Caveat Emptor

In Manhattan last week, bushy-browed Edward J. Noble, who made a mint out of Life Savers, turned a businessman's hard and appraising eye on network television's prospects. Noble is chairman of American Broadcasting Co. and he was speaking to his company's stockholders. The way he saw it, TV was no way for a broadcaster to get rich quick and his stockholders should get that straight.* He was facing them at the first annual meeting since his privately owned ABC had sold 500,000 shares of stock to the public last year, partly to get capital for TV expansion. Noble had some good news: ABC's program ratings and sales were both on the rise. But, he said, the cost of getting ABC established in TV means that the stockholders, who have had no dividends yet, are unlikely to get any this year or next. What, asked one stockholder, was the long-range outlook? Good, said Ed Noble; in a decade TV would be one of the country's great industries. Meanwhile, he said frankly, he would not recommend ABC stock to the investor with modest savings, because "this is a new field and hence the stock must be regarded as a speculation.''

* For other news of broadcasting, see RADIO & TV.

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