Vladimir Zworykin, Father of Electronic Television Tells What He Likes Most About Television
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
/;°Febrtfáry 1980 Vol. 24 No. 2 INTERNATIONAL Vladimir Zworykin, Father of Electronic Television tells what he likes most about television. OVER 800 HOURS OF PROGRAMMING 300 Features -OffNetwork/ 1st Runs/Reruns 38 Horror/Sci-/Fi X 100 Westerns The Adventures of Jim Bowie 76 Half Hours Make Room For Daddy 161 Half Hours My Little Margie Weiss Global Enterprises has the formula for delivering 126 Half Hours audiences at prices that make sense in today's market. Let us fill your needs with our product at a cost that will increase your profits. Waterfront 78 Half Hours Come see us at NATPE '80. Suite 1715, San Francisco Hilton (main building) AND OTHER PRODUCT THAT MAY FILL YOUR NEEDS Foreign rights available on select product. We155 GLOßc7L er1TCRPRISCS 333 South Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90212, (213) 553-5806, Cable WEISSPICT Our 24th Year vol. 24. no. 1-february, 1980 INTERNATIONAL Read by television program executives in 142 countries. 4 Book information on the latest in literature for the television executive. 7 Programming in the 80's, the state of the industry and the need for change discussed by veteran programmer, Elizabeth Bain. 8 The NATPE Conference '80 offers more of the same, programming that is! Survey of the syndicators reveals new product being announced in San Francisco. 10 Some syndication "sizzlers" begin to fizzle in the Los Angeles marketplace according to this panel of programming experts at the recent INTV Convention. 14 Father of electronic Television, Vladimir Zworykin tells what he likes most about television in this exclusive interview February 1, 1980. 18 Role of the Movie as double agent discussed by Les Brown of The New York Times in his revised 1980 edition of The New York Times Encyclopedia of Television. 23 Changing station technology now! Says station manager. Harold E. Protter of KPLR TV of St. Louis in his plead to program distributors. Editor -Publisher: Al Preiss Television International Magazine has been published since July 1956 by Television International Ltd. Editor -publisher Al Preiss (left) U.S. mail address: P.O. Box 2430, Hollywood, Calif. 90028. U.S. phone (213) 876-2219. Europe questioning Dr. Vladimir Zwory- mailing address: P.O. Box 224, 1211 Geneve 6, Switzerland. Phone 98 65 55 (English); 98 88 88 kin, father of electronic television (Francais). Yearly subscriptions: $20.00 in the United States, $25.00 elsewhere. Air mail: $40.00. Single copy price THREE in 1961 interview at the Montreux dollars. Back issues are available at regular single copy rate. All sights reserved. Editorial content may International Technical Sympos- not be reproduced in any form without written permission by publisher. ® ium. Update with Dr. Zworykin in Copyright 1979 by Television International Publications Ltd. The entire contents of Television International are protected by copyright this NATPE issue. in the United States and in all countries to the Bern Convention and the Pan-American Convention. JAMES BRADY NIELSEN'S CHILDREN MARLO LEWIS & MINA BESS LEWIS The best-selling author of Paris One turns his PRIME TIME formidable talents from the intrigues of interna- On June 20, 1948, Ed Sullivan's first show tional high fashion to the brutally competitive went on the air. It was called "The Toast of the but compulsively fascinating world of network Town" and it soon became the toast of the na- television. tion. To it a not-to - most of America was -be A. FRANK REEL When Kate Sinclair, the beautiful host of a missed Sunday night ritual. By every standard, THE NETWORKS morning talk show, accepts a five -million -dollar it was one of the most successful television contract to co-anchor a network evening news RON POWERS Everyone knows that television, the most in- shows in the history of the medium-from its broadcast, the network cheers its ingenious FACE VALUE ratings to its contribution to American culture. fluential medium of our time, is dominated by maneuver to boost its ratings. But even as an Robert Schein's meteoric rise took political In front of the camera stood Ed Sullivan. Be- NBC, CBS, and ABC. This hardhitting book ambitious publicity campaign gets Kate on the America by surprise. It shouldn't have. He was hind the scenes was Mart Lewis, who created shows how the major networks, by serving their cover of Time-and on the list of "ten most the ideal candidate; television hadn't made him the program with Sullivan and spent thirteen own private interests, have literally robbed tele- EDITED BY MAUREEN HARMONAY admired women in the world"-sudden, sav- so much as it had literally turned him years as Ed's co -producer. vision of its potential. on-a age tumult besets the newsroom and everyone PROMISE AND PERFORMANCE: stand-up comedian who became a stand -out In Prime Time, Mario Lewis and his wife, Mina assnciated with it: ACT's Guide To TV Programming flagwaver. In this brilliant first novel, one of the Bess (a former advertising copywriter and ra- Chester Albany, the dignified, old -school re- For Children most extraordinary fiction debuts of the dec- dio and television scriptwriter), recreate the tu- porter and Kate's on -the -air partner, bitterly re- Is a series of resource books about the ways ade, Ron Powers takes up where Network left multuous, early years of television-the pres- sents any infringement on his famed profession- in which producers of children's programs can off-with a taut, suspenseful, wickedly funny, sures of live programming, as well as the alism, and regards Kate as the pernicious enhance, enrich, and engage the members of devastatingly serious novel of television, intrigues, the rivalries, the politicking, the back - instrument of the network's new happy -talk, their young audience. Prepared by Action for power, and the politics of manipulation. stabbing, and the generosity that characterized ratings -conscious format. Children's Television (ACT), the national ad- Circling Robert Schein are his creators and the great stars with whom they worked. They Bobby Klaus, the mercurial chief program- his victims-one of the most dazzling casts of are all here, from Steve Allen to Darryl Zanuck, mer who devised the entertainment show that characters ever assembled in a fictional TV stu- with hilarious anecdotes and fascinating revela- propelled his network to the top, is ready to the an dio: Mark Teller, the tough, acerbic journalist tions that will give reader insider's view take on the newsroom. And, just as he credits Promise end Performance: whose original discovery of Schein changed his of the way the biggest shows were put to- himself with making Kate, he now threatens to waE m nan,m ,y c life-and nearly ended it; Jennifer Blade and gether-and of the way they sometimes fell break her. The Arts Elizabeth Scott, two bright, ambitious newscas- apart. EanMM Mn,e" A rav ters who each chose to play a man's game in very different, feminine ways; the legendary .1 L11ES 611.11)1 Colonel Eddie Donovan, running his network I"ti ( hie author of ri. like the soldier he still was, and fighting a war even he dared not declare; Mal Bookmaster, the shadowy Beverly Hills impresario who The airwaves are a publicly owned resource could orchestrate a "spontaneous incident" as and yet, with few exceptions, network televi- easily as he could promote a glittering nightclub sion has continually failed to respond to the di- act; and Robert Schein himself, the ultimate versity and complexity of American life, has prepackaged celebrity, the man whose only tal- rarely bothered to examine the currents and ent was his ability to be the mirror of Al rlel ice's pressures of history, and offers us, night after needs, wishes, and fantasies. night, shows that are patent copies of one an - vocacy organization, the Other. Why has this been allowed to happen? series will include books on programming about the A. Frank Reel's absorbing and detailed study NIELSEN'S sciences, consumer education, role models goes back to the beginnings of TV to explain and for young adolescents. how the FCC created the technical conditions CHILDREN for the networks' monopoly of the air, how the Of all the components in a child's television networks acquired television stations in the na- George Venables, the network resident jock, programming diet, the arts are among the most whose success as a sportscaster gives him the nourishing but least available elements. But as Prime Time contains many never-before -told tion's largest markets (in one case running afoul to challenge Bobby Klaus, finds the each of these articles demonstrates, music, lit- stories about Sullivan, Elvis Presley, Perry of antitrust laws to drive out a huge American leverage and how gradually took over one weapon that will secure his future-his erature, and the performing and visual arts Como, Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Walter corporation), they hatred for Kate. need not be relegated to a perpetual program- even some subversive Russian their affiliates' air time. FACE Winchell, and Not only do the sta- And Kate herself, part network pawn, part ming purgatory. Though they represent many bears, among many others, giving insights into networks dictate to local what we will watch, they so control the eager accomplice to her instant celebrity, diverse perspectives, the authors are united in the characters of people you only thought you tions independent pro- learns that she, too, is one of NIELSEN'S their belief in the importance and feasibility of knew when you were watching the tube. In tell- production of shows that an VAUJE ducer cannot make a profit until his show has CHILDREN, dominated by a system as relentless bringing the arts to children via the broadcast ing their stories, the Lewises let the reader see for four five years.