THE TV PICTURE HAS CHANGED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992                   TAG: 9202080027
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BART ZIEGLER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium
THE TV PICTURE HAS CHANGED
Looking for a TV and want to buy American? Good luck.
Many sets carry labels that sound all-American: Zenith, General Electric, RCA, Sylvania, Magnavox and Quasar. But in fact, almost none are entirely domestic products, based on who owns the company or where the sets are made.
Zenith Electronics Corp., the last U.S.-owned television company, is moving final assembly of all its large-screen sets to Mexico, where it has assembled many of them since 1985. Its smaller sets have been imported for years.
Most GE and RCA sets are assembled in Indiana, but the company that makes them is owned by Thomson SA, a giant French consumer electronics concern.
Many Sylvania and Magnavox TVs are made in Tennessee, but their parent company is NV Philips of the Netherlands.
And Quasar, which makes some of its sets near Chicago and imports the rest, is owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. of Japan, which also makes the Panasonic brand.
A number of other foreign companies also produce sets in this country, including Sharp Electronics Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp.
Zenith Chairman Jerry Pearlman said that despite the fact his company is moving TV assembly from Missouri to Mexico, the new arrangement continues to benefit the U.S. economy.
"We're using plastics from the U.S., circuit boards from the U.S., even cardboard from the U.S. That's providing lots of employment on the U.S. side," he said.
In addition, he said, Zenith's higher-paid technical jobs remain in the United States, along with its TV tube plant outside Chicago.
But the foreign TV makers also say they have a major impact on the U.S. economy, including research and development jobs similar to those Zenith provides.
Philips said it does all its development work for its U.S.-made TVs in this country. Thomson and many of the Japanese makers also do research here.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB