Radio: At the End of the Rainbow

• Share

(7 of 7)

Iffy Answers. When CBS and Goldmark's system won the color decision, a loud, angry cry went up from the TV manufacturers and dealers who saw a threat to the millions invested in black & white sets. Emerson and Pilot hurried to join RCA in the Chicago court test; Dr. Allen B. Du Mont went on TV over his own network to demonstrate a CBS color wheel (for a 30-inch screen not yet on the market) and ridiculed the CBS system as giving "a Model-T type color picture." In full-page newspaper ads, Hallicrafters charged that "this ill-advised action of the FCC is a threat to the American way of life." A CBS suggestion that TV customers might wait six months before buying new sets had forced it out of business, declared Sightmaster Corp., which sued CBS for $750,000 damages. Admiral's vocal President Ross Siragusa says: "I just think CBS is barking up the wrong tree in this one. I've got high hopes for RCA. But they have got to get going and make their system work. Then we'll buy that one."

Meanwhile, the U.S. public doesn't know what to buy. Asked when he thought color TV would be seen generally throughout the U.S., CBS's Frank Stanton could give only an iffy answer. If the courts do not rule against CBS; if congressional probes do not hold up the FCC decision; if U.S. rearmament does not absorb the electronics industry; if there are no serious shortages of essential materials— waving away all these ifs, Stanton believes that color will be transmitted from all U.S TV stations by the end of 1952. That means that even if things move as fast as possible, the buyer of a new black & white TV set today will get at least two, probably more, years of use from his set.

Stanton and CBS can still take credit for changing color TV from a laboratory experiment to an immediate possibility. CBS might eventually lose out in the changing fortunes of battle, but color of some sort is certainly on its way. In Hollywood, the major moviemakers, trembling at the thought of being caught with their vaults full of black & white film when color TV comes along to keep moviegoers at home, last week announced that 75% of next year's movies will be shot in Technicolor or Super-Cinecolor. The Theater Owners of America, who presumably know what their customers want, recently passed a resolution demanding that all new films be made in color.

Even the TV manufacturers seemed to be looking more approvingly at CBS. To the handful of small firms (Tele-tone, Celomat, Muntz, Belmont, etc.) that had originally announced they would make CBS color equipment were added such sizable names as Westinghouse, Bendix and Sears, Roebuck. The industry heard rumors that many another company would soon start making CBS color sets. Even Admiral's Siragusa is making a small concession: if the CBS system wins in the courts, each Admiral set will be equipped with a "jack" into which CBS adapter-converters can be plugged. Meanwhile, Frank Stanton and CBS, convinced they have something the public wants, intend to continue unsponsored "experimental" public demonstrations.