Variety (Oct 1946)

S8 TELEVISION Wednegday, October 9, 1946 Tele Should Talk to Self 2 Yrs. Before Public Bow, Sez Cuniung Inauguration of a television "Two- Year Plan" in which all stations would forego competition in favor of cooperative planning a la the Soviet government's flve-year plans, is cur- rently being voiced around the in- dustry by Patrick Michael Cunning, partne'r with Edgar Bergen in the latter's new video programming ven- ture. In N. Y. to sound out agencies and broadcasters on "preliminary" busi- ness for his company, and to attend the Television Broadcasters Assn. meet, tunning declared that both he aind Bergen-feel tele isn't sufficient- ly developed yet program-wiiSe, and that most of the shows'currently be- ing fed to the public will only sour viewers oh the medium. Broadcast- ers, consequently, should confine their experimentation, even on spon- sored shows, to studio audiences, who would see them on closed circuits. Since most sponsors today are only in television for experimentation and publicity, he feels they too would go for the closed circuit idea. Plan, of course, wouldn't apply to remote piclcups but only to live studio shows. Under the system, only the best live shows of each station would go out to home receivers. Stations in the same area could set up a time schedule so that each would broad- east consecutively for 15 minutes to a half-hour each night. Viewer thus would be able to have several hours of continuous entertainment merely by switching from one station to an- other as each signed off- During the two-year period, a large-scale train- ing program for all phases of the in- . dustry. should be inaugurated. Too Many Kinks Techniques of live action program-t ming haven't even begun to be worked out yet, Cunning .said. Only . the surface has been scratched on Mema Oh.! GERALDINE KAY ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST DISTINCTIVE ACTRESSES CHICAGO STATE 1100 PrM< RtpraientativM DUTTON-LIPPOLD the possibilities of different lighting effects, camera angles, dolly shots, etc. Until most of the kinks are worked out, the entire industry would benefit if all stations co- operated. "Let them save, their com- petition until aft;er that, when they can Ught all they want,", he said. The Cunning-Bergen studio in Hollywood is said to be che largest indie tele centre in the country to- day. Entire highly-departmentalized setup is geared to experimental work and research, with Bergen in charge of Telescene (film work) and Gunning in charge of the live pro- gramming. Both are agreed. Cun- ning said, that at least the next eight months of their work should be de- voted only to experimentation. Much of the stuff now turned out is sub- sequently tossed into the studio in- cinerator, but from it all. Cunning said, he and Bergen are learning what makes good tele programming. Duo has worked out several inter- esting ideas for incorporation into commercials. One is the Bergen Barnyard, featuring an entire barn- yard family of puppets to be ani- mated a la Charlie McCarthy. Plan is to use these in serialized commer- cials of one, two or three-minute duration. Team has also been ex.- perimenting with the cream motion picture techniques for use in tele, conducting research in miniatures, cameo effects and other methods that have hardly been touched on in the east. Tele Stock Cunning is lining up a group of tele stock actors who will stand by in a studio during the entire time a Station is on the air to act out news flashes; Studio would receive flashes from its correspondents via special intercommunications phones and then, instead of merely having an announcer repeat them, the actors would "play" the scene much as it actually happened, By training ac tors especially for the purpose, they could go on the air within a few minutes after the first flash was re^ cei ved. Duo does not plan to operate a station, believing the big money in television will be made in produc' tion, not in station operation. Ber gen himself is due east sometime in November, when he'll also give the N. Y. video scene a o.o. It's possible also that he might appear in the "Hour Glass" show over WNBT (NBC, N. Y.), which is sponsored by Standard Brands, same firm that bankrolls his Sunday night radio show. BBC Goes Places London, Oct. 8. Continuing its present empha- sis on remote pickups of special events, BBC television is slated to take its cameras farthest from its transmitter to date, on Satur- day (12), when it televises the King George VX Stakes at the Ascot racetrack. Ti'ack Is locat- ed In Berkshire, sonle SO miles from BBC headquarters. Most remote point for the comeras heretofore has been the Epsom track, about 23 miles from Lon- don. Cameras will be set up at both the starting and finishing lines, with the entire two-mile race and other events on the program exr pected to bft covered. Recent tests from Ascot with the mobile transmitter, which will send the images back to BBC headquar- ters, were reportedly successful. ABC Skeds Detroit live Tele Shows Detroit, Oct. 8. ABC threw its hat into the Detroit television ring last week with an announcement by Paul B, Mowrey, the web's national tele director, that ABC will be producing live shows over its, Detroit outlet next June. We expect to be the first video broadcaster on the air in the Detroit area," Mowrey .added. Statement followed an earlier an- nouncement by WWJ, NBC af- filiate, that it expected to be first with live tele programming here, hoping to be on the air before the first of the year. WWJ recently pur- chased a complete transmitting equipment setup from the DuMont labs and is presently working to get its station in operation. FCC has already issued a construC' tion permit for an ABC tele station here. Company's plans call for two large downtown studios, with a transmitter located on a 22-acre site in suburban Detroit. Mowrey has selected John Pival as coordinator of special events for video in this area. Pival is now telereel and wire-recorder producer of the web's WXYZ in this city, ABC pioneered television in De- troit. One of the net's most im' portant sponsors, the Chevrolet company, is located here. Last spring ABC filmed the Automotive Golden Jubilee held in Detroit and over Labor Day sent camera crews to cover the Gold Cup races. Transcribed Stories From "The American Notebook" Written and Narrated by Robert Waldrop With Music Under the Direction of MarkWarnow Are Broadcast Weekly on 945 Stations Directed by RUTH GIRARD I Currently Presented fit fhe Inier^t of U. S. Savings Bonds! SCHOOL CHARADE ON SCHEDULE FOR WCBW A new television educational series, in which junior high .schools of New York will compete against each, other in a weekly television quiz tournament, has been set by WCBW (CBS, N. Y.) in collaboration with the ;N. Y. Board of Education. Titled "All N. Y. Junior High School Quiz." The series is slated to tee off Nov. 7, supplementing the Board of Education's first video show, "There Ought to Be a Law," now in its sec- ond year on WCBW. Forty schools have entered teams comprising 10 students each in the tournament, which is; set up in two 10-week brackets. First ends Jan. 16 and the second April 24, with the two brackets meeting in the finals o-.i May 1. Each team is slated to work out the questions to ask the opposition, selecting not only the material but preparing the visually zation of the question to meet tele requirements. As an aid to faculty advisers, of student teams, CBS early last June provided a special manual contaln- ing specific instructions for the visu- alizing of quiz material. WTCN Joins B-W Tele Parade Despite Craven's Constant Color Plugging Washington, Oct. 8. FCC last Friday (4) handed out its ' 33d postwar television permit. It went to: the Minnesota Broadcast- ing Corp., for a new $136,500 black- and-white video transmitter in Min- neapolis, Interest 'is focussed on entry of Minnesota Broadcasting Co. (WTCN, Minneapolis) into black-and-white field since company is partially held by (John) Cowles Publications; and T,A.M. Craven, vice president in charge of engineering for Cowles Broadcasting Corp., is an outspoken advocate' of CBS-color video. Cra- ven has already filed at FCC for an experimental color station for Cowles-owned outlet WOL, Wash- ington. However, ownership of the com- pany is split two ways, with Cowles' Minneapolis Tribune holding 50% and other half held by North- west Publications, Inc., publishers of the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press. KSTP, St. Paul, already has a permit for commercial tele opera- tion there. At the same time, FCC okayed an experimental permit for the St. Louis University, St. Louis, which has ear- marked $168,000 for a university transmitter to test out both black- and-white - and rainbow transmis- sions. University will program only one hour a week. SetMfrs. Continued from page 51 few hundred of the smaller home sets. About one-half of the company's total production in the future will be devoted to home receivers. Sets have been finalized now, according to prexy Hamilton Hodge, with only minor refinements to be made as the result of further laboratory ex- perimentation. Production next year should be very heavy, Hoge pre- dicted. Viewtone Television, which had installed 1,500 seven-inch direct view table models in homes up until Sept. 30, has switched over from the table model to a semi-console including the same size tube, as well as AM radio and a record-changer. Latter, slated to retail at $279.95, was dem- onstrated to dealers last week, when each retailer was allocated a certain number so that he could have more information to give his customers about delivery. Company hopes to turn out about 1,000 of these during October, and another 2,000-2,500 dur- ing November and December. Com- pany is also working on a 10-inch and 12-inch tube model for produc- tion next year. DuMont has taken more than $4,- 000,000 in advance orders waiting to be filled, according to Commander Mortimer W. Loewi, assistant to the company's prexy, Company plans to produce at least 450 sets this month, and, another 2,500-3,000 sets in No- vember. Two different models will hit the stores this year. These in- clude one with a 20-inch tube, AM and PM radio and a record changer to retail between $2,400-$2,600, and another including the same features but with a 13-inch tube at between $1,500-$1,700. Motors, Tires, Oil Lead Tele femkroU Parade The automotive industry has evi- dently turned to television as a "natural" medium for plugging auto- mobiles and tributary products. Automotive accounts have t^iken an overwhelmine lead in television bankrolling, with more programs and heavier billings than any other of the commercial fields. This is signi- ficant in view of the fact that most of them have gi^en up oh radio as a bad selling job, and—where they do stay on the airr—keep their com- mercials on an institutional plaae^ Leading the parade is Ford Motors, with Columbia University football games, Madison Sq. Garden events (other than Mike Jacobs' fights) and two Brooklyn Dodger National Pro League games on WCBW-CBS in New York; New York Yankees* All- America Conference contests on WABD-DuMont, N. Y.; and the Northwestern University football schedule on WBKB, Chicago. This gives Ford alone better than $100,000 in billings. In addition to Ford, Atlantic Refining is now in its sixth year of bankrolling the University of Penn- sylvania football games on WPTZ, Philadelphia. U. S. Tire and Rubber has Lou Little on WNBT-NBC in a Friday night quarterback show, plus .some films on ABC. Goodyear Tire' has picked up the tab for the Army football games telecast over NBC, while both Firestone and Standard Oil sponsor telenewsreel programs on the net, In addition, Chevrolet is expected to move back into the picture soon, after four ABC shows. Preponderance of special events programming is expected to con- tinue where'Sutomotive sponsors are concerned, since they are already becoming identified with sporting events, much in the manner of Gil< lette Razor on radio, Oil firm's •tar talftsman Tliat'i "Good Neighbor Mikt!" Rcuil talci of petroleum product! in Ohio irt up l<'/i% ova the firit i month! of 1941 . . . BUT —The Stark Oil Co., WHBC «d- vertlier. report! an increase of Thii firm has secured 9 im- portant new account! ai a re!ult : of their weekly quarter-hour SING, AMERICA, SING series. On» more example of WHBC'i aalei pullinc power —one moje reaion why you should use thii itation. "^ig Doytiitie Leodership in th? 40 <loy»int» <iwor»*f- hoi»f pariods (Modi. tJifu f"')' ih* latest Hooper Llst«nlti», Index in iH W<ir«ii»<*r <irp^ pf'over 500,000, gives. WtAG;- 31; SJotiort 8, 7t SWlon C 3) Stefion t», 0 ond Station W T A G W 0 R C ESTER