TV News Service to Transmit Materials by Satellite

Television News, Inc., a syndicated news service for television stations, which has been in operation for two years, yesterday disclosed plans to distribute its video news materials nationally by Westar, the domestic communications satellite operated by Western Union.

The news service, known as TVN, has been using the land lines of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to serve its 37 subscribers in the United States and 36 in Canada. The proposal to distribute by Westar—which would be the first full‐time use of a domestic satellite for television puposes —is subject to the approval of the Federal Communications Commission.

A.T.&T. recently reduced the rates for the networks and increased them for occasional users of the land lines, such as TVN. In addition, the individual stations must pay fees ranging from $900 to $2,770 a month for “local loops,” or drops from the coast‐to‐coast cable, to receive the TVN service.

Salvation for Company

“Under present conditions, isn't feasible for us to stay in business,” said Jack G. Wilson, president of the news service. He said satellite distribution would be the company's salvation.

TVN sends out a daily onehour package of national and international news stories, sports, features and weather reports for local stations to incorporate into their own newscasts. The company, whose principal stockholder is the Adolph Coors Brewing Company of Colorado, receives international coverage from Visnews, Ltd., a collaboration of Reuters, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the television systems of New Zealand and Australia.

The TVN subscribers here are WOR‐TV, WPIX‐TV and WNEW‐TV — the stations that have no network affiliation. In other parts of the country, how ever, subscribing stations include network affiliates and even several stations owned by the networks.

To interconnect television stations by means of a satellite will require the construction of the receiving apparatus, known as an earth station, at sites close to the subscribing stations. Mr. Wilson said the board of directors of TVN had authorized the expenditure of up to S11‐million over the next few years to construct a network of earth stations.

A significant Saving

mile noting that exact costs have not yet been computed and that Western Union has not yet published its tariffs for hourly use, Mr. Wilson said the saving would be significant Moreover, he pointed out, the distribution by satellite woulc enable TVN to expand its sub, scriber list considerably because of the cost considerations and because stations will find it desirable to have the capability of receiving programing by satellite.

Although Mr. Wilson insisted that TVN is interested only in the dissemination of news to local stations, experts in satellite communications pointed out yesterday that with sufficient earth stations in place a variety of network services could he performed, separate and apart from those of the existing networks.

They pointed cut that syndi‐i cated programs, which are now distributed in film cans or video cassettes by air freight, could be transmitted to stations by satellite for use on the same day and that commercially sponsored movies could he fed out to hundreds of stations in a network fashion.

Maurice W. Schonfeld vice president of operations for TVN, estimated that the earth stations would cost around $100,000 each to construct, the exact amount depending on the technical standards set by the F.C.C. He said one would he built for virtually every subscribing station, TVN would own the earth stations but the local television stations would be expected to maintain them.

Mr. Schonfeld said that if the F.C.C. grants approval, TVN would have 20 earth stations constructed by July and 35 by August. Only the United States stations can be interconnected by Westar, he said. The Canadian subscribers would continue to be served by terrestrial transmission.

In a recent reorganization of TVN, Roger E. Ailes, a televi3ion consultant to political caniidates, has been brought in as vice president in charge of flews operations.