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The Story Behind BETTY AND BOB, An Ex-General Mills Best -Seller, Now Available in a Transcribed Dramatic Serial For Local Businessmen to Sponsor
AIR ANALYSIS
Interesting, always, to the great majority of local radio time buyers is the elaborate dramatic or variety show with all its fancy trimmings ; the show that features a wellknown band, comedians, actors, actresses with big names and bigger salaries. For years, such shows were out of the reach of the local businessman because of their high production cost. And then, along came electrical transcriptions (ET).
Set up on somewhat the same basis as a Hollywood motion picture company, a transcription company produces a show, complete with music, script, name stars, in fact all of the expensive elements no single local sponsor could afford. This show is recorded, with ample time left at the beginning, the middle, and the end, for the local businessman to insert his own commercial. It is then offered for sale on an exclusive basis in all markets. Because the cost of the production is divided among, say 50 sponsors, the selling price of transcriptions is within the reach of all. This mass production method results, naturally, in better shows for local airing. Such shows are Pinocchio, Tone h d o w n Tips, Little By Little House, Superman, etc. Such a show also is Bt tty and Bob.
But behind the radio program, Betty and Bob, is an entirely different, and certainly unusual storv.
From 1932-1940 Betty and Bob was a network dramatic serial, promoting sales for General Mills, Inc. Of the pro
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Listen to
BETTY &BOB
Radio's best-loved couple
NOW HEARD ON STATION
wxxx
MON. THROUGH FRI. 0:00 P. M.
Presented by
gram, S. C. Gale, director of advertising at General Mills, said, "It has been the most consistently successful program that we have ever had. Most of the offers made on this program stimulated a response equal to or exceeding our expectations. It has been one of our leading producers of cash-plus-box-top returns — and that means a producer of traceable sales."
Yet, in March, 1940, General Mills discontinued the show. Why? To quote Mr. Gale further: "We felt that a new vehicle might be more productive — for us. Our sales messages had been heard by the listeners of this show for nearly eight years, and we felt that a change would bring some new customers into the tent."
Opinion differs among keen-minded advertising experts on the question of whether or not an advertiser should give up a radio show that has served him successfully over a long period. The thought behind such a move is that the show has captured and sold all the available audience that it can and that a new. entirely different program will attract new, different buyers. The product itself is relied on to hold the old.
Is there a saturation point? Regardless of which side has the right answer, the outcome does not in any way affect the show itself, only the relationship of sponsor to show. The fact remains that a popular program with an established audience can easily be put to work for a new sponsor. Certainly the old sponsor, seeking a hew show, faces a greater problem than the old show seeking a new sponsor.
OCTOBER, 1940
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