Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1961)

VOL. 17: No. 27 15 Stations NEW & UPCOMING STATIONS: New starters reporting this week include KUSD-TV (Ch. 2, educational) Vermillion, S.D., which will begin programming July 5 and a Canadian station in the Maritimes, CFXU-TV (Ch. 9) Antigonish, N.S., which began programming with CBC-TV on June 26. The U.S. on-air total will change to 586 (91 uhf ) , including 57 non-commercial educational outlets. And the Canadian on-air total now stands at 91 stations. KUSD-TV has a 250-watt Sarkes Tarzian transmitter on the campus of its owner, U. of S.D., which also operates radio KUSD. It has a Jampro antenna on a 150-ft. tower purchased from Tower Construction Co., Sioux City, la. The studios are those formerly used by the U. for its closedcircuit system, which is being abandoned after more than 3 years of operation. Acting as gen. mgr. is Martin Busch, director of KUSD-radio-TV-film. Don Miller, continuing with radio KUSD, also is TV-program supervisor. Philip Hess is TV -production dir. James Prusha, from KUSD, is chief engineer. CFXU-TV has a 12-kw RCA transmitter and a 420-ft. Microtower. Owner is Atlantic Television Co. Ltd., which has A. D. Maclnnis as pres, and A. J. Sears & J. Hilus Webb as vps. Charles J. O’Brien, ex-radio CJFX Antigonish, is gen. mgr. Wilfred S. Taylor, ex-Chrysler of Canada, is in charge of sales. Regis Kell, ex-St. Francis Xavier U. electronics lab, is chief engineer. The station is sold in combination with CJCB-TV (Ch. 4) Sydney, N.S. at a $300 base hourly rate, but it also has its own base hour at $120. Reps are Weed and All-Canada. * * * In our continuing survey of upcoming stations, here are the latest reports from principals: KNDU (Ch. 25) Richland, Wash, hopes to begin in July as a semi-satellite of parent KNDO (Ch. 23) Yakima, an ABC-TV affiliate, writes Hugh E. Davis, KNDO pres. & gen. mgr. An RCA transmitter has been installed in a building on a 2,200-ft. hill S of Kennewick, Wash., where a 100-ft. Stainless tower also is ready. The station will have a resident staff, but over-all management & programmingwill be handled by Davis. The combination rate for the 2 stations hasn’t been reported, but KNDO has a $300 base hour. Weed and DayWellington (Seattle) will be reps. KSLN-TV (Ch. 34) Salina, Kan. has changed its target to July for ABC-TV programming, according to Melville L. Gleason, pres, of grantee Prairie States Bcstg., which operates radio KAWL York, Neb. It has a 5-kw GE transmitter and an Alofrd antenna on a 210-ft. tower. Base hour will be $250. Rep will be Pearson. KTES (Ch. 19) Nacogdoches, Tex. plans to return to the air Sept. 13, the effective date of an affiliation agreement with ABC-TV. It will pick up the signal of KTBS-TV (Ch. 3) Shreveport, La. shortly after that station becomes a primary ABC-TV affiliate (Vol. 17:13 pll). KTES is now owned by Pat Scoggins, who acquired it for $5,000 from Lee Scarborough last year. It has a $75 base hour. KMED-TV (Ch. 10) Medford, Ore. has set a Sept. 24 programming target, but building construction is to be completed by July 15, reports Ray Johnson, exec, vp of grantee Radio Medford Inc., which also operates radio KMED. It will use a 288-ft. Fisher tower, but other equipment hadn’t been ordered when Johnson wrote us on June 22. He will be gen. mgr. of the stations and TV mgr. as well. Rep will be Meeker. ‘Don’t Wear Blinders,’ Collins Says: “We cannot wear blinders in this business and make the kind of track record of which we are capable,” NAB Pres. LeRoy Collins said at June 27 ceremonies dedicating the new $3. 5-million MidAmerica Broadcast Center of WGN-TV & WGN Chicago. “I have criticized broadcasting’s shortcomings — just as I have praised its virtues— because I want broadcasting to do better,” Collins told 200 broadcasting & civic leaders at a dinner winding up a fete by the Chicago Tribune station. “No one is more ambitious for broadcasting to succeed & surpass itself than I,” he went on. “Further, perhaps no one has been more outspoken exhorting broadcasting to find ways more frequently to scale those heights.” Collins said TV & radio “must remain independent of any govt, thought-control,” but he warned that broadcasters’ free-enterprise status “cannot be used as prop for the status quo.” He wound up his speech with these admonitions: “No broadcaster in America can afford to be satisfied to measure his product solely by that of a competitor. He can & must measure it against the limits of his own potential — and always seek to expand those limits. Nor can any broadcaster be justified in doing merely what he thinks will meet popular acceptance. For that is the way to conformity, the way to banal mediocrity.” Collins praised WGN Inc. exec, vp-gen. mgr. Ward L. Quaal as one of the “brightest examples of what can be achieved in this great profession of broadcasting through competent, dedicated, tireless effort.” He cited Quaal as a champion of NAB’s TV & Radio Codes. * * * NAB’s Carlisle Applauded: Vigorous backing of NAB Pres. Collins by the Association’s station-relations mgr. William Carlisle, in a speech before the N.D. Bcstg. Assn. (Vol. 17:26 plO), brought enthusiastic applause from his audience, hand-shaking and back-thumping later. Carlisle’s associates were split, in advance, on the wisdom of the speech — although those who saw no need for it were agreed on one fact, as one of them put it: “Carlisle is definitely no apple polisher, and Collins didn’t put him up to it.” The speech made explicit what the staff assumed everyone knows — that NAB’s hq forces are behind Collins’s basic principles all the way and that anyone who doesn’t support him would resign. It’s understood that NAB Chmn. McCollough heartily supports Carlisle’s speech. There’s Wide Spread in Station “Values”: A good indication of just what a well-established broadcast channel is worth in a major market can be seen in the difference between “book value” and “sale value” of WMGM N.Y., owned by Loew’s Theatres Inc. The independent radio outlet, whose sale is currently awaiting FCC approval, is being acquired by Crowell-Collier for $10,950,000. Actually, it’s carried on Loew’s books for $300,000, according to Sidney D. Slater, research dir. of the N.Y. brokerage house of Herzfeld & Stern. ITA Enters AM Field: First AM transmitter built by ITA Electronics has been shipped to WLYN Lynn, Mass. ITA Pres. Bernard Wise said the company has more than a score of back orders for the new 1-kw units. ITA also announced the first shipment in its new series of FM transmitters — a 7.5 unit to WMUU, Bob Jones University, Greenville, S.C. Plunge From Tower Kills Painter: Homer G. Welles, a painter, fell 150-ft. to his death while painting KDKA-TV Pittsburgh’s 675-ft. tower.