WORLD TV CONGRESS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28385, 18 September 1957, Page 15

WORLD TV CONGRESS

70 U.S. Reporters At Oxford

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 pan.) LONDON, Sept. 15. Seventy American journalists arrived in Oxford today for the opening of the world television congress—the first major function of its kind under President Eisen-, hower’s ‘’People to People” Foundation.

The week-long congress, which will move to London tomorrow and to Paris on Thursday, will draw television men from around the world to an international demonstration of programmes -and “commercials.”

Brazil, Japan, Iraq, Monaco, 1 Luxembourg, Mexico, Cuba, Britain, the Philippines, Canada, the 1 United States, Puerto Rico and possibly, the Argentine are sending films and spokesmen to the : congress. Nearly all the Western ■ European countries are sending observers. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa “were invited to give a demonstration, but they felt it was a competition and thought their level was not yet high enough,” a spokesman said. They are sending observers. About 160 persons are expected at Claridge’s Hotel in London on Wednesday for the demonstrations. On Monday and Tuesday the American journalists will be shown the operation of commercial and non-commerciail television in Britain. On Thursday they will fly to Paris where they will attend a discussion on whether commercial television should be introduced into France. Today the American journalists were given a statistical picture of the growth of commercial television in Britain by a director of the Nielsen Television Index Service, Mr Graham R. Dowson. Of. the top 28 television programmes in Britain, nine were imported from the United States, Mr Dowson said. Commercial television in Britain has done “a thoroughly well; balanced job and a better job than the British Broadcasting Corporation in the individual categories,” he claimed.