CBS Blames Boston Station For Dartmouth TV Blackout

Officials of the Columbia Broadcasting System yesterday accused WNAC TV, their affiliated station in Boston, of needlessly keeping this Saturday's Harvard-Dartmouth game from the local television audience.

Although Channel 12 in Providence, R.I., and Channel 9 in Manchester, N.H., will both carry the game, viewers near the Square have only a 30 percent chance of getting either one, Arthur DeLoretto of Television Specialists, said last night.

Meanwhile, Jim Cronin, proprietor of Jim's Place, reported that he cannot get the Providence channel on the set above his bar, but can get "a picture with no voice" from Manchester.

CBS spokesmen in New York generally expressed amazement that WNAC-TV is not carrying the network's telecast from Hanover. "The people of Boston ought to use their influence to prevent this blackout," said Justin Bailey, Executive Sports Producer.

Under the new "regional game" plan of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, every CBS-affiliated station in New England, the Middle Atlantic States, and Puerto Rice is eligible to telecast the contest Saturday. All of these stations except WNAC-TV are planning to do so, Bailey said.

First Telecast from Hanover

Meanwhile, CBS technicians have been busy for weeks setting up apparatus for history's first telecast from Hanover, N.H. A special microwave circuit is needed to transmit the voice and picture from "way back in the hills," Bailey said.

He denied, however, that technical preparation for Saturday's program is costing CBS $50,000, as Boston newspapers reported yesterday. Bailey would not name the correct figure, but said the telecast would be "very expensive."

The high cost of telecasting from Hanover makes CBS officials especially sorry that no station in Boston is carrying Saturday's game. "But we can't make stations take our programs," one spokesman said. "All we can do is get good programs and offer them to our affiliates," he added.

Since CBS has gotten no overall sponsor for Saturday's game, WNAC could have carried the telecast without paying anything to the network. Had the local station obtained a sponsor, however, it would have given CBS a certain percentage of the fee it received.