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

4 JOCKEYING FOR POSTTREEZE POSITION: Applicants looking beyond freeze and seeking vantage, as most are, pose a lot of questions — few of them answerable as yet. In intermixed vhf-uhf city, for example, how will Commission award channels when hearing victors are chosen — who will get which? There's no policy yet, but you can be sure of at least two things: (1) Uhf will be fostered by Commission, which will use the competition for channels to uhf's advantage where possible. (2) FCC will seek to minimize number and length of hearings in every way it believes to be consistent with law. Here's how one commissioner thinks about it, putting into words what others have said in part and implied: "If a man wants a uhf channel, and there's no competition for it, I think he should get it without a hearing, regardless whether there's competition for the vhf channels in the city. I think the rest of the Commission will feel the same. I don't see why vhf and uhf should be thrown into the same pot. "In competition for vhf, should we hold hearings on individual channels? I don't know. That's a tough one. Aside from legal complications, I wouldn't like to see applicants lining up and, in effect, making a partial determination of who will get the grants. I think we should have complete choice as to which are best. "Yet you must remember our budget situation. We have only 7 examiners and aren't getting any more. Our staff is very limited. If jockeying for position seems to promise much quicker grants, perhaps that's what we'll have to permit." We suggested; Perhaps "grass roots" campaign, now, might bring the needed funds from Congress? "It would be ironic," said the commissioner, "if we should get funds through the efforts of the industry we regulate, when the House has rejected our request for appropriations to conduct monitoring for the defense effort." Another commissioner favors "specified channel" type of hearing, believes it legal, proper, expeditious. Still others favor almost anything that will hasten growth of \jhf — but manifestly haven't thought deeply about modus operand!. One more possibility being toyed with; If applicants outnumber channels in particular city, cut loose one or 2 uhf "flexibility" channels — enough to go aro\ind — and grant everyone. Who would get vhf, who uhf? "I don't know, but we could do it, and I think many applicants would accept what they got, and be glad to avoid a hearing and get a channel." Sounds possible — in new markets. Only thing sure ; All the commissioners, having heard from Congress and the public, really are eager to end the freeze as quickly as possible, some now openly regretting delays caused by the color imbroglio. When final decision is rendered, FCC may well call in applicants' attorneys and engineers for conferences to speed up hearing procedures. Commissioners regard last conference, which resulted in the "written hearing" procedures now in progress (Vol. 7:30), as most fruitful effort to end freeze yet undertaken. TELECASTING COSTS UP. SO IS RUSINESS: Operating costs are mounting — but business of telecasting is in such "good financial health" that even the conservative NARTB (National Assn, of Radio & Television Broadcasters) echoes our prediction that most TV stations will operate in the black for 1951 (Vol. 7:13,36). "This would reverse the 1950 picture, when approximately 65% of the TV stations reported red-ink operation for the 12-month period," said NARTB' s capable employer-employe relations chief Richard P. Doherty at Chicago meeting Sept. 18. Until FCC's 1951 audit comes out next spring, no one can say what figures really are — but fact is that TV time is selling like the proverbial hotcakes, that telecasting is probably the fastest growth industry in the land. Even the smallertown stations among the 107 pre-freeze "pioneers" now report profitable operation, so it could be that "most" now means "nearly all". Even in 1950, as matter of fact, 54 stations ended year in black, according to official FCC report (Vol. 7:13), although the industry as whole showed deficit of