Deja Vu, Japanese-Style

Rancho Bernardo-based Sony Corp. of America made a big to-do last week that it would ship 300,000 television picture tubes back to Japan and its parent company, Sony Corp.

Sony officials even boasted that the deal would mark the first time a Japanese subsidiary in the United States ships products back to Japan.

But the claim sounded familiar to veteran Times reporter David Smollar, whose interests include Japanese businesses operating here.

Sure enough, Smollar unearthed a Sony press release from February, 1979, that touted the exportation of Sony’s U.S.-made Betamax videocassettes to Japan.

The released claimed Sony had “become the first to export a finished product back to Japan.”

Background Support

The San Diego Symphony has certainly benefited from the economic recovery. The Symphony’s list of corporate sponsors has ballooned during the 1984-85 concert season, as has the amount of money contributed by those firms.

Twenty-four local companies have chimed in with $126,000 for the current musical season, which ends June 8, compared to only five corporations drumming up $90,000 last season.

The average per-company contribution has dropped, but that’s OK with symphony officials.

“The corporate sponsor packages are being prepared more creatively,” said spokeswoman Nancy Hafner. “Corporations are now able to sponsor single evening events rather than a whole weekend” like last year, she said.

Among this year’s sponsors: Signal Cos. Charitable Foundation, M/A--Com Linkabit, ISSCO, PacBel, Rohr Industries, Porter International, California First Bank, Park Manor Hotel, Parking Co. of America, Santa Fe Land/R.E. McKee Construction, Finley Kumble & Wagner, Levitz, Sachs and Ciceric, Steres, Alpert and Carne, Curtain Raisers, Grossmont Bank, and Grossmont Center.

Foreground Support

Nearly 100 local corporate chieftains will lunch today at a gathering to raise funds for UNICEF, the United Nation’s relief fund for children. UNICEF staffer Bennett Samson anticipates raising about $20,000 from the executives--both personally and from corporate coffers.

The luncheon, the local UNICEF chapter’s first big fund-raising meeting, is underwritten by the Bank of America, PacBell, Hotel del Coronado and Ace Parking.