Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1943)

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beginning, smoothly paved. Our first aerial ventures varied considerably in both quantity and quality. Responsibility lor radio was shifted from one department to another within the store. The set-up was variable and unstable, and the result wjas the usual streaky run of department store luck with radio. In 1939, when I set up the New Business Department of Lit Brothers, managed by Sidney H. Berg, radio at last found a real home in the store organization. This New Business Department takes entire charge of Lit Brothers radio work, giving it as much attention, study, time and effort as the regular advertising department gives to our daily newspaper display advertising. But the seeming indifference to radio detail on the part of the department store meets a perfect vice versa from the stations themselves. A "smattering of ignorance" is all that some radio salesmen have concerning the organization of a department store. And so meager an acquaintance quite easily results in the wrong prescription for the store's advertising problems. Some of its salesmen, for instance, think of radio time and programs only in relation to single items; cigarettes, headache pills, cereal, etc. Lit Brothers' Drug Department alone has over 25,000 different items! The most potent form of radio advertising for department stores, obviously, would not be selling specific products but selling the store itself, that is, institutional advertising. So, at the very outset. Lit Brothers and Station WFIL evaded the greatest stumbling block in the path of radiodepartment store cooperation. Station executives met with store executives and discussed their mutual problems. WFIL learned about Lit Brothers; what the department store needed, and what it was trying to accomplish. Lit Brothers, on the other hand, learned what WFIL liad to offer, and how it could best be applied. Because they knew each other, WFIL did not make the mistake of trying to sell Lit Brothers time on the air and nothing else. Lit Brothers, fully aware of what to expect from its programs, did not ask WFIL to perform short-term miracles. Our present radio schedule consists of three 15-minute programs, with a fourth to be added. Two of these shows are directed toward the general audience, one is for the children, and the coming one will be aimed at the family "purchasing agents," the housewives of Philadelphia. Granted that our purpose is to sell the store, let's examine the programs with which we hope to do it. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. Lit Brothers presents Hot Spot On The Map. This is a background of the news type program, given documentary treatment. Each program deals with a locality that is prominent in the day's news. The topography of the country is considered, the country's place in history, its position in the war and the characteristics of its people. In other words. Hot Spot On The Map provides for listeners the vivid behind-the-scenes information which the newspapers leave untouched in reporting the days events. The program is produced and directed by Don Martin, a WFIL man, and written by Jane Richter of Lit Brothers New Business Department staff. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings. Lit Brothers broadcasts Let's Learn Spanish, the 15-minute transcribed series produced by Time Magazine. This program has proved an astounding audience success. Mail returns on the first broadcast passed the 300 mark and, despite the 25 cent charge attached to the vocabulary booklet offered, the mail count has been continuously high. In an effort to launch the Let's Learn Spanish program effectively, Lit Broth 404 RADIO SH OWMANSH I P