The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 55

New York stocks 3 New York bonds 6 Stock options 9 Mutual funds 10 Classified 15 ffe JpftiWefita Inquirer section Sunday, October 28, 1984 business By J. A. LIVINGSTON Those rooms of empty beds Hearing starts on Ch.48 7 companies seek TV station license hospitals sick making are Business Ik outiookxo yyy levels that high. Several hospitals' occupancy rates even tumbled into the low 40 percent range. "It's gotten so you meet your fellow administrators around and the first thing they tell you is not 'Hello, how are It's 'How's your says OMCP administrator Walter R.

Brand. For many hospitals, patients and doctors, the decline in occupancy rates has dramatic and painful implications. In the short run, its effect on hospitals will be seen in growing layoffs, closed wards and the abandonment of unprofitable services (See HOSPITALS on 10-E) 25 percent in just two years, is hardly alone. After 20 years of spectacular growth, the approximately 100 hospitals in the five-coun- ty Philadelphia region now are experiencing an unprecedented decline in business. Since 1981, the average occupancy rate for hospitals in the region has dropped from 84 percent to about 68 percent this year, according to data compiled by the Delaware Valley Hospital Council (DVHC), which counts 90 of the region's hospitals as members.

As a rule of thumb, about 70 percent occupancy is considered a break-even point for hospitals. As of August, only one-third of the acute-care hospitals in the region had occupancy By Gilbert M. Gaul Inquirer Staff Writer On any given day in July, you could have walked into the Osteopathic Medical Center of Philadelphia and found half of the hospital's 222 beds empty. To compensate for lost revenue from the empty beds, the hospital on City Avenue laid off about 40 workers, took 50 beds out of service and shut down several nursing stations. OMCP, part of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Hospital, also began adding new services, such as laser surgery, in an attempt to attract new patients.

OMCP, whose occupancy level had dropped -inv fin Peri UU UJ Say 1 13 0 OCT) r3FTF i By Neill Borowski Inquirer Slot) Writer R. Russel Bixler, a Pittsburgh evangelist and religious broadcaster, wants the Federal Communications Commission to allow him to begin broadcasting in the Philadelphia area on the now-unused television Channel 48. Bixler's nonprofit Signal Ministries Inc. affiliated with Western Pennsylvania Christian Broadcasting WPCB-TV near Pittsburgh is one of seven groups battling to become the new owners of Channel 48's license. Hearings for the broadcasting license opened last week in Washington.

Other applicants, who want to make Channel 48 a commercial TV station again, include Philadelphia-area business and community leaders, as well as present and former national and local broadcasting executives. Channel 48 went dark in August 1983 when its owner, Field Enterprises of Chicago, voluntarily turned in its television license, a move believed to be the first voluntary surrender of a TV license in decades. Field was liquidating its assets and, instead of selling Philadelphia's WKBS-TV (Channel 48) as it did with its other TV stations, it chose to write off the loss for the tax benefits. Hearings in the FCC's long process to find another broadcaster on Channel 48 a station whose official home is in Burlington, N.J. began Tuesday before an FCC administrative law judge and are expected to continue this week.

The license is not expected to be awarded until next year. Bixler has testified that broadcasting to the Philadelphia area would be a way to spread the word of God and help people, just as he now does from WPCB in Pittsburgh and from a new station that will re broadcast the signal to Altoona-area homes. To the others who have applied for the Channel 48 license, it is a chance to switch on a commercial station in the fourth-largest TV market in the nation. Their goals include making money for their businesses. But in some cases, the applicants stress that their goals also include serving the needs of New Jersey residents who, they feel, are not now served by Philadelphia television stations.

Setting up a studio in Burlington, buying a transmitter and antenna and obtaining programming to fill the hours is expected to cost from $3 million to $10 million or more, depending on which group is making an estimate. And the Philadelphia market's three network-affiliated VHF stations and two independent UHF stations already have long-term contracts for many of the most popular syndicated television shows. In the business of television, programming is the product. A successful product attracts viewers, and viewers attract advertising dollars. Starting anew for Channel 48 "actually becomes more difficult as time goes on because the product to make it a more competitive entity becomes more and more scarce," said Eugene McCurdy, president and general manager of WPHL-TV (Channel 17).

(See CHANNEL 48 on 15-E) The Philadelphia Inquirer KENDALL WILKINSON Amid a forest of IV hangers in a patient room now used for storage, David Ashcom replaces molding at Osteopathic Time of change for investors Perhaps you saw the Merrill Lynch advertisement paraphrasing the opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It went like this: "It's the best of times. It's the worst of times. Most of all it's time of change In the investment climate." The advertisement goes on to assert that finter est rates aren't likely to Real assets, like diamonds and oil wells, won't appreciate in value as they have in the past. Aggressive investors will find themselves turning to such traditionally conservative vehicles as bonds and the stocks of certain dull, well-capitalized companies." That doesn't make this the best of times or the wprst of times, though it can leaJ to better times.

For that, political attitudes in Washington presidential policies and congressional votes will have to change. A nation that has been living far beyond its means will have to start retrenching and that won't be easy. Now a great borrower In its September-October Economic Observer, the Chase Manhattan Bank calls attention to the alteration in this country's international status. Once a great lender, the United States has become a great borrower. The Chase puts it this way: "Traditionally a capital exporter, the United States has in the last few years become a huge net borrower.

With its robust economy thirsting for financing, its huge federal budget wallowing in red ink, and its current-account trade balance hitting record deficits, the U.S. appetite for external capital has grown voracious." Not campaign rhetoric If those were comments of a Democrat campaign critic of President Reagan In the heat of pplitical debate, they could be disparaged as polemic, but they are the edited commentary of an influential tional bank. The colossal U.S. deficit and colossal is a word the Chase Manhattan uses will have to be dealt with if inflation is to be held in thrall and interest rates are to come down while the economy continues to expand. Politics doesn't cease on Nov.

6. The sharp drop in the cost of money supports the Merrill Lynch hypothesis. In January 1982, 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds sold to yield more than 14 percent. Today they yield less than 12 percent.

Four years ago, businessmen even the most creditworthy had to pay more than 20 percent on loans at banks. Today that borrowing rate flirts with 12 percent. State of the economy Recent declines in interest rates can be explained by the state of the economy. The United States is having what the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) calls a "growth recession." NBER is the nation's unofficial but accepted business-cycle arbiter. It determines when the nation's ups are expansions and its downs are recessions.

A growth recession occurs during an expansion. The total output of goods and services continues to rise but the rate of rise diminishes. And some declines take place declines that often raise fears: Is this a slowdown or a turndown, is a recession developing? Since June, declines have occurred in retail sales, new orders for durable goods, and industrial production. Plant utilization, which measures whether factories have ample capacity, has sagged (See chart). If this continues, if companies have more capacity than they are using, then investment in new facilities would cease to rise.

Housing starts, which slid from an annual rate of more than two million to 1.S million in August, turned up in September. That's encouraging. In growth recessions, declines have comeback potential. The present expansion will be two years old in November. It is mature, but it can't be described as aged.

Peacetime postwar expansions have averaged 34 months. But this ad-(See LTVINGSTON on 5-E) Regional Occupancy rates (in percent) by hospital Regional hospital occupancy rates (in percent) by fiscal year 84.2 83.4 PI 83.3 82.0 782 Valley Forge Medical Center and Hospital 84.2 St. Joseph's Hospital 702 St. Mary Hospital, Phila, 62.3 Underwood Memorial Hospital 84.0 Metropolitan Hospital, Central Div. 698 Riddle Memorial Hospital 62.2 Hospital of the Univ.

of Pa. 82.7 Del. County Mem. Hospital, Drexel Hill 69.5 Germantown Hosp. and Med.

Center 62.2 lankenau Hospital 80.9 Graduate Hospital 68.7 Albert Einstein Med. Cen Northern Div. 61.9 Pennsylvania Hospital 7jM Phoenixville Hospital 6JU Episcopal Hospital 61.8 Abington Memorial Hospital 778 Ouakertown Hospital Assoc. 685 Suburban General Hospital 61.8 Hahnemann University Hospital 717 Montgomery Hospital 680 Northeastern Hospital of Phila. 61.5 Methodist Hospital 770 Mercy Cath.

Med. Cen Misericordia Div. 67.3 James C. Guiffre Medical Center 61.5 Frankford Hospital 770 Taylor Hospital 671 Memorial Hospital-Roxborough 61,1 Thomas Jefferson University Hospital 764 Temple University Hospital 667 Rolling Hill Hosp. (United Hosp.

Inc.) 60.6 Metropolitan Hospital, Parkview Div. 757 Chestnut Hill Hospital 6JU lawndale Comm. Hosp. (United Hosp. Inc.) 60.5 Doylestown Hospital 75.4 Delaware Valley Medical Center, Bristol 65.9 Mercy Cath.

Med. Cen Fitzgerald Mercy Div. 60.4 Sacred Heart General Hospital, Chester 74.5 Presbyterian Univ. of Pa. Med.

Center 65.8 St. Agnes Medical Center 59.5 Medical College of Penna. and Hospital 73.6 Lower Bucks Hospital 657 West Park Hospital 56.0 Holy Redeemer Hospital 73.6 Paoli Memorial Hospital 65J John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital 64.5 A. Einstein Med.

Mt. Sinai-Daroff Div. 73.5 Pottstown Memorial Med. Center 654 Haverford Community Hospital 52.8 Sacred Heart Hospital, Norristown 73X1 Kensington Hospital 65.4 Hosp. of the Phila.

Col, of Osteopathic Med. 52.7 Bryn Mawr Hospital 724 Nazareth Hospital 65.2 Broad Street Hospital and Medical Center 45.9 Jeanes Hospital 72J) Warminster Gen. Hosp. (United Hosp. Inc.) 63.9 Metropolitan Springfield Div.

43.4 CrozerChester Medical Center 71.8 Chester County Hospital 63J; Oxford Hospital 41.4 St. Mary Hospital, Langhorne 71.5 Southern Chester County Medical Center 63.3 Acute care excluding medical schools 67.7 Grand View 7U Brandywme Hospital 63M Medical school total 74.4 Veterans Administration Medical Center 70.5 North Penn rjospital 63 Acute care including medical schools 68.9 70.0 '80 '81 '82 '83 '84 Source: Delaware Valley Hospital Council 1,225.93 Relaxing of rules lets retail firms slip into hanking 'I Dow Jones ,) activity i for the week Is 1,204.95 ft Tomato OCT. OCT. OCT. OCT.

OCT. OCT. 19 22 23 24 26 26 "We think consumers will benefit from firms like J.C. Penney and Sears adding to the existing bank system," a Penneys official said. Others in the industry aren 't so sure.

A STOCK MARKET rally ended last week; even a cut in the prime rate could not revive it. Story on Page 2-E. Campbell's puts a bet on plastics By James Asher Inquirer Staff Writer A search for more convenient food packaging is leading Campbell Soup Co. to follow some advice given Dus-tin Hoffman in the movie The Graduate. The advice? "Plastics." As it turns out, it was good advice.

"The world is going to plastics," says H. Edward Schollmeyer, an analyst for the brokerage firm of Paine Webber. In a steady march from toy trucks to seat covers to plumbing and now to sophisticated multi-layer plastic containers for food, the American consumer has been inundated by a slew of products using the materials that scientists call "polymers." And, tomorrow, Campbell's will dedicate a $3.8 million plastics center a laboratory and mini-production plant in Moorestown, N.J., that will create the plastic containers that Campbell's expects to use in the future. "We are expanding our package line. It may or may not displace the glass and metal.

It may be just an adjunct," says Edward J. Bauer, manager of the center. Already Campbell's is using plastic containers for its LeMenu frozen gourmet dinners. By year's end, the A Critical Question Plant utilization and industrial production have dipped. Will investment in new facilities now decline? By Alexis Moore Love Inquirer Staff Writer Sears, Roebuck Co.

and J.C. Penney Co. now have more in common than retailing: Both have taken advantage of a legal loophole recently opened wide by the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency to slip into the business of banking, and both have done so in hospitable Delaware. The loophole in federal banking regulations allows the establishment of nationwide consumer banks, also known as "non-bank banks." Such institutions function like any other bank, except that under federal law they either must refuse to take consumer deposits or not make commercial loans.

Perhaps most important for the giant retailers, they provide a way for banks to do business across state lines, which is largely prohibited by federal law. Two weeks ago Comptroller C. Todd Conover, citing Congress' failure to agree on legislation to reform current banking laws, announced that he was ending an 18-month moratorium on the creation of non-bank banks and would begin processing applications to set up hundreds of the institutions across the nation. 10- The old standby Is it destined to become plastic? company hopes to introduce six-ounce containers for its V-8 vegetable juice cocktail. A larger, reclos-able bottle for V-8 juice is being test-marketed in Chicago.

The use of plastic containers for food had been hampered by the fact that the containers were not airtight, thus threatening food with spoilage. Within the last year or so, howev-er, a new type of plastic film has been developed that sandwiches a protective barrier between layers of plastic. Now researchers can keep' food fresh for as long as a year. "The key is the high oxygen barrier and the ability to hot-seal the product, which is ideal from a food processor's standpoint," says Cornelius "Perk" Thornton, an analyst (See PLASTICS on 5-E) Last week at a bankers convention in New York, Conover urged bankers to "get on with setting up" non-bank banks, saying he expected to approve batches of "25 to 50" such banks at a time. Thus, he heated up his confrontation with Congress, where banking-committee leaders have vowed to force divestiture of any non-bank banks established after July 1, 1983.

J.C, Penney beat that threatened deadline by buying the First National Bank of Harrington of Harrington, in June 1983 for $7.35 million more than three times the market price of its stock. Now known as the J.C. Penney National Bank, it has joined an automat-(See BANKS on E) PLANT UTILIZATION 1" too- ,60 Ml I I I I I II I I I I I I I I II I I I I I I I I'l I I I I II I I I I 1 I I I I I I I IMS 4 SMI 1 1M luKreerllltmBer' The Philadelphia InquirerJ.A. LIVINGSTON.