TELEVISION VIEWS THE FUTURE

Grey River Argus, 12 October 1949, Page 7

TELEVISION VIEWS THE FUTURE

(By Gordon Coller) The highlights of British television development which will be revealed to the world in the National Radio Exhibition at London’s Olympia from September 28th to October Bth have just been discussed confidentially between a deputation of seven members of Parliament and the Director-Gen-eral of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Sii’ William Haley. The Members of Parliament who have formed . a non party “action committee” to press for the rapid extension of television over the whole of Britain said after a discussion on 7th September that they were satisfied they had obtained all the facts from the 8.8. C. point of view and would next see the Postmaster-Gen-eral.

Among the facts likely to have been discussed is the rapid progress in British television services which will be possible now that the Government has released the 8.8. C. from restrictions imposed when the capital development programme was cut. The cuts were imposed last year over most fields of the industry in order to preserve labour and other resources for the most urgent projects. From Ist.January next the B. B.C. will be free to draw on its reserves to expand television as the Government has announced.

The world’s most powerful transmitter—.seven times as powerful as any in the U.S.A. —is due to begin televising in the Midlands shortly. Sited in Birmingham, the station is credited officially with a range of 50 miles but observers expect its range to extend to something nearer 100 miles. More than 6,000,000 people will then be able to see for the first time through this new design and! chain of most up to date relay stations', at 30-mile intervals. Television sigin the area by a mobile van to enable in the area by a mobile vavn to enable dealers to test their sets and hundreds of enthusiasts have already bought the latest sets in anticipation of the new service. Plans for a further three new transmitters are already in hand. Work has started on a transmitter near Huddersfield which is expected to begin programmes for South Lancashire and a large part of Yorkshire next year. Surveyors are testing sites for a station to serve Scotland and another to serve South Wales and Western England. The capital cost of these five new stations is put at 11,750,000. By the end of next year manufacturers expect about 550,000 sets to be in use as against some 150,000 which at present receive prorgammes from London only. Production will be stepped up to keep pace with the expansion of the service. Over 20 British manufacturers make television receivers, and production is now around double last year’s monthly average of 6,430 sets —-this compares with 2,300 per month in 1947 and 800 in 1946. In that year the industry was just emerging from war after having been turned 100 per cent, to the manufacture of radar and similar equipment for over six years. Within two years of being demobilised the radio industry (including its television branch), had stepped up its exports from a prewar level of under 2-million sets to 8-million per annum. Today in addition to 405-line receivers for the British market, the industry has equipped itself to produce sets taking 625 lines or more for the overseas markets. The newest sets will be' shown at the Radiolympia Exhibition this month and the four manufacturers of transmitting and studio equipment will show recent developments in this field, with programmes broadcast to over 100 different receivers inside the exhibition.

Startling price reductions announced by one large firm for its wireless sets on September Sth have been paralleled by similar reductions for television sets which have fallen on an average 13 per cent during the past year. Thus one new set (with a 10-inch tube) sells at £37-16-0 and one firm about to make 525-line receivers for the Canadian market has found its prices highly competitive. Last April, Mr. Benjamin Abrams, the American radio chief, remarked that the lowest British set was about half the price of its American counterpart adding: “This is a great tribute to your radio engineers. Their technical ingenuity is no surprise to us—they were first in the television field—but a low marketing cost is a great surprise.”

The hope has often been expressed that other countries which are following Britain’s lead in Western Europe will adopt as far as possible a common transmission system not only from cultural and technical points of view but to 'facilitate the interchange of programmes and share their cost (which has been found to be a handicap, even in France.) Britain’s own expenditure has been rising steadily—from £580,000 in 1946-47 to about £700,000 in 1947-48 and £860,000 in 1948-49. This has made it possible for British producers to maintain an unrivalled standard of programme production. Among the highlights of British programes in the past two years were the incursion of television cameras into No. 10 Downing Street for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, a visit to Scotland Yard showing many secrets of crime detection, and the televising of fragments of the recently discovered Bible manuscripts with an explanatory commentary. At the other end of the scale the televising of events under the microscope aroused such interest that one doctor commented that he had been able to see things he had no opportunity of studying before. X-ray photographs have been shown to the public. Guys teaching hospital in London has become the first in the world to install permanent televisionequipment over an operating table to enable students in another room to view the operations. One bank has even installed television in a country vault so that the London manager can see the clients’ accounts in complete confidence 25 miles away. Technically an allocation of £750,000 for research will enable the 8.8. C. to continue the lead which John Baird established with the invention of television in 1926. Whilst new techniques are being perfected the primary aim remains to extend the coverage of British television services until 6,000,000 or more would-be viewers are satisfied and th e mass production of sets has brought prices even lower for both Further expansion of television is planned in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a programme

which would permit setting up 2,245 transmitting stations in about 1,400 communities throughout the country. This compares with a present total of 70 stations, most of them in the eastern cities.

Public hearings on the proposed programme began in Washington, D. C., on September 26. Proposals for television in colour and for stratovision—transmission of programmes from high-flying planes—will be among other subjects discussed. The FCC’s expansion programme calls for the opening of 42 new ultrahigh frequency television channels in addition to the 12 very high frequency channels now in operation. Indicating the potential size of the audience to be served under the proposed programme, more than 2,200,000 television sets already are bringing pictures, words and music into American homes and offices and into restaurants and other public places. A major problem of the television industry—to adopt new advances such as colour television without making present receivers obsolete —apparently has been eased by recently announced developments. One is an inexpensive adapter that can be attached to present receivers, enabling them to receive the programmes transmitted on ultra-high frequencies. Another development is a new system of transmitting television in full colour which is said to assure the continued usefulness of broadcasting stations and home receivers now in operation. Under the new electronic system, according to the Radio Corporation of America, existing receivers Wbuld need no modification or additional equipment to continue to receive black-and-white pictures from stations transmitting in colour. Addition of an adapter would enable such sets also to receive images in colour.

This and other methods of colour television transmission will be examined by a special committee established by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, which is to report its findings to Congress in September. The FCC already has authorised experimental colour broadcasts in four U.S. cities, and it has been used in demonstrations of new surgical techniques for American medical groups. Perhaps a more important factor than new technical advances in making possible the almost phenomenal growth of television in the United States, however, is mass production Constantly improved production methods have increased the number and so lowered the cost of television receivers that they are available to a large segment of the Aiherican public. A recent report of the Radio Manufacturers Association showed that about 1,000,000 television receivers were produced and put into the hands of the public during the first half of 1949. Of these, 77 per cent were purchased by families in lower-in-come brackets. During the next 6 months the industry expects to manufacture and sell another 1,500,000 receivers.