Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 21

Jiarlfofb ourant BUSINESS SECTION TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 16. 1986 TV Channel 61 Gets FCC Merger Approval Boston Link Shows Up in New Signs 1 s. rii Robert I -1 Weisman I Chase owns percent of D.T. Chase Enterprises and his sister, Cheryl Chase Freedman, owns 44 percent Arnold Chase said he has not determined how Channel 61 will use the resources of WTIC-AM and WTIC-FM in its news program. He said it is possible that some of the reporters for the radio stations could appear on the TV newscast but said no decision on that has been made.

Chase said Channel 61, which already broadcasts some of its entertainment programs in Spanish and English simultaneously, also will broadcast the news program in Spanish to serve Hartford's Hispanic residents. Channel 61 officials plan to begin a market study to determine where the station will concentrate its news coverage and how much emphasis to place on sports or weather coverage, See Channel, Page C8 ask the FCC to reconsider its Friday decision or to file an appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., said Chase. He said he expected some of his competitors to appeal the FCC approval. Chase said Chase Broadcasting will pay $1 million for the stock of Arch Communications and will assume that company's liabilities.

Arch then will become a unit of Chase Broadcasting, which also owns the Ten Eighty operator of the WTIC radio stations. The transaction should be officially completed in a few weeks, he said. Chase said he will remain as president of Arch Communications. Chase Broadcasting is owned by Chase Communications which in turn is owned by D.T. Chase Enter-' prises Inc.

D.T. Chase Enterprises is 51 percent owned by Hartford devel-' oper and businessman David T. Chase, Arnold Chase's father. Arnold sources of the radio stations, that would be impossible for the TV station to do on its own," Chase said Monday. Many television stations in the Hartford area had filed petitions with the FCC opposing Arch Communication's request to merge with Chase Broadcasting.

They cited the commission's "one-to-a-market" rule, which prohibits a company, from owning more than one broadcast property in a market. Spokesmen for WFSB-Channel 3, WVIT-Channel 30 and WHCT-Chan-nel 18, which all had opposed the merger, said Monday that they were reviewing the FCC ruling and had not yet decided whether to appeal it "Obviously we're very disappointed," said Richard Ramierz, managing general partner of Channel 18 in Hartford. "We don't seem to be able to find the precedent for it" Opponents have until Oct 12 to By PAMELA KLEIN Courant Staff Writer The Federal Communications Commission has approved the merger of WTIC-TV Channel 61 with Chase Broadcasting the parent company of Hartford radio stations WTIC-AM and WTIC-FM. The FCC said the television station, which has been losing money since it went on the air in mid-1984, could better serve the Greater Hartford community under a profitable parent like Chase Broadcasting. Arnold Chase, the president of and major stockholder in Arch Communications Corp.

which owns Channel 61, said the approval means 61 now will have the financial backing to start a half-hour, prime-time, local news program in Spanish and English sometime in 1987. "Without the expertise and re Mm- ARNOLD L. CHASE Air Force Urged as Friendly Gestures Help Sell Chinese To Resurrect Gopt er Program Some recently acquired Connecticut banks are defying conventional marketing wisdom by taking the names of their out-of-state owners. The reaction of consumers remains to be seen. Colonial Bank, a Naugatuck Valley institution since 1899, last week was reborn as Bank of Boston Connecticut Branches around the state were festooned with balloons to mark the occasion.

Shawmut Corp. plans to extend its name to its two Connecticut purchases, Home Bank and Trust Co. of Meriden and Fidelity Trust Co. of Stamford, John P. LaWare, the chairman of Boston-based Shawmut told a gathering last week at the Hartford Club.

Meanwhile, the four banks that made up First Connecticut Bancorp Inc. United Bank St Trust Co. of Hartford, New Britain National Bank, the Simsbury Bank and Trust Co. and Independent Bank Trust Co. of Willimantic are now advertising themselves as "members of the Fleet Financial Group," a reference to the Providence, R.I., holding company that absorbed First Connecticut It's hard to tell what depositors and borrowers think of the wave of bank mergers that has swept through New England over the past 15 months, since the Supreme Court upheld regional interstate banking.

It's hard to tell whether the average customer even is aware of the changes, which so far have taken place almost entirely at the corporate level. accommodations less than an American executive would normally expect and the quirky, yet incisive, nature of Chinese negotiations. Kennedy first went to China eight years ago, and he said the lessons he learned then still apply. "They try to understand you as a person," he said. "They wonder if they can trust you, if you will look them in the eye.

They spend a great deal of time doing that" China is considered one of the most important aviation customers in the world. While airlines in other parts of the world are projecting annual growth rates of 5 to 6 percent, China is expecting its aviation industry to grow at 14 to 15 percent annually for the next four or five years, Kennedy said. Those types of figures have lured the world's three biggest jet-engine makers Pratt Whitney, General Electric Co. and Rolls Royce to China. Kennedy thinks Pratt Whitney may have an inside edge, in part because the company has been selling aircraft engines to China since 1929.

"We know them well," he said. "I think China has had a history of people coming into their country and taking advantage of them. They are very wary of that first encounter." Last month, the efforts began to pay dividends. Pratt Whitney's parent firm, United Technologies See Finds, Page C3 By BOB VACON Courant Staff Writer EAST HARTFORD During a recent trip to the People's Republic of China, James Kennedy, a Pratt Whitney executive, encountered a young boy climbing the Great Wall with his father in what is a traditional rite of manhood there. When Kennedy took an instant photograph of the boy and offered it to him as a memento, a group of Chinese who were watching broke into warm applause.

Kennedy's Chinese guide was so touched that he gave Kennedy a chunk of the Great Wall to take home. Kennedy had made another friend, and Pratt Whitney had moved one small step closer to gaining the trust and the jet-engine business of China. Pratt Whitney has done business with China for more than 50 years, but in January it formed a new company to chase more than $2 billion worth of commercial jet engine business expected to be generated by the country's burgeoning airline industry between now and 1995. Kennedy, as president of Pratt Whitney of China is responsible for wooing the Chinese business. And Kennedy said that means gaining the friendship, trust and respect of the Chinese.

He has gone to some lengths to do He has eaten deer lip, and pronounced it good. He has encountered Up to now, however, the conventional wisdom has been that most -people especially tradition- By ROBERT WATERS Courant Staff Writer A Senate panel is prodding the Air Force to resurrect a scaled-back version of Sikorsky Aircraft's Night Hawk search and rescue helicopter program, a $1.2 billion project that was killed last year in an Air Force budget-cutting move. The Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, which last week approved a $264.5 billion Pentagon spending bill, has included language in the measure which directs the Air Force to spend $25 million to buy three economy model Night Hawks. However, the Senate move faces two hurdles: It must be accepted by House members of a joint defense appropriations conference committee which will meet later this year to approve a compromise Pentagon money bill. The Air Force has yet to signal any interest in the idea of reviving the Night Hawk via a proposal that would reduce the program's pricetag from $1.2 billion to less than $500 million.

The Air Force disclosed its decision to drop the Night Hawk program in February when the service submitted its 1987 budget proposals to Congress without asking for any money for the Night Hawk program. However, in an effort to salvage the program for Sikorsky, Sen. Lowell P. Weicker, a ranking member of the defense spending subcommittee, offered the Air Force a compromise. Weicker proposed that the Air Force replace its original multi-year program to buy a fleet of 100 Night Hawks equipped with highly sophisticated electronics with a less expensives alternative.

Under the substitute proposal, the Air Force would acquire 63 helicopters with much of the original Night Hawks's most costly equipment eliminated. Under the economy model Night Hawk proposal, the Stratford-based Sikorsky, a unit of United Technologies would retain a large share of the funds it had expected to reap from the original program. The big loser in the substitute program would be IBM of Oswego, N.Y., which was scheduled to provide most of the advanced technology electronics that were slated for go in the original version of the Night Hawk. However, the Air Force made no effort to accept the scaled-back Night Hawk program. Instead, the service indicated that it was switching its interest to a new program known as "Combat Talon" in which IBM electronics for surveillance missions would be installed in SEN.

LOWELL P. WEICKER Offers a Compromise giant C-130 cargo airlifters. The Air Force then asked Congress for permission to re-program $72.2 million in already appropriated Night Hawk funds and spend the money on the C-130 project. But the. Senate panel refused to $ve its required blessing to the funding switch and the $72.2 million in Night Hawk funds remain in limbo unavailable to the Air Force for any other program.

In its move to break this stalemate, tile Senate panel said the Air Force continues to have a need for new helicopters with combat rescue capability. It directed the Air Force buy the three helicopters with $25 million from the $72.2 million in frozen Night Hawk funds. The Sikorsky Night Hawk is a variant of Sikorsky's Black Hawk, a troop and equipment carrier that has been in large scale production for the Army for more than five years. The Air Force already has 10 Black' Hawks which were acquired a few years ago primarily to train Air Force pilots for the Night Hawk program. The 10 Air Force Black Hawks are now being modified to the economy model Night Hawk by Sikorsky under a $13.5 million program.

The modifications include installation of air-to-air refueling equipment and night vision equipment for the pilots' cabins. The additional equipment is designed to give the helicopters increased range and night-flying capability to rescue pilots and crews from downed aircraft. New Chief for Business Desk Market Opens Week at a Slower Pace also will write occasional in-depth articles for Page One and the business sections. "Having Ken's work in the paper more frequently is a big plus for our readers," Jenner said. "Ken Ross is one of our best writers." Woodward went to the Portland Business Journal as editor when the weekly newspaper was founded in March 1984.

Before that, he served as editor of the Kansas City Business Journal from 1982-84 and worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star from 1979-82, covering science, medicine and city hall. He is a graduate of Wright State University and received a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1979. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Woodward and his wife, Sandy, have two children, Daniel, 4, and Elizabeth, who was born last Friday. Steve Woodward, general manager of the Portland (Ore.) Business Journal, has been named executive business editor of The Courant, managing editor Mike Jenner has announced. Woodward, 33, will run the Business news department and will assume responsibility for the daily and Sunday business sections, including Business Weekly, the local business magazine that appears each Monday.

He will begin Oct. 1. "Steve Woodward is a fine journalist who will bring a great perspective for business news to The Courant," Jenner said. "He's going to make a good business section even better." Ken Ross will remain The Cou-rant's business editor but will devote himself more to writing. Ross's column, which now appears Sunday, will appear three times a week.

Ross haps acting in coordination with central banks in Japan and West Germany. Prices rose and interest rates fell in the bond market, which had lately taken a battering nearly as bad as the one suffered by the stock market last week. See Market, Page C3 Associated Press NEW YORK Stock prices were mixed Monday in a session marked by tentative buying of blue Chips after last week's severe decline. Trading slowed from the record-setting pace of last Thursday and Friday as investors watched to see whether the market could stabilize. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, down an unprecedented 141.03 points last week, rose 8.86 to 1,767.58.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange dropped off to 155.62 million shares from 240.49 million Friday. Analysts said talk had revived that the Federal Reserve might cut its discount rate again this fall, per bound Connecticut Yankees prefer their banks locally run. That's why Gordon I. Ulmer, the chairman and chief executive officer of Connecticut Bank and Trust Co. (now part of Boston-based Bank of New England last winter declared, "In Connecticut, we're still CBT." Similarly, Hartford National Corp.

has avoided branding any of its recent Massachusetts acquisitions with names reflecting their Connecticut parent Bank of Boston Connecticut is challenging that conventional wisdom. At bank headquarters on the Waterbury green, the Bank of Boston eagle has supplanted the old Colonial bell-ringing minuteman as the bank's symbol. And a multimedia advertising campaign -onuses "World-Class Banking, ew England Style." Bruce A. Wilson, senior vice president for retail banking at Bank of Boston Connecticut says the bank went forward with the name change only after careful marketing surveys concluded the feared negative perceptions of out-of-state banks have been greatly exaggerated. "The more simple and direct you are, the better," Wilson contends.

"If you say you're this bank in one market, and that bank in another, it gets confusing. "Obviously, we've had some questions from customers since we changed our name. But we are telling people we now have the clout of the Bank of Boston, and we are building a new identity as an institution that can serve a very extensive retail market we had never targeted before." Marketing surveys by Shawmut likewise showed high name recognition of the Boston banking giant and few negative perceptions, LaWare told his Hartford audience last week. Moreover, he cited the benefits of economies of scale in regional advertising. Not everyone accepts the wisdom of changing names.

"You're throwing business away, kissing it goodbye, when you get rid of a name you've spent 100 years to develop," warns bank analyst John D. Rooney senior vice president in the New Haven office of Moseley HallgartenEsta-brook Weeden Inc. Only time will tell who is right "A bank like CBT has such a name recognition in Connecticut that I'm sure they didn't want to risk losing it," says analyst Tracey J. Stangle, senior vice president at the Hartford brokerage firm Co-burn Meredith Inc. "On the other hand, Bank of Boston has a very recognizable name, too.

"They both might gain. The question will be who gains more." ROUNDUP MONDAY WATCH I STATE Dollar Stocks 1875 7 18501 1825 1800 DOWN The dollar was mostly tower because of pressure from lower U.S. Interest rates. 1775 NYSE INDEX 133.38 0.57 Sf COMPOSITE 231.94 AMEX INDEX 257.20 NASDAQ INDEX 345.86 ADVANCES 802 UNCHANGED 378 DECLINES 838 NYSE VOLUME 155,620,000 ISSUES TRADED 2,018 III 17501 last week. The Treasury Department sold $7.82 billion in three-month bills at an average discount rate of 5.16 percent, down from 5.24 percent last week.

Another $7.83 billion was sold in six-month bills at an average discount rate of 5.34 percent, down from 5.35 percent last week. The rates were the lowest since three weeks ago, when three-month bills sold for 5.12 percent and six-month bills averaged 5.17 percent The Sept. 2 rates had been the lowest in more than nine years. The new discount rates understate the actual return to investors 5.30 percent for three-month bills with a $10,000 bill selling for, $9,869.60 and and 5.57 percent for six-month bills selling for $9,730.00. In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, the most popular index for making changes in adjustable rate home mortgages, climbed to 5.79 percent last week from 5.66 percent the week before.

Gold stock company for business efficiency and tax reasons. The Alabams company, which sold r03liy homeowners, commercial package and auto policies, didn't do as much business as anticipated, The Hartford has said. CEO Selected NORWALK The founders committee of Norwalk Bank, just organizing, has named Emmett G. Murphy president and chief executive officer as of Oct. 6.

Murphy, 45, is a lifelong resident of Fairfield County. He has been in banking and financial services for 22 years, most recently as senior vice president and chairman of the loan committee at the Bank Mart of Bridgeport. The appointment was announced by George W. Green, chairman. NATION T-Bills Decline WASHINGTON Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities edged down slightly in Monday's auction after posting a big increase Advo Dividend HARTFORD John Blair the New York firm which owned Hartford's Advc System spun off the direct mail advertising company as an independent business Monday, distributing the ownership of Advo to its shareholders in the form of a special stock dividend.

An Advo spokesman said shareholders will be receiving informational statments about the distribution and the company management in the mail later this week. The company's stock will be traded in the national over-the-counter market. Plans Approved Insurance Commissioner Peter W. Gillies Monday approved plans by The Hartford Insurance Group to create the Hartford Insurance Company of Connecticut and merge a small Alabama subsidiary into it. The Hartford Insurance Company of Alabama, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hartford Fire Insurance will merge into the new Connecticut X7 DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS 1,767.57 .........8.86 Trading slowed from -last week's pace as Investors watched to see whether the market will stabilize.

DOWN $413.00 London p.m. fixing Data MORTGAGES Adt Fixed Based on local survey. T-BILLS 12-month ....5.79 6-month .........5.34 3-month 6.1 6 UNEMPLOYMENT Conn. (July) 4.0 U.S.(July) .......6.9 PRIME RATE 7.5 Robert Weisman is a Courant business writer. -r From staff and wire reports.