Mr. SPRINGER. Now they are improving their signal in the Champaign-Urbana area, which is some 70 air miles away, in order to bring into that a class A signal. Is that true?

Mr. MAIN. Yes.

Mr. SPRINGER. All right.

Now let me ask you about the second one, which happens to be WTVP in Decatur, or WAND, as it is now being revised to. They presently have, as I recall, something like a 600-foot tower on the edge of Decatur.

Now they are moving that northward about 12 miles to a high point, and are boosting their tower site to over a thousand feet, and doubling their power.

Is that true?

Mr. MAIN. Yes, that is right They have announced that.

Mr. SPRINGER. All right. Now what all three are trying to do is to bring as nearly to this area a class A signal. Is that not true? Mr. MAIN. Yes.

Mr. SPRINGER. What you are in effect trying to tell this committee that you are trying-all three, CBS, NBC, and ABC, are trying-to bring as nearly as possible a class A signal to all of this area that Mr. Ford was talking about, which we will admit presently has a sizable B area.

Now, is that in effect what you are trying to say?

Mr. MAIN. Yes, that is correct, and it would then be free television. to thousands of more people for all three services.

Mr. SPRINGER. Right.

Now, just to review for the committee: I have 11 counties, and in those 11 counties, in 7 of them, I have practically nothing but farms. In the other four, there are three sizable cities-Champaign, Urbana, Decatur, and Mattoon.

The others are substantially smaller, and the largest town below that would be something like 12,000, I believe, in Lincoln, which has a class A signal, as I understand it, from Springfield, and will have a class A signal from WAND in Decatur.

Now let me ask you a second question. There has been a great deal of discussion here of the Commission regulations, and one of the aspects that has been discussed has been the Commission's limitation on importation of distant signals.

Now I am talking about a whole lot of signals, 6 to 10, however many dials there are on the knob.

As I understand the Commission's regulation, it prohibits in the first instance only importations into a grade A service area of stations serving the top 100 markets. Now, some people said that the prohibition should also cover grade B service in these markets.

Could you tell the committee whether in the case of your station in Champaign, and of the Decatur stations, WAND, the importation of distant signals into those grade B service areas would make any significant difference?

Mr. MAIN. In the case of our station in Champaign, the grade B service area is a major factor in our audience, because, if I recall correctly, over half of our potential audience is within the grade B service area.

In the case of NBC and CBS stations, this would also be a major factor as well. I can't give you the exact figures on those stations. Mr. SPRINGER. All right. Now, ultimately, with the increased power in these other two stations, you would have a sizably larger A signal than you have at the present time, but your B signal would also be expanded proportionately, would it not?

Mr. MAIN. In the case of the NBC and ABC stations, their grade A signal and grade B would be increased tremendously, especially the grade A.

Mr. SPRINGER. I have just this third question. I have heard it said that cable television ought to be required to obtain the consent of the broadcaster before they can retransmit the broadcaster's programs.

Now, do you have any feeling about this prohibition, which is not contained in the present regulations, or the recent order, we will say, of the FCC?

Mr. MAIN. I believe that a station should have the right to grant or deny that from a practical standpoint, and I would assume that most stations would grant this right with no problem at all within their primary coverage area, because this is the normal area that the homeviewer would be receiving the signal.

It would be questionable whether a station in some cases would grant his signal being taken into a distant signal, a distant city, or another market, because of his contractual problems.

For example, the contracts with our film suppliers, and contracts with, in our case, the University of Illinois in basketball. That particular contract in fact prohibits us to allow another station to pick up the signal and rebroadcast it. I would think that this should apply to CATV in a very distant area.

Mr. SPRINGER. Let me ask you this: Do you have in your contract with the University of Illinois, with reference to those basketball games which are broadcast-do you have any kind of a copyright on that?

Mr. MAIN. No, we do not have.

Mr. SPRINGER. All you have is a contractual relation. Is that true? Mr. MAIN. We have a contractual relation, but that limits us to where we can televise it. We can televise it on our station, and that is all, or some other station, if we make that right in the contract.

Mr. SPRINGER. Then if someone else takes this signal from your station, then you are in effect violating your contract

Mr. MAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPRINGER (continuing). If you do not prevent that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Friedel?

Mr. FRIEDEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Main, does the Federal Communications Commission have the authority today to regulate national broadcasters? The major networks?

Mr. MAIN. As I understand it, they do not, except through their owned and operated stations.

Mr. FRIEDEL. They do not have any regulations whatsoever?

Mr. MAIN. As I understand it, they have some regulation on networks activities, but mainly through their owned and operated

stations.

Mr. FRIEDEL. That was my understanding.

Now under the bill H.R. 12914, introduced by my colleague, Walter Rogers of Texas, in reading his bill, it says:

Nothing in this Act shall be understood or construed to give the Commission the power to control or regulate the reception of radio communication or signals transmitted by any radio station.

My question is this: If they have authority to regulate, on the major networks, why shouldn't they have the same authority to regulate on CATV?

Mr. MAIN. We believe that they should have more authority over the CATV, because they are transmitting programs, and in the case of the network, they are program suppliers.

Mr. FRIEDEL. But you are in favor of having regulation, both on the national broadcasters and CATV? They both should be regulated?

Mr. MAIN. As I understand it, the way it actually works is that because of the regulation of stations, they do have indirect or direct effect on the networks, not only the owned and operated stations of the networks, but for all other affiliated stations.

Mr. FRIEDEL. What I am getting at here is this: If we pass H.R. 12914, Mr. Rogers' bill, they will have no regulation whatsoever, and you feel they should have regulation.

My question is, or I understand that they do have some regulations on the regular channels, and it should be also on this CATV. Do you agree with that?

Mr. MAIN. Well, we feel that if they are regulating broadcasts, they should also regulate CATV.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Although the bill doesn't mention anything about CATV. They say anything that is transmitted should not have any regulations, and that is the reason I imagined that you were opposed to the bill that was introduced by Congressman Rogers. Is that correct?

Mr. MAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRIEDEL. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Mr. Main, one further question with regard to discussion about what we call long distance, bringing in of stations from long distances away. Now the truth about it is that the Federal Communications Commission today has jurisdiction to control that, don't they? In their microwave jurisdiction?

Mr. MAIN. Yes, sir. In their microwave jurisdiction.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Now the Federal Communications Commission today can prevent leapfrogging any time they want to, if microwave is used, under their present jurisdiction.

Mr. MAIN. Yes, sir; if a microwave is used.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Now what Mr. Friedel was speaking of, just a minute ago, just one further question, about regulation. Now you are not subscribing to regulation of the networks, are you, Mr. Main? Mr. MAIN. We have no positon on that at the moment, sir. [Laugh

ter.]

Mr. ROGERS of Texas (presiding). Thank you, sir.

Mr. FRIEDEL. That is all right now, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Mr. Jarman?

Mr. JARMAN. No questions.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Mr. Van Deerlin?

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I feel that the witness was showing mercy to this committee by not reading his statement, and trying to summarize it, but I fear that this cost something. Also, there is underway in at least one of the cities that Mr. Main's properties service a very serious civic dispute. It was very prominently carried in the San Diego newspapers just last week.

Now first, they recounted the action that was filed by Midwest TV, with the FCC, asking the curtailment immediately of all further cable expansion in San Diego County. I think that perhaps in the testimony and the questioning that has thus far transpired, we do not have any feel yet of what the situation is in San Diego. This is a town where, as I mentioned yesterday, CATV has made deeper inroads than in most communities, and it has become a serious public issue there one that finds clean operators on both sides, but men of principle can disagree on principle.

We shall be hearing later today from the principal cable TV operator from San Diego, and he will be wanting to talk about these same things. I think that it might help if we were to get from those people first a little better picture of what the situation is.

To what extent, might I ask, has CATV encroached upon the estab lished viewing habits, or to what extent has it excluded the local signal in favor of distant signals-and by "distant signals," I mean signals imported from Los Angeles-to what extent has this yet had a measurable effect on the advertising dollar?

Chairman Henry noted yesterday that the economic factor is an important consideration in FCC determinations. And the fact that a man's business is going to be benefited or hurt, I don't think, excludes him from making a just case before this committee. Could any of the witnesses perhaps Mr. Fox, who is more familiar with the San Diego situation-give us some idea of the audience division, any shifts that are yet discernible in advertising fragmentation, any shift of business to Los Angeles as a result, or any sound grounds for fear. ing that this might happen?

Mr. MAIN. Mr. Fox, would you answer that, please?

Mr. Fox. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS of Texas. Mr. Fox.

Mr. Fox. Mr. Van Deerlin, you asked a number of questions. I will try to remember all of them. If I forget one, I hope you will remind

me.

Specifically, I think the first question was just how far has CATV penetrated into San Diego. This is very difficult information to obtain. We have been engaged in endeavoring for several months, even as long as a year, to find out just how far CATV has penetrated into our area.

Unfortunately, none of the city or county agencies require that the CATV systems provide accurate information in terms of number of subscribers or locations of subscribers. They require only submission of revenues, and therefore, we cannot get this information from official sources, and the CATV people thus far are and have refused to divulge the specific information we have requested.

Therefore we have had to attempt to estimate just how far CATV has penetrated into our area. We estimate that approximately 5 percent of the television homes in our metropolitan area, or about 17,000 homes, are wired with CATV's.

I believe you asked them had CATV and the effect on our audiences been measured in any way. How could we actually tell that a CATV does effect the viewing patterns?

Sometime ago, we employed an independent research organization, in San Diego, used extensively by San Diego business people, chamber of commerce, and so forth, to conduct a survey for us, so that we would have some statistical information to see if community antenna or cable television or pay television affected viewership patterns to people who have cable television service versus people who do not, and the information simply reported that there is a dramatic difference between viewership of the local stations when CATV exists in the home-so much so that as much as 50 percent loss was experienced by the local stations as a result of out-of-town viewership.

You then asked if there had been any economic effect, had we been able to experience any specific loss of business.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Or have you noted any trend that might indicate a future loss of business, either advertising business to yourselves, or fragmentation of the San Diego market area, as a result of this?

Mr. Fox. This is a difficult question, and a complicated one. San Diego has had a difficult time for many years, establishing itself as a major market, primarily because of our adjacency to the Nation's second market, Los Angeles.

But since our station has been on the air, which has been 17 years, our market has finally become a major market, and has been receognized as a major market. Now this is so because it stands by itself as an entity, and it is not connected with Los Angeles, in terms of our community relationship, and in effect, it is not a suburb of Los Angeles, it is a major market unto its own.

Now in the early days, the size of San Diego was a factor here. Now we have reached a point where as a major market, if we find that our audiences are being reduced, and outside television through CATV can cover our market, then we stand a real danger of losing that national budget.

As a matter of fact, this past January, while I was in New York making a sales trip, selling time for my station, I had the occasion to be asked questions by a national advertising manager. This individual said that he had traveled to the coast, visited San Diego, visited Los Angeles, and had been reading about CATV, and just wondered how much effect CATV had made on our market, and was it true that Los Angeles coverage in San Diego was such that he could receive advertising benefits out of advertising schedules placed in Los Angeles, and then therefore would not have to purchase a San Diego television station?

Now this advertiser was in the process of making up his mind regarding the selection of 16 markets out of 30 possible markets; and one of the factors was whether he was getting sufficient coverage in that market.

Fortunately, CATV has not reached a point yet in our market where it can definitely hurt us. But it is so obvious to us that the pockets