Will the New Year's Day parade be televised?
Mum is the word.
Mummer representatives met last night to try to cobble a last-minute package to offer local stations to get the New Year's Day parade on TV for the 46th year.
No one would comment beforehand on the specific agenda or even on where the meeting, which had been scheduled to begin at 8:30, would take place.
It was known that all four divisions - string band, fancy, fancy brigade and comic - would be represented. No television representative was expected to be present at what was essentially a sit-down to settle family differences.
The Mummers have put a gag order on themselves so as not to upset the delicate 11th-hour talks among themselves.
String-band attorney Robert C. Pfeilsticker would only say, "We're getting together to take stock of where we are."
One well-placed source said that the Mummers had only four more days to agree on a package acceptable to a TV station. After that, the source said, it would be too late for any station to sell advertising or put together a 12- hour live production.
Last year the Mummers received $1 million from the broadcast of the parade. But KYW-TV (Channel 3), whose five-year contract ended last year, said it lost money on the telecast.
This year the station offered a one-year contract that would cover the station's expenses and give the Mummers 90 percent of the remaining revenue
from advertising. The string bands rejected that, 20-2, on Nov. 12.
