Young Monster

During 1948, U.S. television showed every sign of being a young monster. In one year, TV's formless, planless growth has caused seismic-like cracks in the foundations of such industries as radio, movies, sports and book publishing.

Everything about U.S. television is big --including its losses. Not one TV station is yet in the black. NBC operates its television network at an estimated loss of $13,000 a day. But with all its imponderables (see BUSINESS), U.S. television continues to snowball ahead at the rate of 1,000 new sets installed every 24 hours.

Not everyone finds this production flood a cause for cheering. Three months ago, the Federal Communications Commission called a halt to new transmitter construction (TIME, Oct. 11), partly from the conviction that the industry should get along for a while without new stations and take a breathing spell.

While TV antennas mushroom from U.S. rooftops, the rest of the world is coming to grips with the new "eater of hours" much more slowly. Only three nations have made even faintly comparable progress : Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. (Canada hopes to have TV, with U.S. equipment, in 1949.)

In Britain, television is older (regular telecasts were begun in 1936, abandoned during the war), smaller and--in some fields of programming--better than in the U.S. With only one TV station and some 85,000 sets, Britain is momentarily hamstrung by a shortage of the special glass needed for cathode tubes. British TV carries no advertisements and is dependent for revenue on government subsidies and an annual tax of -L-2 on each set owner. Among the programs scheduled are Ascot races, plays such as King Lear (which ran over three hours and was given in two sections on consecutive evenings), symphonies, soccer football games and movies. In British pubs, Britons still prefer darts.

Though great efforts are being made to increase set production, Britain seems clearly distanced by U.S. television. Even the wretched U.S. television commercials are signs of a prosperity that British television does not and may never enjoy.

In France, Television Franc,aise transmits from atop the Eiffel Tower, and is housed in probably the most modern and best designed TV studio in the world. But French TV has been handicapped by one of those illogical conflicts common among the logical French. Manufacturers have refused to go into full-scale production until the government increases its program budget ($11,000 for all of 1948). The government refuses to telecast more programs until more people have sets. Result: fewer than 5,000 sets in all France. Programs include first-run movies, interviews, operas and Parisian nightclub shows (uncensored). Throughout the rest of Western Europe, television is still in its infancy. The Netherlands has an experimental transmitter at Eindhoven; Germany plans one in the British zone at Hamburg.

In Soviet Russia, 1950 is the year of promise. According to the current Five-Year Plan, TV transmitters, linked by coaxial cables, will be telecasting from Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad and Sverdlovsk. This year, a mass-produced TV set with a postcard-size screen (4 by 5 1/2 in.) went on sale in Moscow, but total production for 1948 does not exceed 10,000. Poland wistfully hopes to be operating in 1950 with Russian equipment, and Czechoslovakia has a single experimental transmitter and about 20 TV sets.

Japan is preparing a TV exhibit for next year, but in the rest of Asia, in Africa, South America and the Antipodes, television is still pie in the sky.

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