Variety (Aug 1946)

86 TBUIVISION-nADIO WcdncBday, Anguat 7, 194^ New Low-Cost Method to Brighten Tele Images Outlined by Dr. De Forest Chi Broadcasters Seek Parity With Dailies On Airing Court Trials Chicngo, Aug, (B. EfForls of Chi radio nowiicaslcrs (0 report local court proccediiiRs on an equal basis with the news- papers, took another' step toward realization last week when the Chicago Bar Assn. granted a rcqursl of the Exec Commitlcc of the Chi- cago Radio Correspondents Associa- lioh to put their case bctore the lawyers at an early date. Request was granted after Wil- lianvHay, NBC central division news iind special events director and form ai»l start turning il cur in 'laiKcirtcr. 11)0 by-line Gcne^JewcIl, and i CRCA prexy, appeared before the Chicago, Aug. C. • A revolutionary, yet simple, mclliod of increasing tlic size oC television images was revealed to Vmiiktv< in ail interview la.'Jt wcelc with Dr. Lee De Forest, motion pic- ture sound pioneer, wl)o arrived from the Coast to begin what he figures will be a'six-month job on a . . . r- ■ lab model, main (ask being lo iron ;'"R f'O'" l"s Breakfast at CalieiUc out a few ininoi- kinks in tlie now ; show. . SCI. He sees no reason why manu- . Spoiler also wrote a .ni ery col- faclureis can-t get it in commercial ] "i"" fov the S. F. Call-Bulletm un- Spolter's Fatal Spill San Francisco,. Aug. 6. Ralph T, SiX)Uer, 41, w.k. San Francisco radioite, died here Jiily 30 following an automobile aceideiil, that occurred while he was return- quantilics within the next year The vet scientist declared the big question in video U|) lo now lias been how lo got a suflieicntly bright picture at a reasoiiably low cost. His method will clean thaf up, however, he claims, projecling the image from any pre.senl-day tele receiver , that lias a tube o( five inches or more land there are only about 1,000 seis in existence today with smaller tubes) to regular thea- tre or home screens—and with a very low voltage. Pro.';j)Cct for tele in theatres thus becomes dazzlingly close. Explanation of how ifU be done was made relatively simple by Dr. De Forest, who demonstrated it all to the interyi(»wec by breaking open a tube, dissecting the inside of .a receiving set, etc.. Briefly, this is what makes 4he receiver-to-screen device tick: . : Surface of the tube is fluorescent. When the cathode beam (that's like an air-wave, which won't be gone into here) hits that surface from the inside of the set it makes a bright spot on the surface of the tube, which is visible to the eye from the outside. The beam itself is invisible, but: when it strikes the fluorescent area it becomes very bright, and as' it travels back and forth over that area it results in a series of bright spots, and they compoise the picture: Picture Looks Bright The brightness of that picture de- pends on the voltage l>chind the cathode beam, and, in order to get a picture bright enough to be pro- jected through a lens onto a large screen, a very high voltage is re- quired. This runs up to 40,000 volts, which is dKAcult—to say the least—to gen- erate in a small cabinet. Besides, it's dangerous-^espccially in the home—^because of all the-insulation required. And, after all that has been accomplished, there's still a comparatively small screen picture. In contrast to this. Dr. De Forest's method does not require high volt- age al all. The surface on the in- side of his tube is not fluorescent in any sense, but is opaque to the light projected through the tube from an incandescent lamp, by becoming transparent when the cathode beam strikes it. This, he explained, will permit him to use an incandescent lamp as a source of light,-located outside the tube and projected into the tube through a lens. The light will then go through the tube's surface, from which it will. be projected upon a beaded screen-exactly as in 8m, 16m or 35m films. JLow Voltage Normal voltage for tele receivers is DOW 3,000 to 4,000. Brilliancy of the picture under Dr. De Forest's method isn't, dependent oiV that much, however, with sole power re- quired being set by him at as low as 2,000 volts, Tube, incandescent lamp and optical system—the whole works, in other words—<:an be placed in a table model ' cabinet, not much larger than the ordinary table radio, and the image can be thrown on a screen three-by-four feet in area, so that it can easily be seen from 25 ft. away. That's for home use; theatres will,, require higher voltage, of cpurse. Instead'of an ordinary 300-wa(t lamp for home use, the theatre ex- hibitor merely installs .si l,00p-watter and aims it at his screen—a size 25- wabp by-3d foot job or whatever, and he's weaf in business. 'wGY Dr. De Forest stressed thaf this | WJZ won't throw present television sets, WICNY had' three shows at KSFO. Coast Networks Get Directors Work Demands Hollywood, Aug. 6. Radio Directors Guild here is.sued initial demands to networks on Aug. 2. : Making its first contract move since organizing approximately a year ago, the Guild informed NBC, CBS, ABC and latter's outlet, KECA, of its intention to improve wages and ^working conditions. Net heads are expected to respond within a few days after huddling on whether or not they Will agree to joint negotia- tions.- Guild seeks to establish basic min- imum over that now being paid. Ab- solute basic is |7S weekly, and that for starters in first three months. Otherwise, minirhum is $1.00 weekly for those during first year of em- ployment. Ten percent hikes per annum are also proposed, and mini- mums asked for shall apply to all now working or later hired, and shall be retroactive to date of letter —August 1, RDG also seeks a closed shop, job classification and clear delineation of duties, excluding night supervisor duty; in the case of CBS, the elimi- nation of the classification of "con- tact producer" and change to the title' of assistant director, and con- tinuance of the present ratio of two staff directors tor each assistant. It's also asked that directors not be re- quired to functioh as assistant direc- tors. Conditions generally parallel those (Continued on page 46) bar association asking support in llic ncwsmen'.s fight to gain recog- nition as news correspondent.-;. Pios- ciil ruting of the association pro- hibits radio men from broadcasting from courts on the grounds that il "threatens the dignity of the court." Whether or not a radio man can broadcast from court is up to the presiding judge, but most of the jurists, do not want to rusk censure from the association. Recent - at- tempt by NBC to make a recording of a case in renter's court with the judge's approval, was snafued wiicn the chief justice of the municipal court filed a protest with the bar association. Ray told the lawyers that since radio stations are. licensed by the Federal Cornmunications Commis- sions in "the public interest, con- venience, and necessity," newsmen interpiret that to mean radio should give full and impartial coverage of news events with due' regard to the dignity of the courts and the re- quirements of public taste. Television Reviews or, for that matter,. expansion plans of the industry, out the window. Only the tube will have to be dis- carded by those who own sets. All the ffest of the apparatus—the re- ceiver circuit and the amplifier cir- cuit—remains the same, so that those In the market' for video sets can go ahead'qnd j>uy thein. Local Listening Sorvey 0.0/d Again as Sponsors Ready Coin for Suburbia Now that more radio advertisers are getting ready to plank dough into non-metropolitan areas—as dis- closed a couple of weeks in surveys made by Keystone Broadcasting System and others—a study made last winter for a station in up-State New York is aflracting a good deal of notice from agencies and station reps. The study was made for WKNY. a 250-watter at Kingston, N. Y. The part considered interesting about this survey is that Kingston is di- rectly in .the path of strong signals from every one of the big network flagships in New York City—WABC, WEAF, WJZ and WOR: Signals from these stations come in strong in Kingston and the vicinity is also amply blanketed by WGY^ G. El's Schenectady station. Question, there- fore, was; With all this big-league opposition, how much of a chance does this small station have of snag- ging local listening? The study, made by Robert S. Conlan and Associates, shows that WKNY had an average of 38.2 of the. listening homes in the area tuned to it dyer the entire listening day. Divided by time periods, the sur- vey showed the following distribu- tion' of listening homes among the town's stations: 13.2 12.3 3.3 26.2 36.1* 6.1 2.8 was molesale FM Sale OK'dby FCC Washington, August 6. Networks and companies bidding for several FM stations can now ex-( pect FCC . to hand oiit more than the customary one FM liciense per customer. FCC spokesmen admitted that their bne-tora-customer rule in awarding ' FM permits had broken down last week when NBC wonMts third FM station grant in San Fran- cisco.- NBC, had a pre-war FM oper- ation in New York City and tliis Spring won a second, franchise for Washington, D. C. The FCC action means, according to spokesmen, that second and pos- sibly third FM station grants will be forthcoming to the other webs. At the same time, radio-minded Sen. Glen Taylor (D., Ida.) indicate ed he would query FCC on its. new policy and suggest that public an- nouncement be made of the fact. FCC men-said that they have proc- essed backlog of FM applications and wherever possible have already handed' out the first FM grants to bidders. F.D te FEGEEN FITZGBBALD rroduoer-Dlrector: Harvey Marlowe 30 Mins.; Tuesday, 8 p;m. GKRTZ DEPT. STORE WABD-Dumont, N. Y. Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald are considered affable personalities on the air, and their radio show con- sistently manages to amuse with its easy charm. But for television, it takes more than a fast <idlib to make a program. The endless parade of. impromptu shows on video, with few of them hitting it off, clinches the truism that what's needed is an imaginative idea with' program |)lanning and. integration. Other- wise, it's ,a clambake. Best thing on the windup of the three-time FitzG scries last Tuesday CM) was the handling oC tlie Gerlz plugs. Mrs. Fitzgerald informally brought out several articles of mer- chandise on sale at the dept. slorc. mannikinncd some of them, and spieled persuasively in behalf ot tlic others. PuUing power oC tlie show was apparently being tested in the offering of scarce items li'kc nylons and white shirts to viewers who mentioned the show's title at the sales counter. Compelling na- ture of the visual plugs on this show was only an inkling of the commer- cial possibilities inherent in video once it becorhes a mass medium. . Idea for this program (no definite format had been established for the series) was based on "an evening at home with the Fitzgeralds." Friends of the couple sauntered onto the set, sat around, gabbed, playe'd. parlor games; and convivially harmonized on - "Daisy, Daisy, Give ' Me Your AnswerTrue." During the first part of the session the cartoonist Zito pencilled some high-speed carica- tures of w.k. figures in a "guess- who?" contest. This part was a first cousin to video; the rest wasn't even remotely related. "THE SHOWOFF" With Lillian Faster, Alan Buiice, Florence Snndstrora, Loalse Bnck- ley. Frederic de Wilder, John Bobb, Balpli Collinsn, Bassell Morrison; films by Edwin Mills Writer: George Kelly Prodncer: Ed Sobol Scenery: Bob Wade 80 Mins., Sunday, 8:40 p.m. Sustaining WNBT-NBC, N. Y. One of this show'i lines was the quote, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," bespeaking more aptly perhaps than was intended, the adaptation for video given "The Showoff." George Kelly's domestic comedy of the '20's provided what. WOR Other's The study 10.0 12.1 5.2 15.8 44.1 7.4 5.4 Interpreted 14.9 20.9 0,9 11.5 32.9 7.6 2.3 as showing that, smalltown listeners do tune in to their own outlets, justify- ing claims of those who insist that radio sponsors should pay more at- tention than hitherto to local pro- gramming in th^ .sticks. PAULIST FATHERS PULL OUT OF WNEW HEARING The Paulist Fathers, religious or- ganization which has been chal- lenging the wavelength used by Arde Bulova's No. 1 New, York City station, WNEW, withdrew from the sweepstakes this week. The FCC has held hearings off and on in N. Y. for the last two months, in regard to WNEW's ap- plication for its regular license re- newal as well as for upping its power' to. 50,000 -watt?. The Paulist Fathers, who have long contended that they deserve the 1130-kc spot on the radio band occupied by WNEW, challenged the station's right to continue in business. At Monday's (5) resumption ot the FCC hearing, attorneys for the Fathers suddenly announced they were withdrawing, their application for the channel. Bulova himself at la.st appeared on the stand Monday. He had noth- ing to add to prcviops testimony given by station execs, telling the FCC examiner frankly: "Don't ask me about the number, of studios we have, and things like that. I hire very competent people to run niy stations for me, and they know the answers. Ask them." Butcher's KIST Joins NBC KIST, Santa Barbara, Cal., owned by Hairy G. Butcher, ex-CBS veepee and former aide to Gen. Eisenhower, will become affiliate of NBC Sept, 15. Daily Rating Breakdown Cnes Sharp Reyision In Current Pitching Phigs Chicago, Aug. 6. Significant on the basis of multi- ple-week broadcasts, the day-by-day Hooperatings on daytime shows arc forcing agencies Into studies of the comparative hitting power of their commercial^ oh various days of the week, and uie upshot may be a com- plete revision of current methods of pitching plugs. A quic^ look at the ratings of va rious soapers, for' Instance, shows thati although writers build their plots toward a Trlday cliffhanger that's supposed to keep the listener breathless over the weekend and make her rush to the radio at that certain hour to find out what's hap- pened to "Stella Dallas" between times, the ratings don't always dem- onstrate that Friday Is the best lis- tening day. Differences in daily rat- ings, incidentally, have nothing to do with a summer slump; It was that way in the spring, too. - Formerly, the dally ratings-were lumped together under a composite weekly figure. A show might have a 4.3 on Monday and a 5.4 on Thurs- day, and so on, so that the weekly rating came out 8,7, or whatnot. Cliange in Order Now, however, witli daily ratings provided, agencies are beginning to wonder if a change isn't In order, in view of that 6.3 on Monday, 4.3 on Tuesday, 5,6 on Wednesday, 4.1 on Thursday and 4.6 on Friday. They've got their audience on Monday, any- way, they figure, so why not point programming-urlse to the weaker days: start a new sequence on Fri- day, say, and take it easy on the commercials on that currently weak segment, too. Aiid, following the same'line of thought, give it.the old cliffhanger punch on the following Thursday, so that that weak Friday rating will be upped. At any rate. It's in the wind, and indications from one agency here arc that they'll try it on one of their soapers starting in the faU. for the most part, v^ras pretty booH video entertainment, with the ceplion of a particular . that 1im proved the. death of more tliaii orie otherwise good television : program- overlcngth as a result of under- editing. Lack of sufficient cuttine marred air otherwise good progrim in this case, empliasizing Hie fact llvat .the success of most video shows is in inverse proportion to their leniiih after the 15- or 20-minute saturation' point is reached, r Solid mountings and just as .solid (liesping made the play a television success in spite o£ ilsoir, but the 80 minutes must have raised li;iyoc in hot living rooms. Video presentation of tlic play opened with .stock film .shots of Philadelphia, with oxplanalidii over Camera finally panned doWn to a. typically middle-class - house on the ' same kind of street. Hanked un both sides by sister dwellings. Cast,was then presented singly, each making some remark about the ShowolT. Credit kudo.s belong to Ed Sobol tor his direction and Bob Wade, for his excellent single sei. T.n the east. Alan Bunee limned Aubrey Potter. "The Showoff." in sock fash^ ion, underplaying a role that other- w-ise could have become ridiculous. Lillian Foster,' as the family mother, and Louise Buckley, as the married sister,'gave fine readings, Florence Sundstrom; the Showoff's wife,was a good spoiled brat, but mi.scued a couple of times. Rest of the cast was more than competent. Toiiuit: "DIAMOND GLOVES" With Dennis James^ commentator Prodocer-Dlrector: Jack Mttrphy 80 Mins.; Wed. (24), 9:4* p.m. Sostainlnc WABD, DoMont, N. Y. First video remote ever to- be piped from the state of New Jersey gave the DuMont staff some anxious moments, but finally came off in sat- isfactory style; abetted by the fast, amusing and economical gab of commentator Dennis James, Com- ing so soon after the Louis-Conn telecast, which made up in picture quality for what it lacked in enter* tainment, the Diamond Gloves show cut itself a. tough pattern to follow. That it didn't measure all the way up to the original standard is no disgrace, considering the difficulties overcome. With only ' one camera, an Image Orthicon 20-inch telephoto lens, the crew of eight was unable to bring the entire ring into focus at one time. Cramped quarters of Hinch- liffe StadiOm, Paterson, where the fights were held, hindered mobility, and a single glaring ring light mads framing of any portion of the sta- dium.other than ringside impossible. In spite of these obstacles, plus a transmitter breakdown which made the program 10 minutes late and al- most threatened its cancellation, ■ fair picture finally came through. Once fuzz was dispelled, the fights provided good video entertainment, with contestants easily distinguish- able in the usual fast action of ama- teur bouts. Battles were inter- rupted foi' some adllb by visiting William Bendix, who tossed off a couple of gags that were question- able video mpterial. Fights were sponsored by Paterson Evening News for police benefit. . High spot, from station produc- tion angle, was the smooth commen- tary of James, who underplayed his job' to near-perfection. He also pulled some cute off-the-cuff- gags that could easily have become an- noying had they not been well- minimized. TOJIITII. "NBC NEWS" WItli Paul Alley IS Mins.; Sunday, 9 p.m. Sustaining WNBT-NBC, N. T. Smart editing and excellent com- mentary of Paul Alley worked to- gether to take NBC's Sunday night telenewisreel out of the class of just any news show, giving it documenr tary quality plus the punch of time- . llness. These factors, plus the top music behind, kept the audience at. seats' edge, which in video, is ua-. usual. . Program opened with pan scenes of Paris, moving into shots of the peace conference and its partici- pants, especially representatives of the four major nations, entefing the conference hall.. IVKpical newsreel sequences of speeches, reactions, etc.. were shown, with the only sound coming from Alley's ace commen-; lary,-backed by music. Last to be shown speaking was See. of State James F. Byrnes, and the commentator emphasized the fact that, although the least prepos- sessing of the group, Byrnes' voice cariried behind it the weight of the atom bomb, and with this emphasis upon the U, S. diplomatic ace-in-thc- hole, camera segued into B-Da.v at Bikini, for some suspenseful action. Majority of the scenes shown here were those filmed in slow, motion by the automatic camera on the atoll, with Alley pointing out a couple of ships as they went under; lill .O' which provided, a spectacular finish to a sock news show. Tomm.