Variety (May 1955)

46 . BAP10 ? TELE VISION Wedne§d«y^ May- 25, 1955 VIPers Day Plus 10 Continued from page 27 Kirby, now a pub-relations civil- ian in D.C., “this group did a com- pletely satisfactory job in the in- terest ‘of Uncle Sam.” The news- reels, Hollywood and press services had their own missions. Coincidental with the NARTB convention, about which there are a few thousand words iii .the col- umns herewith, the annual reunions of these radio-tv VIPs, since per- verted in Vipers, have assumed aggrandized«sentimental journeys with the successive conventions. The longer the years the greater the nostalgia—and the lies. Not All Lies Well, it’k not all lies; just pleas- ant remiijiscenses. This being VIPers Day Plus 10, the decade Since the August 1945 junket abroad had some added signifi- cance, Result was that the 12 of the original 16 who turned up in a pri- vate suite of the Mayflower Hotel here this past Sunday (22) was the largest quorum since the VIPers made'this an annual excuse for gab and gastronomies. Alphabetically attending the 12 who showed up , comprised Joe Csida, John E. Fetzer, William S. Hedges, Col. Kirby, Clair McCul- lough, Joseph H. Ream, Judge Jus- tin Miller, J. Leonard Reinsch Robert D. Swezey, Sol Taishoff, Harry 'S. Wilder and your reporter. Unable to attend for one reason or another were the four other VIP .ers, Jack Alicoate (ill), Martin Campbell, Morris S. NoVik (abroad) and Mark Woods. A surprise group of auxiliary guests o included DuMont’s Ted Bergmann, ABC’s Don L. Kearney and Les|;er W. Lindow of WFDF, Flint, Mich., who were in the Paris and Berlin PRO and/or Press Camps, during the war years, and as- U.S.. officers officially greeted the Sad Sacks from Huckster Row in their hegira. Judge Miller, ex-NAB prexy, and since gone into private law prac- tice in Los Angeles, with Col. Kirby were the official heads of the VIPers. Since then McCullough 1 has assumed the chairmanship role Novelty Package The hijinks included a novelty package of wartime memorabilia presented to Joe Ream, who open- ly confessed he was glad to come out. of retirement in Florida, after a self-imposed exile, ostensibly “to raise cattle.” Actually, Mrs. Ream had been seriously ailing. She died some months ago, but Ream stil ducked the interrogation whether he would return to CBS, where he was executive veepee. (Private guess now is that he will.) The big private joke, attendant to the gag gift to Ream, was the “lost” val- pak somewheres between Rh'eims and_. Luxembourg, which assumed marked importance at the time due to the fact the luggage included his only “good pair of dress pants. (A Sad Sack from Saks-5th Ave. to the core, our Joe!) There were other ribald “lost” items which were “returned” to him as the un official honor guest. Fetzer was the “VIP Pioneer 0 the Year,” meaning that this was the semester when he inherited the group’s plaque. Eventually eac will be “elected” to custody of said plague per annum. Fetzer was the donor of “The Last Man Champagne Bottle Club,” which McCullough has in a vault in Lancaster, Pa. This is the 1945 vintage, presented to all the VIPers in the Rheims champagne country. Most of us consumed it on the premises, or since; Fetzer alone had the foresight to bring it back to the States and establish it as the symbol for the “last man” to toast the group. (While some of the kid- dies look upon this with a sort of jaundiced perspective, in light of its Forest Lawn and Campbell's connotations, with the years this too, has become an annual conver- sation piece.) But the major business was. a move to make a 10th anniversary mission to Radio Free Europe, etc., again under quasi-official U.S. aus- pices, some time late in the sum- mer or early fall. McCullough heads the committee to consum- mate the details. Idea would be ’45 Radio Mission Revisited, albeit not basic to the transition that is. go- ing on in our field.” He pointed out that an FCC Commissioner has asserted that protests under the MacFarland Act now take 28% of the time of as extensively because of the time the Commission. He called it element. The group was away ^ 30 “another cloudy area, a departure days 10 years ago; idea is to com- from the concept that the Commis- Shot In the FM ; Continued, from pase 27 press it to 10 or 12 days 10 years sion should be primarily interested ’ater. in providing and expanding serv- ice, not in the economic protection of license holders.” Then he reminded his audience: “The public has more claim upon us than has its benefactors. We are month per subscriber, Harkins as- serted that stations in mSnv mar- that, there are stark figures which fets wm ^ able° n to ?edeem £"r ^icate that television grantees, investments in transmission and nnn non Ktn reiving equipment in eight * , . .a tisers, so my figures say, have While members of the FM spen t about $3 billion on time and panel, presided over by Ben talent Strouse of WWDC in Washington, . .. „ - , chairman of the NARTB FM Com- SJUm/Svihiiii™ mittee, were in agreement as to 1 Tf “ he feasibility of the system, they on sets and service we offer. Its differed as to its economic oros- proportionate interest, on an eco- Dects This was particularly P true nomic basis alone * would be sonje - of FM’ers who a?f alreadv en- thin S Uke five times ours. And it is interested primarily in what S?rftiins f h^ comes through the tube'. Whether operations but win be required by ... . opi-tln? Its mnnev’s worth FCC to shift such services to mui- IL L hl PhJ l.-hl Jlt* L.Z Jrin tiplex by June 1956 and devote at be the P™»ary question least 36 hours a week to general. W1 “ us ’ . . . : . programming for the public on Some things television does su- their FM stations. premely well, better than any other a a o ,„iii medium. There is no substitute for An e ® ti mated 40 stations will be it t political conventions, at dra- required to shift and, in. «»eur be- matic debates x>f the UN, at a half, the FM ers adopted a resolu- Coronation a Bowl game> 0 r a ion requesting FCC to Permit- a Kentucky Derby. Nothing could so licensee to demonstrate through a re £i ected £ he personal- hearing that his existing operation £ t j es a £ Army-McCarthy hears is in the public interest. ings or fiaye p aug ht Stevenson in Apprehension was also ex- his hour of defeat. It has literate pressed that multiplex operations .programs for children and adults; will result in lowering program- ft has improved vastly since its ming standards. “Specialized Serv- early corny days, ices ore all right but we’re In the .. But t0 my mindt it stin glves broadcasting business,” said Ed- ward A. Wheeler of WEAW in Evanston, 111. Wheeler^said he fa- vored multiplexing, but doesn’t too much emphasis and-the best time to situation comedies ttoat pale out when transferred from radio, and to night club comedians have the money to convert m the who s h ou id have stayed where they 12-month period set by FCC. Were. The soap opera and 'the His view was supported by belly-laugh have made the leap from sound to sight. There is a great gap' between the very good and the Very bad, with too little of the bourgeoise fare in. between. ABC-TV Affil Continued from page 27 Strouse who said he lost money on Transit Radio and doesn’t want to sacrifice what he has put into his functional music operations. Raymond S. Green of WFLN FM in Philadelphia said he agreed with FCC Comr. Webster that multiplexing gives too- much em- phasis to functional music. “We should keep FM in the broadcast ing business,” he said. However, that with “Mickey” as a late after- Green conceded that the Commis- noon'base, the network expected s “" ™ ust consider the large bulk t succeed by "backing in” to the of FM operators who may want to “ , , get into multiplexing. afternoon sphere. The weekend FCC’s recognition of multiplex- buildup includes slotting of the ing was regarded by Prose Walker, Pine-Thomas features in Sunday NARTB director of engineering, as night time, along with a Saturday an indication that the agency will dramatic showcase helmed by turn down a petition of the Na-‘ . “ _ . . , „ , „ . tional Assn, of Manufacturers to Aleit Se 8 al and Herb Brodkin divert a part of the FM band for All in all, it was one of the industrial uses. Walker gave as- q U f e t es t ABC affiliate meetings in surance that any move by the FCC y ears ^ w ith the stations sitting aimed at decimating the FM band q U f e tiy to hear what was described tjA pniJ 56 vigorously opposed by as one 0 £ Kintner’s best presenta- NARTB. tions ever. There were a minimum of questions on the tv side, and while radio came in for its share of “where do we go from heres,” the affils were nonetheless aware of the fact that the radio web is still a profitable, going concern and that ABC suffered the least bill- ings drop of all the webs last year . Keynote Continued from page 27 the webs, Ethridge saw it this way: “The advent of television, with the change that it has made in the an( j increased its share of billings technical structure of broadcasting tn 0s f and in the economic relationships between elements of the industry, has sharpened the necessity for ‘agonizing reappraisal.’ Nobody would deny that this voracious monster, which consumes Shakes- peare, talent arid money at a fear- ful rate has put more power in fewer hands than radio ever did “Independent radio stations could and did and do exist without DEINTERMIXTURE-FOR ALL ft ABC CREDO Washington, May 24. ABC-TV favors deintermixture in every market, ABC prez Bob . A . Kintner told a meeting of the net- network programming. Mountains WO rk’s affiliates here Sunday (22). of documents give evidence to the The network favors “equal access” fact that independent television £ 0 aB markets, and believes that stations cannot make it under pres ent conditions. ‘Time For New Look’ “I arn not one to advocate in- deintermixture would provide such equal access. Network has a fairly high proportion of UHF outlets in mixed markets, and so would stand vestigations. What I personally to gain from deintermixture, feel is that the time has come for Web has also filed with the FCC a new look* a sober consideration its opposition to the so-called by Congress as to where we stand, “five mile plan” which would pro- Does the economic and social im- hibit outlying stations to build pact of television make it desirable transmitters within five miles of a to review the question of network market other than that where regulation—certainly not with the they’ve been licensed. Situation end of. making them common car- applies to markets receiving a sig- ners, but in the light of the appar* rial from a neighboring but smaller ent inconsistency of regulating the city—KGUL-TV in Galveston mov- faucet buj; not the pump, and in ing its transmitter to cover Hous- the light of the fact that television, ton more effectively, for example, has given the networks more Network feels establishment of ppwer than ever?” such a restriction would place ar- Etheridge called for a full Con- tificlal limits on number of sta- 1 gressional-FCC study of “questions tions in major markets. Stantons Toll-TV & Co-Existence’ . Highlights of statement opposing pay-tv by Frank Stanton, prexy of CBS, Inc., addressing CBS-TV Affiliates Board last week in New York, with the affiliates immediately thereafter voting in se- cret ballot, 107 to 2, against such a system : “CBS opposes pay-television because it would hijack the Ameri- can public into paying for the privilege of looking at its own television sets. This is a betrayal, of the 34,000,00Q families who have already sflent $13,500,000,000 for their sets in the expecta- tion that they would be able to ■ use them as much as they wanted without paying lor the prerogative of watching. “Pay-television'would black out the best, of free television.' In essence, this is, a booby/ftrap, a scheme to render the television owner blind, and then.rent him a seeing eye dog at so much per mile—to restore to him, only very partially, what he had previously enjoyed as a natural right, “Pay-television promoters say^they would be satisfied if they, got $100a year from the average family!. On this basis, today’s tele- vision audience would pay some $3,500,000,000 a year—more than it pays for shoes or doctors or electricity—for viewing far fewer 'programs than it now watches without charge. This is three times 1;he amount now being paid by the public for all. spectator ad- missions. “One of the arguments made by the promoters of pay-television is that its introduction would hurt nobody. Try it out in the mar- ket place, they say. Surely this is in the American tradition. There would, they claim, be free television for those, who want what they are now getting and there would he pay-television for those who want the unusual, the sort of entertainment and culture which free television cannot afford currently. But this is a spe- cious claim, unsupported by the economic facts of life.. It is the sheerest , kind of sophistry and it is intellectual quicksand. “It is probable that pay-television would deliver an occasional heavyweight championship fight, and possitily such special en- tertainment as a multi-million dollar w ‘first-run’ movie, which the economics of present television .cannot reach, at least as of today. On the'other hand, the bulk of any programming for which pay- television would bid is bound to be the very kind of entertain- ment which already has found such high favor in present day free television. The result of this is that the public would be vic- timized into paying out billions of dollars a year for a program- ming service which they are now getting free. . “If pay-television is authorized, nobody could blame the owners of popular attractions for putting them where they could produce the most income. No one can be so naive as to believe that popular programs would be broadcast free if they could be charged for. . .. “Thus television could not long remain half*free and half fee. Either television programs belong to the public free or they be- long to the highest bidder. During the. hours when most people watch television, co-existence would be unlikely; it would be an economic improbability. v “It is difficult to believe that the Federal Communications Com- mission would authorize a scheme which seems to be so clearly contrary to the public interest. However, if pay-television should become established, economic necessity will force CBS to partici- , pate.. Unlike theatre owners, we have no economic axe to grind. We could expect to operate profitably under a system of pay- television. With our programming know-how, facilities and ex- perience, we regard it as more than probable that we would earn our share of the billions of pay-television dollars. But this is not where CBS believes its best interests lie. “Because the pay-television scheme would impose an unnecessary burden of billions of dollars on the American public; because it would charge the public for the popular programs it now enjoys free; because it would become a discriminatory service, available in large part to only those who could afford to pay; because it would endanger the scope and quality of nationwide news and pub- lic service programming, we shall oppose it before the Federal Communications Commission. No Love Lost—Zenith vs. CBS —————j Continued from page 27 are out in full force at the NARTB convention to drumbeat the toll-tv. cause, with demonstrations and all, but it’s like walking Into the lion’s den, for the broadcasters, sparked by the CBS-TV affiliates' endorsement last week of Stan- ton’s statement, are pretty well united 41 s an anti-toll-tv faction. Public Safeguards McDonald contends in his reply to Stanton that if Zenith’s pro- posals to the FCC are adopted, the American public need have no fear that subscription-tv will take over present network program- ming. “There is no 3 room in Phone vision for any hijackers,” he argues, “and Zenith intends to ask the FCC for appropriate safe- guards in adopting toll-tv so that neither CBS nor anyone else hav- ing the intent to victimize the pub- lic will ever be given a' chance to do so. “Zenith is asking the FCC to adopt a policy that will prevent Subscription-tv being used by existing networks or for regular network .programs. CBS concedes in its statement that subscription- tv will bring the American public multi-million dollar Hollywood movies as well as the heavyweight championship fights which are now being shown only in the theatres, but it apparently fears that com- petition from these events will af- fect the'present CBS monopoly of advertising programs. What CBS really fears is that the competition of programs which the public will want badly enough to pay for might affect the present situation, where three or four New York net- work executives enjoy the abso- lute monopoly of dictating what can or cannot be seen by the pub- lic on their 34,000,000 television sets. '.“We are not so foolish as to think that the public would ever pay money to-see the kind of regu- lar programs that are now free on CBS, even without the present long commercials for cigarets, beer and deodorants for which CBS effarges more than $100,000,000 a year. There will be ho commer- cials on subscription tv. Only a minority of the American public now watches even the best of the CBS network shows—and no one knows better than CBS that if even a five-cent charge were placed on these programs, this minority would quickly evaporate . . . “There is only one thing which can make subscription tv a success —and that is the ability tp bring* the American public a finer and better type of entertainment, with- out advertising commercials, for which the public will be willing and able to pay. We want to keep the hijacking out of it so that the public will have a fair chance to decide for itself whether it wants such a service.” Husing in Sportscaster Return on IC4A Meet Ted Husing will make a come- back try as a sportscaster Saturday (28) when he announces the IC4A track meet- at Tribofo Stadium in New York for ABC Radio. It’s Hu- sing’s first sports show in nearly two years, since the announcer did the Eastern Parkway fights on Du- Mont, froip which he was dropped by the promoters because they con- sidered his remarks on the quality of some ol the fights too candid. Husing had concentrated on disk jockeying for some years in addi- tion to sports and since the Du- Mont debacle had done that alone until he resigned from WMGM, N. Y., several months ago. He’s been freelancing since then.