Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1960)

VOL. 16: No. 34 17 National Video Booming: Chicago-based TV picture tube producer National Video Corp. anticipates a “banner year” for its 1961 fiscal ending May 31, Pres. Asher J. Cole informed the N.Y. Society of Security Analysts last week. Profits for the first 2 months of fiscal 1961 (June & July) are nearly 600% ahead of the year-ago pace — to about $200,000 from approximately $30,000. In fiscal 1960, Cole said, earnings climbed to “between $1.83-&-1.85 a share” on sales of more than $17 million, compared with $1.65 a share on sales of $14.8 million in the preceding year. National Video, which makes & sells TV picture tubes to such major set manufacturers as Admiral, Motorola and Trav-Ler, is unable to keep pace with demand. Cole asserted. June’s production of 93,000 kinescopes was “many more than ever before,” he said, and the July output of 85,000 tubes compares with the normal output of 35-to40,000. August orders already are 30,000 tubes ahead of the company’s monthly production capacity of 110,000 units. Cole said that National Video last year produced nearly one million kinescopes, or about 16% of the industry’s total 6%-million output. The company is planning a $350,000 expansion program which will increase production capacity lO-to-15% by year’s end, add warehouse space. Other Cole observations: More than 80% of the cathode-ray guns used in National Video tubes are produced at its Puerto Rico plant, which employs about 130. The company enjoys tax-free rights in Puerto Rico which will expire Feb. 1963. “However,” Cole noted, “we are looking over other spots where tax exemptions are Ijossible, and we probably will move out of Puerto Rico before the exemption there runs out.” Color TV will “require a new invention” to reduce the cost of the picture tube, he said, before there can be an “important market for color sets.” Factory sales of transistors during the first half gained 67% over the Jan.-June 1959 volume, buoyed by a 1.3million gain in unit sales in June 1960 over the preceding month. Here are EIA’s official figures on transistor unit & dollar sales month-by-month in the first half, with 1959 comparisons: igjo 1959 Units Dollars Units Dollars January 9,606.630 $24,714,580 6,195,317 $13,243,224 February 9,627,662 24,831,670 6,393,377 14,650,056 March 12,021,606 28,700,129 6,310,286 18,117,660 April 9,891,286 23,198,676 6,906,736 16,864,049 May 9,046,237 24,714,680 6,368,097 19,007,293 June 10,392,412 27,341,733 6,934,213 18,031.593 TOTAL 60,486,683 $152,932,961 36,098,026 $99,813,775 Corning Electronic Components, moving into the lowcost resistor market, is preparing for volume production of -watt & one-watt film types at its Bradford, Pa. plant. Ckirning expects to hit peak production in less than 2 months, will market the devices at prices “in direct competition with composition resistors.” The company estimates that 2 billion resistors with a dollar volume of $50 million (about 26% of all resistor sales) are sold annually in the low-cost market, for uses ranging from TV & radio sets to missile-tracking systems. Wescon highlights will be telecast in 6 cities known as centers of the electronics industry. Sponsored by International Resistance Corp., the 15-min. pickups from the Western Electronics Show & Conference in Los Angeles Aug. 23-26 will be aired by KTLA L.A., WPIX N.Y., WRCV-TV Philadelphia, WHDH-TV Boston and KPLR-TV St. Louis. Magnavox’s Big Picture: Magnavox held a N.Y. showing last week of its 1961 TV-radio-phono line. It had been broadened with drop-ins since its appearance in July at the Music Industry Show in Chicago (Vol. 16:29 pl5). Among the new TVs: 2 basic 27-in. models and a 27-in. stereo theater — further evidence of Pres. Frank Freimann’s big-picture plans. Backing his conviction that the public wants larger screen sizes, Freimann declared: “We had steadfastly put our promotional efforts into the bigger pictures. Magnavox has been the leader in big picture TV for the past few years. Last year we sold more than one-third of all 24-in. sets sold by the whole industry. Now we have introduced a new 27-in. model with 400 sq. in. of picture — about 130 in. more than the widely publicized 23-in. tube.” The Magnavox TVs also include 19-, 21-, 23-, and 24-in. models. The 3 new 27-in. TVs: Model 410 console ($359.50; remote version, $399.50), which replaces the $375 model shown in Chicago. Model 406 lowboy console vdth FM ($399.50; remote version, $449.50). Model 415 stereo theater ($795). Trade Personals: Seymour Mintz, formerly CBS-Colum bia pres, and CBS Inc. vp, and Admiral Corp. mktg. vp, named to new post of vp-gen. sales mgr., Capehart . . . A. R. Gale named vp for Ampex’s foreign mktg. & mfg. subsidiaries . . . Edwin W. Lasher, ex-Packard Bell & Electronica Mexicana, S.A., named consumer-products mktg. & mfg. dir.. Motorola Overseas Corp. Dean C. Bradford promoted from dir., ITT electrontube lab, to mgr., ITT components div. Roanoke, Va. plant . . . Kenneth E. Glover, ex-Sanders Associates & GE, named to new post of new-business development mgr., Raytheon commercial apparatus & systems div. Ralph T. Dosher Jr. appointed mgr., automation-products dept., Texas Instruments’ geosciences & instrumentation div.’s instrumentation group . . . Caesar Frank Fiore, ITT asst, to the vp & mktg. & comercial development dir., appointed asst. dir. for mobilization planning, communications-industries div.. Business & Defense Services Admin., U.S. Dept, of Commerce, on a temporary assignment. Fred H. Nolke, ex-General Telephone & Electronics, joins Northrop’s Page Communications Engineers as asst, telecommunication dir. Robert I. Barry Jr., from Defense Dept., named asst, construction & installation documentation dir. . . . Richard Kneipper, ex-Herold Radio SteelmanRoland div., appointed to new post of field sales mgr., Pentron Electronics Corp. . . . Eugene A. Horvath, exBendix, named controller. Electronic Communications Inc. John Spitzer, ex-Sperry Rand Corp., named ad & sales promotion supervisor, Sylvania semiconductor div. . . . Ekiward E. Booher, McGraw-Hill Book Co. pres., and Roland T. Carr, Washington banker, named dirs. of Washington’s Capitol Radio Engineering Institute . . . Robert F. Hurleigh, MBS pres., awarded VFW’s Gold Medal of Merit for outstanding contribution to communications. J. M. Clifford, NBC’s administration exec, vp, joins parent RCA Sept. 1 as staff vp. West Coast personnel, reporting to RCA personnel vp E. M. Tuft . . . David Z. Bimham named pres, of Telechrome affiliate Universal Transistor Products Corp. Other officers: vp George A. Bernstein, secy.-treas. Morris H. Sherman. Named dirs.: Birnham, Sherman, J. Raymond Popkin-Clurman, among others . . . Emmett B. Dunn, RCA Victor custom records mgr., named RCA budgets & planning dir.