But certainly if we go off the air for economic reasons, we have hurt a vast number of people that CATV has no interest in and couldn't economically serve.

Mr. MACKAY. The thrust of your argument, then, is that CATV is a movement toward pay television and the stifling or termination of what we call free television?

Mr. MAYBORN. This is right. It could be very easily the end of free television in smaller markets.

Mr. MACKAY. Do you think these two things are compatible, CATV and free television?

Mr. MAYBORN. I think they would be quite compatible, if you give them the same rules you give me.

Mr. MACKAY. A number of other members of the committee who are not here have asked witnesses whether or not this can be substantiated now, based on existing facts, or whether this line of argument represents a projection of your fears as to future developments.

Mr. MAYBORN. Let me give you a simple example. When I was up here to the first 3 days of this hearing, we were complying with the microwave requirements that we notify the CATV within certain lengths of time and enumerate the programs which we did not want duplicated, the rule with which you are familiar; the microwave rule.

We did this correctly and adequately. But then the CATV promptly, in this confusing period which nobody knew where we were-and we are all up here talking about it-started carrying what I call a degraded signal of carrying my station, an NBC affiliate, on three channels besides its own channel.

They carried it, our station, during that period and on seven, which was an agreed channel. They also carried it on six, but because it is so close it is a degraded signal on six. When it got to the time for us to go on with our local news at 12 o'clock, they switched us, then, to the NBC station in Fort Worth and the Temple people got the Fort Worth news.

This went on and the confusion was pretty great and the result was that they had quite a bit of trouble with their own people. We sat down and talked with them and said:

Either do as we think ought to be done and as the proposed order states, either putting us on our chanel 7, which we thought we agreed on, and run it straight through the day, and leave us off all the other stations, but if you put us on any other channels, leave us on all day long and don't degrade the signal.

We have lost all of our local audience because they think they are looking at our station and all of a sudden they find they are in Fort Worth looking at the news. This needs regulating, I would think.

Mr. MACKAY. I have one other question. You heard Mr. Rogers testify that they had a model act to have State legislatures declare CATV a utility and put this under the regulation of the utility commission.

You say the FCC Act is good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. What is the role of the State legislature and the local governing authority insofar as CATV is concerned?

Mr. MAYBORN. The role in Texas does not exist. In the case of the local authority, they have simply issued permits to use the streets and protect the interests of the people.

Mr. MACKAY. That is a permit and not a franchise.

Mr. MAYBORN. It is a permit and repeats and says it is not a franchise. I am not a lawyer and I don't know whether it is a franchase

or not.

Mr. MACKAY. Do you know of any case yet, Mr. Mayborn, where there is competition in CATV in the same area?

Mr. MAYBORN. I am not aware of this; no.

Mr. MACKAY. I have no further questions.
Mr. PICKLE. Mr. Gilligan?

Mr. GILLIGAN. I would like to follow this line of questioning for just a minute, Mr. Mayborn, because I asked this morning a witness who operated CATV networks around the country whether or not he would invest in a UHF station, a proposed station, in a market not one of the first 100 markets, if it were presently served by CATV. Would you make an investment in a UHF station going on the air in that market if they already had CATV?

Mr. MAYBORN. I can only answer that by saying that the man named Glassgow, who owns a radio station in Waco, who has filed an application, asked me that question, and I told him I would, if I were he.

There are three networks. He would undoubtedly get one of the networks, and the conversion to U's will eventually come about. It will be thin pickings for a while, but he would wind up with a facility, provided either the FCC or the Congress gave protection and some reasonable regulation which would insure his survival.

Mr. GILLIGAN. I am assuming that we have the situation of 6 months ago, no regulation, because one of the proposals before this committee is that the FCC should not operate in this field, and that the orders they have issued are arbitrary, whimsical, and so forth and should be withdrawn.

Without regulation of CATV, if there is a CATV system operating in this market, would you then, sir, invest or urge someone else to invest?

Mr. MAYBORN. I would give it a long, serious, hard thought, depending on the market conditions that existed there. But this is a hazard. If you have no distant signal control, and if the local CATV can originate, I would go south.

Mr. GILLIGAN. Suppose the CATV would not be required to carry the signal of the UHF station in their service?

Mr. MAYBORN. This would be fatal to them also.

Mr. GILLIGAN. And presumably the nonduplication rule, if there were no nonduplication rule, you would consider this?

Mr. MAYBORN. All of these things are the very things that affect both VHF and UHF but in a smaller station getting started, with a limited number of UHF conversions as against the old sets, this is much more difficult, if you are talking about UHF.

Mr. GILLIGAN. There is the proposition that it is the announced policy of the Congress and the FCC to encourage the developments of UHF stations around the country. I am trying to get the opinion of people in the field as to whether or not this policy can come to fruition unless CATV is regulated.

Mr. MAYBORN. If CATV is not regulated, UHF is in a disastrous position.

Mr. GILLIGAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. PICKLE. Mr. Adams?

Mr. ADAMS. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PICKLE. Again, Mr. Mayborn, we want to thank you for appearing before the committee.

Mr. MAYBORN. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. PICKLE. I believe our next witness is Mr. Rex G. Howell, who is president of KREX-TV in Grand Junction, Colo.

STATEMENT OF REX G. HOWELL, PRESIDENT, KREX-TV, GRAND JUNCTION, COLO., KREY-TV, MONTROSE, COLO., AND KREZ-TV, DURANGO, COLO.

Mr. HOWELL. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am grateful for the opportunity you have provided me to appear before you and express my opinion in this important matter. I believe that in so doing I can safely say that I am also expressing the opinions of many more broadcasters who operate television stations in the Nation's smaller cities.

My name is Rex Howell, and I am the owner of three small television stations and one CATV system in the Rocky Mountain west. I hope you will not judge me as self-serving if I go into some detail about my stations, but I believe that in doing so I may be able to acquaint you with some little known facts about small market television.

My stations are KREX, KREY, and KREZ television operating in Grand Junction, Montrose and Durango, Colo., respectively. The laregst city is about 25,000 population and the smaller 2 are around 10,000 population. By the normal standards of television these are markets too small to support their own station.

We have disproved this assumption, however, and have successfully operated these stations from 1954 in the case of the primary station, and as early as 1957 for one of the satellites.

We have provided the people of our area now numbering over 50,000 television-equipped homes with the choice offerings of all three national TV networks, plus local service of news, weather, public events, and other vital public services.

Ours is properly a small business, doing about three-quarters of a million dollars' annual business and providing well-paying jobs to about 60 persons of multiple skills. Of infinitely greater importance is the fact that we have brought the modern-day miracle of television to the isolated homes of a section of the Nation which would be totally lacking in reception without us.

I'm sure it must be difficult for some of you gentlemen to visualize television services limited to a single channel. You are more than likely accustomed to a great multiplicity of channels, with overlapping services. In your abundance of television reception you may at time feel somewhat surfeited with it.

Were you to go to San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado you might be pleasantly surprised to find how much television really means to people of that area. It is not only the source of their en

tertainment but is literally their only link with the rest of the world at times.

A viewer in Silverton, Colo., once wrote me providing this heartwarming expression of his appreciation for our efforts. Silverton, by the way, is high in the mountains, and it is not uncommon for the heavy snows of winter to completely isolate the community for extended periods.

He wrote: "There was a time when in winter we had nothing to see at night but the inside of our shuttered windows; since you brought us television we have a window upon the world.”

The schoolchildren of mountain hamlets have watched the launchings of our space vehicles and shared the sorrow of the death of a President; the rancher and his family have witnessed the miracle of global television as men in Munich, Geneva, Paris, and New York discussed the pressing international problems of our times.

There is a community called Lake City which has the distinction of 100-percent saturation of TV ownership. Every home in town has TV—of course, there are only about 200 families-but every one of them are kept in constant touch with what's going on in the jungles of Vietnam, here in Washington, and in their nearby counties. They have no newspapers, but they do not lack for news, thanks to free television.

"Free television" is the term I use to describe programing which is received over the air in the traditional pattern of American broadcasting without costing the viewer anything but his time. Please take my word for it-to these people free television is very important. I'm sure many of them would describe it as a vital and essential force in their lives.

When a television station's audience is measured in thousands rather than millions, it is not always an easy task to create an adequate economic base for its support, but these rural American families so served are no less entitled to such service than their fellow citizens in the Nation's metropolitan areas.

I like to think this was what the Federal Communications Commission had in mind when it drew up its sixth order and report, and placed the highest priority upon local TV service in its plan of nationwide allocations.

Today your committee is concerned with legislation which clarifies the depth of the responsibilities of the FCC under the act by which you of the Congress created that agency.

I would not presume to engage in discussion with you learned Congressmen on matters of jurisdictional responsibilities, under the Communications Act. I am not a lawyer, but for the 40 years I have been a broadcaster, I have labored in a field in which we must be quite conscious of that jurisdiction-whatever its scope, and I suppose I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that many times we have honestly felt that jurisdictional limits have been exceeded.

is

Whether the right to fully regulate community antenna systems inherent in the Communications Act and thus an existing responsibility of the FCC, or whether it is a matter which needs clarification by the Congress, is in my opinion, not the most vital issue.

I believe that the FCC is charged with the responsibility for etting rules which will assure the orderly growth of broadcasting, ind no one can deny that CATV has escalated into a major facet >f that responsibility.

There is no need for me to provide redundant material on the growth of CATV. You are well aware of these details. Suffice to say it has become the "tail that now wags the dog." It developed as a part of man's ingenuity to get what he wants.

CATV has undoubtedly been a great force for good by bringing elevision reception to places where direct reception was impossible. It had its beginnings mostly in the West and other mountainous States where difficult terrain virtually had excluded over-the-air reception. As you recall, in the earlier part of my statement I went into some depth as to how programs of this nature are affected.

Nourished by the programs available from our free broadcasting system which it has delivered to people who wanted to see them, the CATV industry has prospered exceedingly well. As a supplement to free broadcasting CATV has played a vital role in serving the public

interest.

The problem today, however, is that many elements of this vast new industry no longer see themselves in a supplementary role-and they aspire to supplant over-the-air reception in many places.

There is no doubt that what they envision is technically possible; namely, that of connecting a great majority of the homes in the Nation together by wire, and distributing multiple programs to them at a fee. But technical feasibility does not necessarily carry with it the assumption that such a technology will serve the public interest to the maximum.

Mr. Frederick Ford, President of the National Community Antenna Association revealed for perhaps the first time, the objectives of his. organization in his remarks a few days ago before the Federal Communications Bar Association. His comment was to the effect that the use of frequencies for over-the-air broadcast of television programs may soon be no longer justified.

Comments such as these clearly demonstrate the intent of many CATV interests to supplant over-the-air service with the wired concept. This is in stark contrast to what has heretofore been the basic premise of broadcasting under the regulatory authority of the U.S. Government.

If wired television is to one day replace our present system, which I seriously doubt, all the more reason to place it under the regulatory control of that agency of Government now charged with the responsibilities of broadcasting in the public interest.

My first license was issued to me by the late Mr. Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce. I was a licensee when the first Radio Act of 1927 was written and the original Federal Radio Commission was formed to enforce it.

Subsequently, it became amended as the Communications Act, but throughout this entire history of broadcasting to this day, our system has been built upon the foundation of free use of the spectrum to the end that the public interest, convenience, and necessity is served. Rea