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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

I believe I'm correct in recalling that the regulation at that time allowed a multiple owner to have as many as five VHF stations. Prior to that, the rule was that you could have six AM stations, I think, and six FM. Maybe it was seven. I guess it was six. And they pushed that down to five. Although you could have, in addition to the five V's, you could have two U's. They started throwing a bone to you to try to help UHF start.

Perhaps I mentioned this in our earlier interview but at one point in our development of television, I went to see [Newton N.] Minnow, who was then chairman of the FCC, so that would fix it after 1962. Or after 1960. UHF was having a very difficult time. Nobody wanted it. The receiver manufacturers didn't like to make them, the broadcasters didn't want to invest in the stations, and the public didn't want to buy the sets. And so the Commission forced the receiver manufacturers to put UHF and VHF in the same box. The manufacturers fought that but lost, and that was the Commission's way of trying to push it into the marketplace.

Q:

And this was as late as the Sixties?

Stanton:

Early sixties.

Q:

Early sixties. Yes.

Stanton:

And at that time I went down to Minnow, and said in a private conversation with him, that if he really wanted to get UHF going, I would build -- I think I offered to build twelve UHF stations and operate them. Did I talk about this before with you?





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