Bargain Day

It was bargain day in U.S. radio stores. Small table radios were selling at the prewar price of $9.95. Prices of many other sets were down or ready to drop; the industry was tuning in on its first price war in about ten years.

What touched it off was General Electric's 3 to 24.5% cut in prices, and a drop in radio sales. Since war's end, the industry had turned out more than 34,000,000 sets--almost one for every U.S. family. This year radiomakers expect to produce only 12,000,000, and the slump has already caused 40 radio plants to close.

Six days after G.E.'s announcement, Teletone and Trav-ler put out their new $9.95 sets. Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp., the largest maker of small sets in the industry, came out with a 1948 list that showed some impressive price cuts. Its cheapest model was down 20% to $16.95; and it hoped to hold on to the middle-bracket market with a combination radio phonograph at $99.95 and a four-tube A.M.-P.M. set at $49.95 (almost a 50% cut from last year).

Some of the major producers, among them R.C.A. and Philco, were still holding out, but few radiomen thought that they would for long. The price-cutting fever had also infected the television business.* The big news came from Admiral Corp.'s hard-hitting President Ross D. Siragusa, who parlayed a backroom radio shop into the fourth biggest radio business in the country. Last week, he came out with a table television receiver (seven-inch screen), retailing at $169.95, the cheapest ever to go on sale.

*For other news of television, see RADIO.

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