Coup for Teleradio

Gasped Hollywood's Daily Variety: "The most amazing coup in the history of the film business." The cause of Variety's amazement was a large and lightning-quick profit turned for General Teleradio, Inc. by its canny President Thomas F. O'Neil.

Groundwork for the coup was laid six months ago, when Teleradio (subsidiary of General Tire & Rubber Co.) paid Industrialist Howard Hughes $25 million for RKO Radio Pictures and RKO's well-stocked film library (TIME, Aug. 1, 1955). In December, O'Neil got back more than half the investment by selling television and foreign rights on 740 feature-length movies, almost all RKO owns, and some 1,000 short films to Manhattan's C&C Super Corp. C&C paid $12.2 million in cash and agreed to pay $3,000,000 more over the next two years. Last week O'Neil climaxed the coup with a $12 million flourish. He sold two unreleased films, Jet Pilot and The Conqueror, back to Howard Hughes himself for $8,000,000 cash and about $4,000,000 in future payments. (Hughes also bought back The Outlaw, for an additional undisclosed sum.) Teleradio thus emerges with a virtually assured cash profit of $2,200,000 on its investment in barely half a year. Since it has sold nothing but films, it has, in effect, got the RKO studios and distribution system for nothing.

This should lead to still more profit: Teleradio plans to make 17 feature films this year. To cap Teleradio's triumph, the Federal Communications Commission has approved its merger with RKO to form a new company, RKO Teleradio Pictures, Inc. The result: a single company that owns the nation's biggest radio network (570 outlets), six television stations and moviemaking facilities as well.

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