Roving Eye

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For television, it was a historic week. At the opening of the 80th Congress, the House of Representatives was televised for the first time. During interminable roll calls, television's great eye strayed about the House—catching children sitting still as Capitol mice on Representatives' laps, investigating the planetary glow of congressional baldpates.

In this one memorable broadcast, television proved that its window on history was almost as clear as the newsreel's, and far closer in time. Telecasters bragged that they would soon be opening their window on bigger & better sights; RCA President David Sarnoff announced that the 1948 presidential campaign would be televised. But unless television got a move on, few in the U.S. would see a political or any other kind of telecast by 1948.

Though there are nine television stations operating on regular schedules (in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Schenectady, Chicago, Los Angeles), they broadcast, on an average, only 20 hours a week, and only the telecasts of sporting events have attained passing skill. There are only 12,000 sets in U.S. homes, 13,000 fewer than in Britain. And the road to full set production has been blocked first by material shortages and of late by "the color controversy." «

The gist of it: there are two systems of television—all electronic (RCA), which has yet to go beyond black & white, and will not have color before 1951; part-mechanical (CBS), which has already developed color telecasting. The 12,000 U.S. sets today are black & white electronic, and many experts contend that in the end some sort of electronic method will be universally adopted for colors. It is up to FCC to decide whether color shall be introduced now, with mechanical television, or whether it must wait on all electronic development. Until FCC makes up its mind, few want to buy a television set, quite apart from the cost—from $225 to $2,500, plus a minimum $45 installation fee.

But the screen of television's future is not wholly dark: 1) a new, supersensitive pickup tube, four to five times brighter than its predecessor, makes candlelight do the job of a battery of floodlights; 2) construction of 44 new stations is expected to begin after FCC gives its ruling; 3) the Radio Manufacturing Association says that the U.S. is ready to build from 330,000 to 360,000 television sets in 1947.