Yearbook of radio and television (1958)

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< <-<-<-<-<-<-<-< <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< «-<-<^< <<<<<<■<■ <-<■ Today's Community Service Radio Uses Creative Transcription Aids ««<-<-«-<-<-<-<-<■<-< <<<<<<-<<< <<-<-<-<-< <■< <■<■<<< < < < <■<■<■<-<-< RADIO, today, has been through a major creative crisis, and has won its battle. Now, the emphasis has shifted from a sort of detached, "national" approach to highrated radio programming to one that has its roots in the community, and its emphasis on "community service." The radio outlets which have been coming to the fore today are those which have been building a unique identity for themselves, both in the way they serve their listeners and their advertisers of all types. Basically, of course, the shift has been in the direction of the music-and-news format. This would be the simple answer — provided there was only one station in each market. But, a glance through this Annual will show you this is far from the case. Consequently, stations come to us with a problem which we have now heard repeated many, many times. "What can we do," they ask, "to create something different, something that will give us a style of our own that will attract our share of the audience? And what can we do to help our growing number of local advertisers?" Since we have been in the radio business for many years now, we saw the trend to localized programming developing, even before it became the dominant factor in national radio advertising. Our first major step was in the direction of the service which we of World Broadcasting furnish to our station affiliates. From the ground up, we completely redesigned our "music library" thinking, gradually building it into a creative programming and sales tool. The emphasis then, as it is now, was on selling and production services. One good example of this is our growing list of open-end jingles, designed to give local advertisers and stations top-quality musical commercials — the kind of unique jingles usually associated only with giant national advertisers who have the full resources of composing, vocal, arranging and lyric talent to draw upon. These jingles, with sponsor or product names inserted by the local announcer in the jingle lyrics, make for effective, hard By DiCK LAWRENCE General Manager World Broadcasting System hitting radio selling. And, we have jingles for literally hundreds of products and classifications of advertisers which can be transformed into revenue producers for our station affiliates. Then there is the realm of "program aids," and other production tools with which a station can add the touch of "big production" to locally produced radio programs. We have developed, and continue to develop, special musical signatures and program lead-ins which deliver production values of the highest calibre. In short, there is not a type of local show you can name — news, weather, sports, music, farm information— for which we cannot deliver a customdesigned series of recorded aids — materials to give a station a special "personality" and identity in its community. We have created service-type features, ranging from weather jingles to tune-in builders. We have packaged special programs for the seasonal (and sales) highlights of the year, featuring top-name personalities. And, we've launched — with tremendous response — such sparkling merchandising innovations as our "Sound-O" game, based on radio sound effects and their identification by listeners to win prizes supplied by local merchants. On top of all this, we continue to provide top-flight musical artists in outstanding transcriptions for local use, including such names as Peggy Lee, Doris Day, David Rose, Harry James, the Sauter-Finnegan and Victor Young Orchestras, and scores of others. Here, again, we are not just delivering "records." We are building production values to add to stations' prestige and personality, providing stations with the tools with which they can build audiences, and attract more and more advertisers. 720