Television digest with AM-FM reports (Jan-Dec 1951)

fUlllSHED WEEKLY lY RADIO NEWS lUREAU, 1519 CONNEaiCUT AVE. N.W^ WASHINGTON 6, D.C Tll^HONE MICHIGAN 2020 • VOL. 7, NO. 19 May 12, 1951 {‘The Great Channel Hunt’ Slows Freeze, page 1. How Building Controls Affect TV-Radio, page 2. ABC Sale Deal Still on the Fire, page 3. Bitners Buy WLAV-TV for $1,300,000, qmge 5. No Regulation W Relief, Output Dwindles, page 6. Case for the TV-Radio & Appliance Industry, page 7. The TV Business — Take a Long Look Ahead! page 8. Topics & Trends, Financial Reports, pages 9-10. THE GREAT CHANNEL HUNT' SLOWS FREEZE: Freeae-end appears further away than ever, as FCC and industry stagger under load of some 600 comments on end-of-f reeze plan (see TV Allocation Report of March 24), dumped in Commission’s lap this week. [For digests and listings of all comments available - 308 commercial, 215 educational, 56 from municipalities — see Supplement No. 72 sent herewith to all full-service subscribers. We'll catch any stragglers next week.] Beyond sheer weight of comments, presaging protracted city-by-city hearings, intimations of possible court action in many of the comments render timing of endof-f reeze even more nebulous. FCC's plan is already in court, in a sense, since City of Jacksonville has asked District of Columbia Court of Appeals to enjoin proposal to move Channel 2 to Daytona Beach. City is fighting to recapture CP it once held (Vol. 6:41). Court action is "being seriously considered" by number of applicants, according to their attorneys. Some say such action is "probable," on any or all of these grounds, among others; (1) Educational reservations. (2) Fre-determined allocation plan, fixed in rules. (3) Denials of applications where hearings have already been held, via plan's channel shifts and reservations (Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc.). When such court appeals might come isn't clear. They could come immediately or wait until final decision on v/hole allocation. ^ ^ ^ Legalities aside, FCC's own procedural plan is bound to undergo delays. For example, legal and engineering associations, plus NARTB-TV, plan to ask for postponement of deadline for counter-comments from May 22 to June 11, will undoubtedly get it. That means early July before city-by-city hearing starts; it's presently scheduled for June 11. Hearing itself will be a dilly. In addition to commercial interests — who certainly won't let channels slip out of their cities by default — educators' spokesmen claim that 3 or more witnesses from each of 50-75 cities will be on hand. That doesn't sound like a mere couple months of hearings, even though FCC will strain to keep testimony to the point. There's some thinking in Commission that hearing's gait will accelerate after heavy initial testimony. And Congress isn't out of the picture, by any means. Sen. Johnson himself filed a comment for Colorado, as did colleague Sen. Millikin, proposing reshuffle to get more channels into Denver and State in general. Still pending, too, are educational resolutions of Sen. Benton and Rep. Celler (Vol. 7:18). Nature of most comments is obvious from glance at Supplement 72: (1) Channel shifts. Everyone discovered the obvious in FCC's plan — it ' s "loose" (Vol. 7:12), most co-channel allocations being 200-220 miles apart, rather than 180-mile minimum. Thus, adroit juggling frequently allov;s additional stations mi Copyright 1951 by Radio News Bureau