'll soon know, for tariffs must be filed by April 1. THE FUTURE OF AURAL RADIO IS FM: Cooler heads have prevailed, but there actually is a little coterie of FMers who think FMA ought to turn , its guns loose on TV: They regard TV as a potential competitor (which it is), hence an enemy (which means fight). A few are so hipped on the subject they actually think they can lick this "monster" — presumably by means of press releases and speeches. Shades of the newspaper-radio battle of 20 years ago, led by the publishers' trade press, the ill-starred Venture Free Press, their educator allies, et all Shades, indeed, of FM's own recent battles to win footholds alongside entrenched am interests 1 Which brings up some questions put to us recently by S’everal subscribers: "Where's FM heading? Is it really being bypassed by TV? Have we wasted our investments in FM?" Here's our answer, for whatever it's worth: We're still convinced that the future of aural radio is FM. That by this time next year all radios but the very cheap midget models will incorporate FM. That, given the choice of listening to the same programs via FM or AM, no one in his right mind would choose AM. That the networks and far-sighted AM operators must gear themselves for the inevitable transformation. That AM will eventually evolve as a service for high power transmission to rural and remote listeners. Once the Petr^illo duplication ban was lift^, FM's basic problem, program ming, was solved. Now the big problem is the building of an adequate number of Copyright l9^8 by Radio Ne'*s Bureau