Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1953)

cal engineering majors and training them to be cameramen, which is working out very satisfactorily. At the present time I am in the process of helping the university set up a TV department and also arranging with the university for the students to receive credit as they serve at our station, or serve an internship at our station. Certainly something that is vital to any TV station, but more important to the smaller station, is the dual function plan. The film director is also head of the photographic department. We have a continuity writer who is also an announcer and then all of us sweep out. So the janitor is also a stage hand. The night watchman puts up the props at night and we have our traffic manager also help edit film. Without that you certainly cannot operate a small market station profitably, and our entire organization is operated so that we have no specific jobs as such. Certainly we have titles and certain primary duties but every one in the organization, including the janitor, has 2 or 3 jobs. Analysis of Programming and Sponsorship Our programming breaks down this way: Local live — commercial 6.7%, sustaining & public service 3.8%; syndicated film — commercial 26.6%, sustaining 5%; old movies — commercial 13.3%, sustaining 16.7%; film library — commercial 10%, sustaining 1.7%. Network is 16.7% of our total programming. That makes 73.3% of our total programming commercial and 26.7% sustaining and public service. The average week is 60 hours. As to the film library— I am not selling it for any particular company but I do think it is very important. I bought one 4 years ago at [KEYL-TV] San Antonio and was very happy with it. However, in San Antonio it did not prove as profitable to me as it has in this small market. But this film library, if programmed properly, can be a very useful tool in your program setup. It is inexpensive and I do suggest to you that you look into the possibility of a film library in your situation. Our local accounts include everything from the bank down to the local filling station. We have 8 franchise automobile accounts, 8 appliance companies and 2 banks. We have 3 dry cleaners, 3 carpet companies and so forth. That pretty much represents every type business in the city of Lubbock. Network shows — We have 5 cigarettes, 2 appliances, one tire, one milk, one patent medicine, one hair preparation, one coffee, one toiletries, one automobile, one public service company. Our national spot business is not too good. This is our revenue dollar: We went on the air with our interim operation in November. During the first 2 weeks of November, 90% of our revenue dollar was local. Our national business was 9% of our total gross. Netwoi’k revenue was 1%. In December, 88% of our revenue dollar was from local, 8% national and 4% network. In January, 83% of our revenue dollar came from our local advertisers, 11% from national and 6% from the network — with a 37% increase over December. In February, 80% of our dollar came from the local advertiser, 14% from national and 6% from network, with a 20% increase over January. And then in March, 83% came from local, 11% from national and 6% from network. Local Advertising Is Mainstay So, you are going to make your living out of local advertising at this point. It’s been a terrific missionary job to sell markets. Our market stands pretty high in family income, with the third largest cotton market in the world, and we are the cottonseed oil capital of the world. But even with all those in our favor, it has been a tremendous job to sell the small market to the national people. So I do caution you at this point to be sure to set back a few dollars for a lot of missionary work. For local and national promotion, we use the fronts of the buses, the city and farm county papers, direct mail, billboards, and taxicabs in the city of Lubbock. We are the small markets and our story hasn’t been told. Those gentlemen sitting in New York have a tremendous job on their hands in trying to select markets, and having sat out in their lobbies for as long as 2 or 3 hours at a time, I can certainly appreciate their position. You have to get the story over to them through your promotion because the national business isn’t going to come through the transom like it does for some — say the first twenty-five markets in the nation. The Bloomington, Ind., Story MR. LEMON: Our WTTV has an AM affiliate WTTS which is a 5,000-watt station. We began on the air Nov. 11th, 1949, 3V2 years ago. We started with a 1-kw homebuilt transmitter and a 200-ft. tower. We started programming 12 hours a week with 6 people. Our opening rate was $150 an hour, $30 for announcements. Our average operating cost the first year was approximately $10,000 per month. We have been interconnected by privately owned and operated microwave relay over a 100-mi. distance for about 2 years. We are now operating with a 5-kw transmitter, 650-ft. tower, and affiliated with all of the networks. Our present rate, with 220,000 TV sets ii. our area, is $600 an hour, $120 per announcement. We are on Ch. 10 now. We move to Ch. 4 this summer. We expect to go to full power and a 1000-ft. tower in July. Our present staff is 46 people. Our administrative staff has 6 people; sales dept., 10 people with one full-time merchandising man, one secretary and 8 salesmen. Our program and production department 22, and that includes cameramen and a good number of technicians. Our engineering dept, comprises 8 people, which includes 4 who maintain our relay system. Our operating income is divided in this fashion: 20% from the network; 40% from what we ourselves sell locally and regionally; 40% national spots. We now average 90 hours weekly on the air and effective July 1, we are going on the air at 6:45 A.M. We do approximately 80 to 100 live spot announcements weekly. We do approximately 50 live programs per week, ranging from 5 to 30 minutes; 34% of our time on the air is film. Our studio and transmitter are located right at the edge of the city limits. We have 3 field cameras, one studio 25 x 50 ft. We own a complete remote truck. We work with the University [of Indiana]. We have given the university a microwave relay link and they have purchased cameras and equipment and they have their own studios. Formula for Successful Operation After 3% years of TV, I think there are a few major items of real importance for a successful operation: One is the steadfast belief that there is a real and practical magic about this medium of TV in the terms of its unique abilities for modern communications. And there are times, I think, when only a strong belief will suffice to furnish the necessary incentive to continue. Number two, the realization that TV is at least 90% a visual medium is a necessary requirement. And it takes patience to retrain a great many radio people who have honestly and sincerely put in many years working toward reaching people through the ear. This is true in every department — program, production, sales, copy. This medium is visual. And the tendency, the temptation in every department to build a program on the right topic for radio is one of the real pitfalls of television. This medium is for the eye. Third, the economics of TV are much more closely aligned with the daily newspaper than with radio. For the TV station, income in a comparable market should be 4-8 times the income of a radio station. And last but not least, the most important single phase of our station operation is the people who run it. The people on the staff are most important — and whether the market is 50,000 or 10,000,000, this small handful of people who are charged with the responsibility of creating, supervising and originating the program fare for that audience, have a tremendous responsibility. And these people, the staff of the TV station, need every possible consideration 2T