Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

NETWORK RADIO SALES: $50 MILLION continued Mars returns to radio Mars Inc. is going back into radio for the first time since it sponsored Dr. 1Q (on NBC) back in the 1930's and early '40's. Using Stan Freberg minutes and 30s' the candy company will be on NBC Radio, CBS Radio and Mutual as well as 60 independents for a total of 600 stations. Commercials will start Oct. 6. Needham, Louis & Brorby is the agency. vention of affiliates last week (see page 34), is that "we're back in vogue again." Or, as ABC Radio president Robert Pauley describes it, "there's been a swing-back to the recognition of radio's values." Among the factors cited most often as contributing to the swing-back are the fact that audiences obviously go for the "new" brand of programing; the continually mounting sale of radio sets; the increasing mobility of the radio audience (which when in motion, as Mutual president Robert Hurleigh told approximately 100 agency representatives in a series of sales-presentation breakfasts last week, can be reached by practically no medium except radio); increased recognition of the magnitude of the out-of-home audience; some advertiser concern over TV prices and, probably most important of all, radio's repeated demonstration that it can get good sales results at low costs. Here, network by network, is a summary of their respective comebacks — and how far they've come: ABC RADIO President Robert Pauley says this year's sales will exceed 1962's by 32%, calls 1963 business unexcelled in the last eight years and probably longer. "Our records up to 1955 are all in storage," he explains. These gains, he says, could have been greater. In the current year, he told a regional meeting of affiliates a few weeks ago, ABC Radio has rejected Once upon a time, the main contribution of soap companies to American culture was their sponsorship of radio soap operas. This past weekend, Fels & Co., soap and detergent maker, began sponsorship of broadcasts by the Philadelphia Orchestra on 22 radio stations. The tape network for the symphonic broadcasts is made up of three AM-FM stations and 19 FM-only operations. Half of them (11) will present the broadcasts in stereo-multiplex. The last of the weekly-concert length symphony broadcasts on the radio networks ended this past spring when CBS Radio terminated its 33-year-old series of New York Philharmonic broadcasts. Sunday (Oct. 6), the Philharmonic started live broadcasts on its own network of 55 stations (Broadcasting, Sept. 16). The Fels program is being packaged by the S. E. Zubrow Co., Philadelphia more than $3 million in business because it didn't consider the programing proposed by the advertisers to be "topflight." Much of network radio's gains he attributes to Sindlinger & Co.'s efforts to measure the full scope of the radio audience. Mr. Pauley himself figured prominently in these efforts, retaining the Sindlinger organization to make radio audience measurements after protesting bitterly that A. C. Nielsen Co. was "shortchanging" radio by measuring only part of the audience. He also feels that documentation, by ABC and some of the other networks, of a number of major radio sales successes contributed importantly in reawakening advertiser interest. Like most of the other networks, ABC Radio undertook a number of changes before settling on its current program format. Considered Quitting ■ At one point, in 1958, officials verged on a decision to close down in the face of losses running at a rate of about $4 million a year. They also considered briefly the possibility of cutting back to a press type syndicated news service. Instead, they stripped back to Breakfast Club — then and now an institution on ABC — news and commercial religious programs, of which ABC then had several. There were other changes, including a short-lived experiment in all-live entertainment programing, before the current pattern emerged. More than three years ago ABC Radio concluded that a (the Fels agency), and is available for sale to stations not purchased by Fels. The 39-week series will present 28 concerts conducted by Eugene Ormandy, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The remaining 1 1 weeks will have guest conductors. The programs will be recorded in Philadelphia's Academy of Music during the orchestra's Friday afternoon series. If Mr. Ormandy is not satisfied with the orchestra's performance, the Saturday concert will be recorded. Each concert will be broadcast two weeks after recording. A Zubrow spokesman said last week that recent surveys show there are about 15 million FM homes, most of which are above average in income and of large family size. Surveys, he continued, also show that FM commercials are more easily remembered than those in other media. It was these facts that led Fels to attempt to sell its products through the FM broadcasts, he added. network cannot survive on news alone, decided also to feed music programing only on a sustaining basis, settled on a policy of concentrating on programs that (1) have "immediacy" and (2) are beyond the reach of local-station production. It introduced Flair, which affiliates could use either in segments or as a whole program, but subsequently decided that these were losing "immediacy" and also that the comedy portions were competing with comedy records — the Vaughan Meader, Shelley Berman, Bob Newhart and similar records — that stations could acquire locally. Switch Format ■ Accordingly ABC Radio switched its emphasis to featurettes based on news of the day, 3V2 minute Flair Reports programs that it feeds at the rate of six a day. In these and in its newscasts — which it retained, of course, along with Breakfast Club — a special effort is made to incorporate the voices of the newsmakers. The network also carries running accounts of major news events, as in the case of the Joseph Valachi testimony in the Senate investigation of syndicated crime, and also provides "fill" programing for affiliates who want to use it. Mr. Pauley anticipates a trend to program sponsorships, thinks radio drama is in for "a great resurgence," points out that ABC Radio is in the process of initiating a dramatic series that will be offered on a co-op basis this fall. CBS RADIO Arthur Hull Hayes, CBS Radio president, reports CBS Radio has already put 47% more billings on the books this year than it did in all of 1962, says there's no possible way it could fail to make "a solid profit" for 1963 (for more details, see CBS Radio affiliates convention story, page 34). His network stresses news and informational programing, but with a block of name-star entertainment shows for housewives in the mornings. Mr. Hayes traces the evolution of the current pattern to late 1960, when the network decided to cut back and then lop off the soap operas that for years FROM SOAP OPERAS TO SYMPHONIES Fels buying Philadelphia Orchestra concerts on FM 36 (BROADCAST ADVERTISING) BROADCASTING, October 7, 1963