End of a Honeymoon?

The booming television industry (see RADIO & TV) was hit last week by its first big wave of price cuts. U.S. Television Manufacturing Corp. lopped 13% to 22% off the prices of three bestselling models. Next day the industry buzzed with reports that RCA was about to bring out a set with a 16-inch metal viewing tube that would give twice as big a picture as the ten-inch tube used in most sets. Emerson and Stromberg-Carlson were expected to follow suit. The reported price for the RCA set: around $500, or $195 less than U.S. Television's slightly smaller (15-inch) set.

This week, Chicago's Admiral Corp. announced that it would put out a console combination (radio, phonograph and ten-inch televiewer) at $399, by far the lowest-priced combination to date. Admiral's President Ross Siragusa said his company would soon follow up with cheaper models down the line. Other manufacturers conceded that ten-inchers, which now sell for $325 to $375, would have to be slashed and other models generally reduced to meet competition. Some dealers were already advertising "no charge for installation," "free inside antenna" and "90day free service" in an effort to clear their decks for the price battle.

The cause of the trouble was twofold: television sales had fallen off; the tube bottleneck had been broken, and manufacturers could now turn out more sets as well as pass on some of the savings of mass production. Some 70 new stations are scheduled to go on the air this year, and eastern and midwestern networks are to be linked this month, so the industry's prospects are by no means gloomy. But could the 2,000,000 sets which manufacturers hope to turn out in 1949 be sold at current high prices? Admiral's Siragusa said no: "The honeymoon is over . . . [We'll have to use] all the tricks of the trade and [develop] some new and fresh ones . . . [and] sell at competitive prices."

Old Hand. Admiral, which now claims to be the third biggest U.S. television manufacturer (after RCA and Philco), is an old hand at developing new tricks. The tricks are usually those of 42-year-old Ross Siragusa.

The son of an immigrant Italian cobbler, Siragusa started making radio transformers 25 years ago in his father's Chicago shop. He developed an improved kind of transformer, and built his Transformer Corp. of America into the largest company of its kind in the world. Five years after refusing $5,000,000 for the business, he went bankrupt in the depression.

But Siragusa is a console combination of a shrewd mind, a sharp eye for a deal and a glib tongue. He sold his car and furniture for a new grubstake in radios. Adding such other products as refrigerators, electric ranges, etc., he made Admiral Corp. into a $12 million property with eleven plants of its own.

New Gleam. Ross Siragusa now lives on a 260-acre farm just north of Chicago; it is complete with blooded livestock and a private lake for fishing. Every year he spends two months hunting in the west and in Canada, although he sneers at it as a sport. Says he: "The hardest thing about hunting is getting there. The animals don't have a chance after you get out there with a gun." To even the contest, he has started hunting with bow & arrow. He shows less consideration for competitors. "We hate them and they hate us," he says.

In the price-cutting scramble to corner the fast-growing television market, Admiral Corp. hopes to corner a lion's share. It has already cut down radio manufacture to concentrate on television, and expects to boost 1948 TV sales by more than 100% to $60 million in 1949. Says Siragusa with a gleam in his eye: "We're hitting the field with everything we've got."

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