Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1963)

NEW SERIES VOL. 3, No. 2 TELEVISION DIGEST— 3 'UHF UNDERVELOPMENT' CONFERENCE IN WORKS: To help promote uhf, in light of all-channel set law, FCC may soon call for an all-interested-party conference to consider ways & means. Conference is brain-child of prolific L. M. Sandwick, EIA's consumer products staff dir. His constant worry is that public will be paying for sets — for a facility it can't use, because uhf signals won't be there. Sandwick noted FCC Chmn. Minow's recent suggestion that Commission ask industry for ideas on promoting uhf (Vol. 2:50 p4). Sandwick promptly took him up, suggesting conference include representatives of: Congress's Commerce Committees, FCC, Commerce Dept., HEW Dept., set makers, stations, NAB, Assn, for Competitive TV, telecasting equipment makers, AMST, NAEB, NET, NARDA, et ol. Sandwick's concept is that everyone should promote uhf's success stories, not dwell on the stations that went off the air. He's also much concerned about development of easily-tuned uhf tuners. Prospects for calling conference are strong. Session may be scheduled within month or so. TIGHTER REIN ON NEW AMs LIKELY: FCC's AM "radio overpopulation" conference last week was success, in opinion of most participants. There seems little doubt that FCC will come up with tighter engineering standards and will require applicants to have more than financial shoestring when they apply. To industry's relief, there seems little indication Commission will delve so deeply into station economics as to tinker with rates or other business aspects heretofore untouched by FCC. NAB's series of witnesses demonstrated, in analyses of coverage, that FCC's objective of multiple service to nation has been achieved in large part. Said one commissioner later : "They showed that we really haven't loused up AM service, as some people have long claimed." There's no question Commission will take sharper look in future at applications for areas already heavily served. NAB's witnesses made it clear they want no "arbitrary" restrictions on authorization of new stations, but, as George Hatch, KALL Salt Lake City, chmn. of Radio Development Committee, put it : "The establishment of a truly competitive, national radio service has been remarkably well achieved. For the future, the emphasis should be the improvement of existing facilities and the provision of interference free services that will keep pace with our changing population patterns." Frozen applicants for new stations, argued traditional position of more-competition-the-merrier. FCC is anxious to end freeze, is expected to move quickly on technical rule-making. There's some talk that Commission may also propose to lump AM & FM stations when considering need for additional service to a market; this would make it tougher for an AM applicant to argue that he'd reach imderserved areas. NAB spokesmen were careful to emphasize that Conference wasn't called because radio is sick. Scdd Hatch : "We do not come here to bury the radio free enterprise system but to praise it — and to praise those who conceived it, those who hove built it, and those who have supervised its operation in the public interest." NAB Pres. Collins, who started whole thing by asserting that overpopulation is deteriorating radio programming quality, was pleased by Conference, felt it will produce results. TV SPENDING KEEPS GROWING: It looks like another banner year for TV time-&-talent revenues, if present trends continue. Based on year-start estimates by TvB, 1962 spending in 3 basic levels of TV — network, national spot & local — represented 14.6% of ad spending in all measured media, as against 13.6% of total in 1961. This was major gain for TV, since all-media-spending estimate (time or space, plus production costs) jumped from level of $11,845 billion in 1961 to $12,365 billion in 1962. Whopping total poured into various forms of TV advertising grew at faster rate (12%) than did total advertising spending (4%). Within still-growing TV medium, spot TV is making most rapid strides. Time-&-talent spending in national spot jumped 15% between 1961 and 1962, from $530 million to $610 million. Network spending — which still leads over-all TV field in totals — moved up 11%, from $810 million to $900 million. Local TV grew 8%, from $275 million to $297 million. Networks are bellwethers of TV spending, and all 3 networks are confident that 1963 will be strong year, with gross billings running at least 10% higher for 1963 than in 1962. CBS is particularly bullish; net