"Last year I predicted that television would come within the next five years. The result of our work in the past six months has brought the goal some years nearer. Commercial television is just around the corner. It will be the next great industrial development."
So spoke President David Sarnoff of Radio Corp. of America to a stockholders' meeting last week.
Delbert Earle Replogle, vice president of Jenkins Television Corp., laughed at Mr. Sarnoff's statement. Said he: "Commercial television will be here in six or eight months." Televisionary Mr. Replogle had just come from Washington where he had conferred with the Federal Radio Commission on licensing television stations for commercial work. Though vague about his talk, he said it had been "most promising."
The disagreement between Messrs. Sarnoff and Replogle is one of the first sparks struck in a trade war that has been going on privately for a long time. On one side are independent companies which hold patents on television apparatus, the Jenkins company in Passaic, N. J., the Western Television Corp. in Chicago, the Shortwave & Television Laboratories in Boston. On the other side are the great electric interests, General Electric, Westinghouse and Radio Corp. of America, which have pooled all their television patents and are working secretly to perfect them, making none of their results public. This second group has put no television apparatus on the market because 1) it might reflect discredit on them to offer for sale any product which had not been perfected to a reasonable degree, and more saliently 2) they do not know how television will affect their other interests, radio and talking pictures. The independents, though not organized, are doing all they can to publicize their products, get people to buy sets. Bitterly the radio makers protest statements like Mr. Replogle's about the imminence of television, accusing him of ruining their business.
Great are the difficulties facing radio television. Images transmitted over the air are sometimes hard to recognize. Static interferes with them; the usual short wave receivers are not satisfactory, yet no better form of receiver has yet been perfected. Great, however, is public interest. Some 15,000 television receiving sets are in existence. Fortnight ago in Manhattan station WGBS-W2XCR (Jenkins equipment) started broadcasting films, entertainments. Typical television day:
3 to 4 p.m. School Days, Hello Hawaii, Glimpses of Yosemite, Working for Dear Life. (Films.) 4 p.m. Benridge Orchestra 4:30 p.m. Speech Correction (lecture) 6 p.m. Enchanters Trio 6:30 p.m. Theatrical Gossip 6:45 p.m. Sports Talk 7 p.m. Manhattan String Trio
At the inauguration of WGBS-W2XCR, Pugilist Primo Camera showed his primeval face. Sir Guy Standing went through part of Mrs. Moonlight, Performers Peggy Joyce, Gertrude Lawrence. Frances Williams did skits which were broadcast and recognized, though distorted by static.
Jenkins Television Corp. makes a television receiving set (radio sound receiver comes separate) for $119. Last week a Jenkins engineer married a Jenkins secretary in front of the television for publicity purposes.