The Rivals

Will TV eventually put the movies out of business? Last week, on America's Town Meeting of the Air (ABC, Tues. 8:30 p.m., E.S.T.), experts on both films and TV considered this question, while swapping confident grins that just missed looking like a baring of teeth.

Paramount Pictures' Paul Raibourn. who has made his studio a TV pioneer, sounded optimistic about the movies' future. But he gave the new living-room wonder its due. His own research staff had reported that a new television set in the home not only does away with radio listening while it is on,* but also cuts 20% to 30% off such leisure pursuits as driving, reading--and moviegoing.

Was apprehensive Hollywood trying to keep its new films off television? "We are not trying to," grinned Raibourn. "Nobody is paying us enough to make [putting them on] worth while."

Remarks like that struck sparks from ABC's President Mark Woods, whose efforts to build network TV will give his company an insatiable appetite for films. The movies, said Woods, have nothing to fear from TV--if they hop on the bandwagon in time. That means turning out films especially for the living room at prices televisers can afford to pay. Then Woods blandly added what sounded like an ultimatum: "If the motion pictures are unwilling to enter this new industry on this basis, then my company is most certainly prepared to do so."

-And even when it is off, according to Sindlinger & Co., owners of Radox, a new gadget for measuring looking and listening habits.

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