A Day with Television

Last week the National Broadcasting Co. bought full-page newspaper ads across the U.S. to announce: "1948--TELEVISION'S YEAR." The ads "offered" the "greatest medium of mass communication in the world--Network Television."*

What exactly is the "greatest medium of mass communication" communicating? On the biggest telecasting day last week, Manhattan's television stations (NBC, CBS, Du Mont) offered these programs:

Scheherazade & Soap. At 1:15 p.m., all three stations covered President Truman's State of the Union message (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). NBC imaginatively introduced its program with selections from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade Suite.

The camera peered about the House chamber for awhile, finally came to rest on the Truman features and, except for a few blinks from the side, stared at him full-face and close-up throughout the speech.

After a few announcements of coming attractions, NBC and Du Mont signed off for a while. CBS switched to a Jackson Heights supermarket for a customer-participation show called Missus Goes A-Shopping. While the camera lingered over signs advertising Bab-O, Sweetheart Soap and Mueller's Macaroni, a bubbling master of ceremonies asked some small children to imitate animals.

Small Fry & Wild Fowl. After that, the screen was blank until 5 p.m., when NBC aired a children's hour called Playtime. An aggressively cheerful young woman, done up as a clown named Popit, ran the show (a picture tour of Italy, an object lesson in How to Make Your Beanie out of Felt, a first-rate marionette show). "Big Brother's" Small Fry Club, with movies, followed on Du Mont. Big Brother began with a pleasant animated cartoon called Cubby the Bear, ended with an inspirational short about a proper if improbable child who hung his clothes in the closet without being told, and brushed his teeth up & down ("the way they grow").

At 6:45, Du Mont presented Newscaster Walter Compton, who tended to overact. Compton was followed by a slow-burning Lucky Strike commercial (with the man who knows tobacco best looking fussed), and three short films (hunting dogs, wild fowl, a dance band).

At 7:30, after an ad for an attachment to "define" the television image (small-screen images are still apt to be fuzzy),

Du Mont had another newscast, illustrated with still newsphotos. A travelogue about "quaint" old Charleston followed.

Oysters & Brahms. From 7:30 to 8 NBC was back with music, but no image except the usual billboard giving the station's name and some more coming attractions. At 8, NBC came to life of a sort with Americana, a yeastless televersion of Information, Please.

After a few weather reports and records, CBS also got under way at 8 with a B-minus, hour-long movie (a boy photographer clicks with a big-city newspaper and a big-city girl). Du Mont continued with Singer Sylvie St. Claire, who relaxed on a sofa with a telephone and urged a melancholy baby to come to her. At 8:15., Du Mont offered a poor full-length movie--almost the only type that jealous Hollywood will allow its suspected rival.

At 8:30, NBC flashed to the Kelvinator Kitchen and Alma Kitchell, who demonstrated how to make Oysters Rockefeller. At 9, while CBS picked up a professional basketball game, NBC presented a good, professional production of A. A. Milne's old play, The Truth About Blayds. Kraft's between-the-acts commercials (how to whip up a cheese tidbit) had a peculiar fascination of their own.

Du Mont picked up the vague outlines of a Manhattan fashion show, and CBS's basketball game lasted until 11:10. NBC called it a night at 10:20. At the sign-off, while the sound track sighed Brahms's Lullaby, a single, large eye appeared on the screen and slowly, wearily closed.

*In smaller type, NBC admitted that the network so far covered only four Eastern cities (New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Schenectady) for only 27 hours a week. But by year's end, NBC estimated, the U.S. would have 750,000 television receivers and a half-billion-dollar television business.

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