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At last it became possible to buy a set without fearing that it would be outdated tomorrow. Telesets appeared in bars, and a dog in Greenwich, Conn, was stricken with television-induced eyestrain.
Last fall, over three million people saw the World Series on television, and the big, grid-shaped antennae began to appear on the rooftops of New York City houses and apartments. The Louis-Walcott fight in December was witnessed by more than a million people. On the Monday and Tuesday after the fight, RCA sold 2,400 telesets.†
The Big Future. Television, predicts NBC's Executive Vice President Frank Mullen, "will be a six-billion-dollar industry, four times as large as radio today." Allen B. Du Mont (who runs the Du Mont network) thinks it will be "one of the first ten U.S. industries in five years."
One worried radioman thinks that television is "a Frankenstein monster that will destroy its creator." But if the monster's rivals can't lick it, they are determined to join it. The industries that have most to fear are the ones giving it the most support.
NBC is Mr. Big of television, operating a six-station network in the East, and ready to link it to a seven-station Midwest network in December. By the end of the year, NBC will be up to half-steam, owning all the stations FCC allows (five), and beaming programs to 31 affiliates. Paramount Pictures already has two stations in operation, and a 29% interest in the Du Mont network. A fortnight ago, Warner Bros. applied for a station in Chicago; last week 20th Century-Fox asked for a San Francisco license.
Apparently undisturbed at losing $1,700,000 on TV last year, NBC expects to lose $5,000,000 more before it turns a profit—about five years from now. NBC's parent company, RCA, squatting triumphantly atop the field, has made as many television sets as the other 46 manufacturers combined.*
Radiomen are worried by a recent NBC poll of homes that have both television and radio. Eight times as many people were tuned to a Theatre Guild telecast as were listening to radio's popular Fred Allen. Though some experts are already counting radio out, most think it will survive, if only as an auxiliary arm of television. Best guess: radio will be absorbed into the teleset. And there will still be programs for the 9,300,000 automobile radios, for housewives who are too busy to look, and for the blind.
Insidious Demands. The housewife is still one of TV's biggest question marks. The problem is whether or not women will find time to sit down and look. Yes, says Mullen: "Women find time to play bridge, to shop, to go to Ladies' Aid. They'll find time for television." Radio can be turned on and ignored; TV insidiously demands full attention. There are some who believe that TV may deliver the final blow to the art of conversation.
How will television affect U.S. family life? "It will re-cement it," insists CBS's Vice President Adrian Murphy. "I talked with a man who had seen his teen-age daughter for the first time in two months. He bought a set, and now she brings her boy friends home." At first television's novelty value was so high that it some times altered the usual standards of hospitality. Many TV owners, faced with a houseful of curious friends & neighbors, required regulars to bring their own refreshments.