TV In Europe

In London last week, 20 diplomats and television experts from Britain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg tried to agree on uniform TV standards for Western Europe. After two days of polite wrangling they decided to try again next month in Paris.

One large obstacle to European agreement was shrewd, stubborn Vladimir Porche, director general of state-owned Radio Diffusion Franc,aise, who is determinedly plugging France's new 819-line system* as the European standard. Porche has already put up a TV transmitter in Vatican City and plans to spot TV sets in Roman theaters and public places to win friends and potential customers for France among the thronging Holy Year pilgrims. His engineers, operating on a shoestring, have developed an inexpensive relay network to carry Eiffel Tower telecasts beyond French borders. One such station is perched in the Alps, beamed at Switzerland. As an added inducement, Porche is offering foreign manufacturers ten-year leases on patented French technical improvements for the nominal price of one franc (less than 1/3) each.

Throughout the rest of Europe, TV development ranges from the prenatal to the spoon stage. The Netherlands has an experimental station at Eindhoven and is planning another. Soviet Russia boasts transmitters at Leningrad and Moscow and is still at work on a coaxial cable to link them up with Kiev, and Sverdlovsk in the Urals. Russians seem to have reached the second phase in television: they are beginning to complain about it. In a recent letter to the newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva, carping Reader Vladimir Savochkin demanded more TV sets, more and better programs, spare parts for fans who are building their own sets.

In Britain another 9,000,000 potential viewers were added to the 12 million already served from London with the recent opening of the British Broadcasting Corp.'s new Midlands transmitter, one of the most powerful in the world. Far ahead of the Continent but far behind the U.S. in the number of TV sets, the British believe they are ahead of all competitors technically as well as artistically. Their programs are strong on newsreels, Shakespeare, Shaw and ballet--all without commercials. Said the complacent London Times: "Britishers are lucky to have been spared [radio] programs mixed with sales talk . . . The British way . . . has proved overwhelmingly suited to the national taste and it deserves to be carried on in television."

*Which gives somewhat sharper picture contrasts than the U.S. 525-line image.

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