Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

SPON^SOR W^EEIK Don't Worship Figures, Warns K&E President New York — Underscoring the "growing tendency to confuse numbers with reality," David C. Stewart, president of Kenyon & Eckhardt, Inc., last week told the Magazine Promotion Group that whenever a broadcaster begins to "concentrate, not on the reality of his service, but on the symbols and numerical evidence he finds in ratings, and audience figures, and stock prices, and P&L statements, then he starts inevitably on the downhill road." Stewart added: "And I would be less than honest if I did not tell you that some broadcasters and network officials are on this road today." In making his point about the numbers game, Stewart cited all major media as guilty of the tendency IV worship figures and statistics as entities in themselves and not as "'mere symbols, and at best partial evidence of something far more important and substantial." Although stressing the need for numbers, figures and statistics, Stewart said: "We must also realize — and this applies to all businessmen, all advertisers, all agencies, all media, in this computer age — that there is a great danger in numbers, and a danger for the men who use them." Stating his case in tv terms, Stewart said: "Great stations and net NAB CITATION It. Co. Samuel R. Loboda, leader and commanding officer of the U.S. Army Band & Chorus, receives a special Citation of Merit award from Willard Schroeder, chairman, NAB joint board of directors, and general manager of WOOD-AM-FM-TV Grand Rapids, Mich. The award was in recognition of Loboda's composition, "The Broadcaster's March," written in honor of the radio-tv industry. works start with original and forceful ideas. No great station or network has ever been conceived as an advertising medium. Every great station and network has been conceived as a service to viewers." Whenever a broadcaster forgets this, Stewart pointed out, he starts on the downhill road. Applying the philosophy of service to all business operations, the K&E president declared: "The consumer-goods companies which are in trouble today are almost invariably those which, in the midst of their statistics, have forgotten or don't fully understand the concept itself." Summing up, Stewart told his audience: "All of us, as publishers, advertisers, agency men. and broadcasters, must avoid this numbers trap, must concentrate on the funda Stewart "mere symbols" mental principles of our business, and must attempt to express these principles more fully and more meaningfully than mere numbers can ever do." FCC Doctrine 'Worst Kind of Censorship' Howell Salt Lake City — Slapping the FCC Fairness Doctrine as the "worst kind of censorship," chairman Rex G. Howell of the NAB's Radio Board of Directors, last week said the commission did well in requiring broadcasters to exercise fairness in handling controversial issues, but complicated the problem by taking the final judgment away from the broadcaster and trying to spell it out for him. In this respect, Howell told broadcasters assembled for the first of eight NAB conferences to be held across the country, the FCC is much like the guest at a party who thanks his hostess for having been served "a nice meal . . . what there was of it." Having realized his blunder, the guest quickly explains that "there was plenty of it . . . such as it was." Howell argued that the FCC made the same mistake by not only endorsing fairness but "saying too much — and nullifying an otherwise clear-cut statement by adding confusing verbiage of dubious propriety." The broadcaster added: The problem lies in a government fiat that requires of us to do something by formula. It is a matter of prescribing the method, rather than the desired result." We do not need new laws or rules, Howell concluded. "The FCC should continue to encourage the voicing of controversy in the air, but it should recognize the basic inconsistency in a policy which insists that the execution of fairness will be closely supervised." Embassy Sales up 150% New York — The syndication sales curve would appear to be soaring at Embassy Pictures with announcement that the tv division's sales through October are up 150 percent over the same period last year. In addition, E. Jonny Graff, vice president of the operation, pointed out last week that the September sale of product to 10 stations was proportionately higher than Embassy's monthly average. October 19, 1964 17