Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1953)

7 TELEMETER method of pay-as-you-look TV had its commei'cial bow Nov. 28 in Palm Springs, Cal., accompanied by appropriate Hollywood hoopla. Of 351 homes connected to community antenna closed-circuit system, 73 were equipped with coinboxes into which viewers could drop $1.35 to watch premiere of Forever Female, starring Ginger Rogers, while exhibitor Earl Strebe charged moviegoers $1.15 to see it in his theatre. Viewers also had opportunity to pay $1 to watch Notre Dame-USC game same day, microwaved from Los Angeles — only telecast of game permitted. In addition to cost of specific programs, subscribers pay $4-5 monthly for regular community antenna service supplying signals of Los Angeles stations, plus $21.75 for lease of coinbox. Next movie is Moon Is Blue ($1.10 at home, 80d at theatre), then Flight to Tangiers and All The Brothers Were Valiant. All major movie producers are reported to have made their features available, except 20th CenturyFox which is said to be weakening. Premiere was eminently successful, attracted heavy contingent of movie executives, stars and press. Included was patriarch Sam Goldwyn who reiterated his faith in fee-TV : “I’ve believed for years that paid TV must come — and this is a historic event. And if some exhibitors have to go out of busines, well, that’s as bad as some producers going out of business. Nobody has cried about that.” Telemeter’s experience in Palm Springs in next 6-12 months or so should go long way toward proving or disproving subscription-TV proponents’ claims of enormous potential for the service. International Telemeter Corp. officials feel they have good cross-section of public among their subscribers, though resort town itself is hardly an average community. Telemeter exec. v.p. Carl Leserman made no mention of petitioning FCC to permit boxoflke TV on regular stations, stating that the 250 community systems in country, alone, can provide substantial market. He said he’s considering wiring Glendale and Burbank, Cal. Seeking to calm exhibitors, who have most to fear from fee-TV, officials of Telemeter and Paramount Pictures (which controls Telemeter) said they are considering system of franchising exhibitors to share in financing, operating and profit from pay-as-you-look. Commission now has petitions from 10 uhf grantees, asking approval of principle, but has given no indication when it will consider matter. Speculation is that it will come up next spring. Coincident with premiere, film trade press buzzed with reports that other studios and exhibitor groups — such as Warners, 20th Century-Fox, Fabian — have become convinced they must get into the new field. Since only 3 groups have promoted their particular systems — Telemeter, Skiatron, Zenith — word is that movie groups are going after Skiatron because other 2 are already amply financed. Such speculation ignores the certainty that many other systems and techniques will be brought out — if and when it appears that subscription TV will amount to something big. It’s inconceivable that CBS, RCA-NBC and ABC, for example, would fail to come forth with their own methods. In community antenna field alone, Telemeter has potential competitor in Jerrold Electronics Corp. Latter has supplied equipment to 80% of community systems, and pres. Milton Shapp says he has developed subscription system with many advantages over Telemeter. Shapp operates several conventional community setups himself, including Williamsport, Pa., which he says will reach total of 4000 subscribers in next few weeks. Telecasting Notes: “Gratuities Are a Growing Menace to TV Costs” headlines an editorial in Nov. 30 Advertising Age, which observes: “A danger flag is flying from the LaBrea tarpits to Radio City that threatens ultimately to bring an investigating committee to the TV industry. It is the bribe or payment to crews for a job they are already paid handsomely to perform. If you don’t pay, there are diabolical slowdowns that add to the costs” . . . As all rackets do, this sort of thing started innocently enough when radio engineers or assistant directors were occasionally rewarded for an outstanding job, the producer personally paying anything from $10 to $50 a week. Then, when TV came: “First the technical director hit the producer for the kickback [and] for $25 a week he would see that all went well. The networks didn’t like this but they didn’t do anything to discourage it, either. Most people paid off. There were stories about what happened to those who didn’t — missed shots, bad cues, carelessness. If somebody had been tossed out right then and there into the cold cruel world, it might have stopped but, like all unclean acts, it spread. The stagehands, cameramen, lighting men, makeup girls and boys, dressers, pages, stage managers etc. ad nauseam heard about the handout and greed ran rampant” ... In Hollywood, Advertising Age adds, this doesn’t seem to go on in the making of films or in the commercial film studios” — perhaps “because the dignity of the job there and the uniformly high salaries have had years to standardize the social status of the line workers.” Advertisers and agencies are told they pay the bill, in final analysis — “a large client can be paying as much as $500,000 a year for this luxury” — and warned: “If we don’t fix it somebody else will” . . . Big, wealthy Washington Star, though its WMAL-TV isn’t much of a money maker, is building a $250,000 TV-radio workshop for American U, Washington, which offers credit courses in its dept, of communication headed by Willett Kempton; WMAL-TV transmitter is on campus . . . WFTV, Duluth, city’s first TV outlet, has leased new building opposite Hotel Duluth, will shortly sever studio arrangements with WEBC . . . Denver’s new KOA-TV (Ch. 4), due to start sometime this month, has made tieup with Denver Post whereby it gets exclusive TV use of newspaper’s photos and will carry Post personalities on regular programs . . . Chicago Cubs’ 77 home games for 7th season will be carried exclusively on WGN-TV, station paying reported $100,000 for rights; Chesterfield & Hamm’s Beer again expected to sponsor . . . New call letters of ABC’s RECATV & KECA, Los Angeles, will be KABC-TV & EABC, after FCC approval, with Storer’s KEYL-TV & KABC (AM), San Antonio, agreeing to become EGBS-TV & RGBS and present RGBS (AM), Harlingen, Tex., becoming RG\ S . . . WAVE-TV & WAVE, Louisville, quit Free & Peters Jan. 1 to join NBC Spot Sales list; latter recently also added RSD-TV & RSD, St Louis, but on Jan. 31 lose Westinghouse’s WBZ-TV & WBZ, Boston, and WPTZ & RYW, Philadelphia, to Free & Peters . . . WTMJT1 , Milwaukee, Rate Card No. 14, effective Jan. 1, raises Class A hour from $960 to $1050; $180 min. rate remains same . . . El TV, Sioux City, on Jan. 1 raises Class A hour from $200 to $260, min. from $40 to $52. Sales of “Blab-Off,” remote-control switch that enables viewers to turn off sound on objectionable TV commercials, went from 200 to 2000 a day since Nov. Reader’s Digest devoted article to $2.98 gadget, says Robert Grant, sales mgr. of Audio Controls Corp., 413 Race St., Cincinnati, manufacturer and distributor. Easily installed, gadget attached to sound wire on loudspeaker and extends by 20-ft. cord to remote control switch; picture remains undisturbed so viewer can see when commercial ends.