Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1963)

NEW SERIES VOL. 3. No. 3 TELEVISION DIGEST— 9 REVISED TIMETABLE FOR COLOR: When RCA shelved its plans to moke 90-degree round color tubes and decided to continue present 70-degree model for at least 9 more months (Vol. 2:49 p7), it indirectly altered another color tube timetable. This was Coming Glass's schedule for sampling industry with 19 & 25-in. rectangular color bulbs. Original target for sampling was early 1963. Now this has been pushed to last half of year — "summer at the very earliest," according to Coming. Postponement is due to lack of facilities at Corning, which had hoped to use ecjuipment idled by RCA's changeover period to produce sample bulbs. Now, instead of changing over to new tube, RCA has accelerated production of 70-degree bulbs. RCA's decision last Nov. 30 not to switch caught Coming by surprise— as it did rest of industry — and Coming had job of making up for lost time by going back into heavy production of color bulb it thought would be discontinued. Thus Coming is straining its facilities now to meet RCA requirements for 70-degree roimd color bulbs. If rectangular bulbs are sampled during last half of '63, production couldn't begin until mid-1964 at earliest. Whether RCA will go to 90-degree round tube or directly to rectangular from current tube is still mystery — perhaps to RCA as well as rest of industry. Its announced postponement was 9-15 months, which would mean tube could be put into production some time between Aug. 1963 & Feb. 1964. Present schedules indicate that such a new tube might hove less than year to run before rectangular becomes available — unless severe technical difficulties ore encountered in development of rectangular tube from Corning bulb. • • • • Three tube makers ore getting ready to give RCA competition in color tube field, all of them in some type of pilot or lab production now. It's good guess that Roulond & Notional Video will be approaching large-scale production this summer and Sylvania will reach big-cpiantity output by last quarter of year. Same RCA-type 21-in. round bulb with 70-degree deflection will probably be produced by all 3. Sole question-mark is National Video, still working with Motorola on 23-in. rectangular 90-degree color tube. Motorola will hove color line by midyear, and decision on tube type is due in next few weeks. Notional Video is equipped to make either type, it's understood. Question at issue is whether 23-ia. rectangular can be made with economy & quality comparable with present round tube. Note: That off-again-on-again price increase for black-&-white tubes is now accomplished fact. Together with other component material & labor cost rises, it will inevitably effect TV set prices next year. U.S.-MADE TINYVISION IS COMING: At least one new size in American-made TV sets can be expected this year. Two, and possibly more, U.S. set makers have finalized on small-screen 110volt TV set models which can be expected to compete directly, in both purpose and price, with Japanese imports. One month ago, we reported "every major American TV manufacturer is giving some consideration" to tinyvision, and that virtually all had asked for or received sample tubes or submitted specs for special tube designs. At that time, we also reported that "principal set maker interest centers on bulbs of 10-in. size — which might better be called 11 -in. because that's diagonal measurement of square-corner version." Only change in situation is that it's more definite. Two manufacturers hove decided to go — one quite I soon and the other probably this summer. There's no evidence that any U.S. manufacturer is currently planning battery-operated TV. It's believed that those who get into tinyvision field will base appeal on light weight, "personal" viewing & low price. TV-RADIO PRODUCTION: El A statistics for week ended Jan. 11 (2nd week of 1963): Jan. 5-11 Preceding wk. 1962 wk. '63 cumulative '62 cumulative TV 137,773 66,146 133,927 203,919 213,991 Total radio 330,726 221,169 348,972 551,895 639,033 auto radio 156,119 107,014 136,661 263,133 260,018