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

10 Telecasting Notes: nartb’s new tv code seal (Voi. 7:49), to be displayed by member stations conforming with newly promulgated Code of Practices for Telecasters (Supplement No. 76), due to be ready for distribution in early January, probably will be flashed on screens regularly by networks and stations as part of their identification signals . . . NBC-TV’s 7-9 a.m. show Today, starting Jan, 14 (Vol. 7:50), actually will keep m.c. Dave Garroway and staff going 3 hours each weekday morning, for there will be repeat hour for piping to Central Time Zone so that it can hew to same 7-9 a.m. look-or-listen habit patterns contemplated by v.p. Pat Weaver . . . Added promotion gimmick for show is fact it will be staged in so-called “Studio of Tomorrow” in RCA Exhibition Hall, facing on 49th St., so that morning passersby can have a look — though city ordinances prohibit outdoor loud-speakers . . . Pittsburgh’s WDTV, DuMont-owned, which as only station in one of top markets in country picks and chooses what it wants from the networks, now carries Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theatre alternate Tuesdays only, having cleared every other week for half hour of Frank Sinatra Show (Ekco Products, CBS-TV) and for Saturday Evening Post’s Keep Posted (DuMont) . . . Sam Goldwyn, who has said he thinks film houses of future must compete on “qualitative” basis against “quantitative TV,” and who hasn’t released any of his oldies to TV yet, did relent to this extent for Salute to Samuel Goldwyn carried this week on KNXT, Hollywood: he appeared personally to introduce scenes culled from his films Dodsworth, Pride of the Yankees, Best Years of Our Lives, Wuthering Heights and, latest, I Want You . . . First unit of NBC’s huge new TV housing project, on 50-acre tract adjoining Warner Bros, studios in Burbank, will be 2 studios, each seating 500, covering about 5 acres, costing some $2,000,000; groundbreaking is due soon after New Year’s, occupancy expected by next Oct. 1 . . . ABC fashioning dozen studios for AM out of old warehouse adjoining its TV Center on West 66th St., preparatory to moving out of RCA Bldg, in March when lease expires and NBC takes over all or most of its present space . . . Civil Defense Administration is distributing kinescopes of its 7-installment Survival series to all TV stations; series portrays effect of atomic bomb on cities, was shown on NBC-TV last summer . . . Tommy Henrich, another exNew York Yankee great, joins Joe DiMaggio in TV sportscasting by signing of long-term WJZ-TV contract to share 11:10-11:20 p.m. Mon.-Tues.-Thur.-Fri. show with Russ Hodges, sponsor Sun Oil; DiMaggio will handle pre and post-game shows for Yankees. NBC is raising local rates of 3 of its 5 owned-&-managed TV stations as of Jan. 1: KNBH, Los Angeles, from $1250 to $1500 per Class A hour, from $200 to $300 per 1-minute or 20-seconds; WNBK, Cleveland, from $750 to $900 & $150 to $175; WNBW, Washington, from $550 to $650 & $120 to $135. Also planned are local rate increases for WNBT, New York, now $3750 an hour, and WNBQ, Chicago, now $1500— but these are as yet undetermined and not due until next Feb. 15. Extra Copies of TV Factbook No. 14 Our semi-annual TV Factbook No. lU will be off the presses shortly after’ Jan. 15, 1952 — containing directories and basic reference data about stations & networks (including rate schedules), manufacturers, program suppliers, FCC and others concerned with TV. One copy goes to each full-service subscriber. Extra copies will be available to subscribers at $2.50 ; if you place pre-print orders for quantities of 20 or more (i.e., before Jan. 7, 1952) we’ll supply them at $1 per copy. The FCC, Chairman Coy & Comr. Jones particularly, have been eyeing askance the trends in network-station fiscal relations lately — notably NBC’s plan to readjust radio rate structure and payments to radio affiliates. Commission has instructed its legal and economic staffs to have a look, apparently suspecting deliberate attempt to depress AM for sake of TV. However bitter toward one another competitively, it’s axiomatic that none of the networks and very few stations want any govt, agency to meddle in their contractual relationship— a field definitely outside FCC’s legal scope. It’s good guess that, faced with the prodigiously important job of ending its self-created and self-protracted TV freeze, to say nothing of staff shortage and the heavy pressures of the coming political year, this “probe” will merely create lots of work and annoyance, win some publicity, then simply go the way of FCC’s famous “network equalization” plan of latter 1950 (Vol. 6:40 et seq). That one proposed changing network rules to limit the number of hours TV stations in certain areas might take from any single network. It died on the vine, favored not/even by the networks it was designed to help. f CBS-TV Division joins NARTB-TV this week, bringing with it wholly-owned stations WCBS-TV, New York, and KNXT, Hollywood. Part-owned (45%) station WTOPTV, Washington, doesn’t belong. Total TV membership now includes 76 stations (out of total of 108) and 3 networks. As network member, CBS-TV is entitled to directorship, presumably to be assumed by its president Jack Van Volkenburg. Parent company left old NAB several years ago in disagreement with policies, hasn’t yet returned its radio network or stations. NARTB reports increase in radio memberships also — 14 new ones this week bringing total to 1324—958 AM, 366 FM. Nominations for 1951 duPont TV-radio awards for “outstanding public sei’vice” were invited this week (closing date Jan. 31) by 0. W. Riegel, curator of duPont Foundation, Washington & Lee U, Lexington, Va. Winners in 3 categories — large station, small station, commentator— will get $1000 each. Awards committee: Dr. Francis P. Gaines, president of Washington & Lee U, chairman; Mrs. Jessie Ball duPont (who established awards in 1942) ; B. M. McKelway, editor of Washington Star; Hadley Cantril, director of Princeton’s Office of Public Research; Mrs. Hiram C. Houghton, president of General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Applications filed with FCC this week boosted total to 470. Ohio State U filed for non-commercjal staf.inn in Columbus on Channel No. 12; KWTX, Waco, Tex., No. 11; WROL, Knoxville, Tenn., No. 6; KFOR, Lincoln, Neb., No.. 10; KWWL, Waterloo, la.. No. 7. Also filed but returned as incomplete, was request from Cache Valley Bcstg. Co. for No. 2 in Logan, Utah. [For further details, see TV Addenda 13-W herewith; for listing of all applicants to date, see TV Factbook No. 13 and Addenda to date.] Grand total of 1497 filings in FCC’s famed “paper” TV allocations hearing was received by final deadline date of Dec. 17. Though commissioners have been satisfied with staff’s work to date (Vol. 7:49) and though big corps of engineers, attorneys, accountants and economists are doing almost nothing but “freeze” work, target date of Feb. 1 for final decision appears tough one to meet. Much depends on whether Commission continues to accept staff’s recommendations with little change. RCA offers new “special effects amplifier” to accomplish fades, dissolves, superpositions, wipes, insertions, etc., “at microsecond speed,” expects it to supersede optical and mechanical techniques.