Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

FUTJ^AX AT 5 Clay-Liston Fight To Be Aired On 605 Stations in United States New York — With the last-minute signing of Bristol-Myers (for Score), it will be SRO for tonight's broadcast of the Ciay-Liston fight from the Boston Garden. In addition to the acquisition of the new sponsor, the Mutual Broadcasting System has also announced that 605 U.S. radio stations, 74 Canadian outlets and 88 Canadian satellites will be carrying the blow-by-blow description. The station lineup represents 177 more U.S. stations than the previous record-breaking number which aired the first Clay-Liston encounter. Included in the lineup (exclusive of MBS affiliates and the Intermountain Network) are such major station groups as Storer, Cox, RKO General, Meredith, Capital Cities and Group W. Commenting on the large number of stations clearing for the fight, Robert F. Hurleigh, MBS president. CBS Reports Record Nine-Month Profits New York — The profits picture continues rosy at CBS with announcement of record nine-month sales and earnings, plus a boost in the dividend rate. According to William S. Paley, chairman, and Frank Stanton, president, net income for the first nine months of 1964 (40 weeks) totaled $33,393,508 on sales of $449,830,622. This compares with $28,377,689 and $395,145,909 in the first nine months of 1963 (39 weeks). This translates into $1.73 per share of stock as compared with $1.50 per share (adjusted for stock dividend and 2-for-l stock split) earned in the first nine months of 1963. Third quarter net income was also up— $10,235,072 in 1964 (14 weeks) as opposed to $9,007,672 the previous year (13 weeks). At a meeting of the CBS board of directors last week, a boost in the cash dividend to 30 cents was voted for the firm's common stock, payable Dec. 4, 1964, to shareholders of record at the close of business of Nov. 20, 1964. The board also declared a stock dividend of 2 percent payable on the same date. said, "In the public interest, we made every effort to give this sports event the widest possible coverage. It was offered to every market in the country where we had no conflicts of interest with our affiliates. By fight time we should have better than 625 stations on the list." The four sponsors (Schick, Pepsi Cola, STP and Bristol-Myers) will reach an estimated 75 million Americans. Pepsi Cola Faces Whimsical Dilemma New York — Pepsi Cola, one of the four sponsors of the Clay-Liston fight on MBS, asks the question: "In case of a knockout, what kind of a Pepsi commercial v/ill follow?" Will it be one of the company's new "come alive" series? WHN New York, Mutual flagship station carrying the fight, suggests that one of the contenders might find the product of a local sponsor of value at the end of the battle. New Try Is in Sight for Package Labeling Law Washington — Sen. Philip Hart's truth-in-packaging bill moved a step nearer its 89th Congress debut when the Senate antitrust and monopoly subcommittee report approved it last week. The bill is one of a group of consumer-protective proposals that may make the 89th the most consumer-minded Congress in history. The Hart bill to require precise disclosure of package content on the label, and the Douglas bill to require spell-out of exact interest charges in installment buying, were urged by the President in his February consumerinterest message. They have been pushed more recently and persistently by his consumer-adviser, Mrs. Esther Peterson, in a series of talks and regional consumer conferences. Third goal is consumer and oldster medical protection with tighter control of prescriptive and non-prescriptive drugs, and medicare legislation. In the packaging bill report. Republican subcommittee members Sens. Dirksen and Hruska are in furious dissent with the Democratic majority. They term "outrageous" the bill's strictures on sizes, weights, degree of "fill," numbers of "servings," descriptive use of words like "giant" to describe a measure, and manufacturers' "cents off labeling. Dissenters say the bill is not only harmfully restrictive, but it indicates the American consumer as "gullible and irresponsible," and American business as "corrupt." The President's February message, like the current subcommittee report, scolded those packages and labels that mislead a consumer "with respect to size, weight, degrees of fill," or by "misleading adjectives, fractional variations in weight which are designed to confuse, and illustrations with no relationship to contents of package." The President's message and the crusading senators in the same breath credit the packaging of thousands of items with boosting consumer sales and the economy, via these imaginatively designed "silent salesmen." But the report finds business moving too slowly toward voluntary reform of the deceptive aspects, when the silent salesmen begin to act "pitchmen." Examples of "good" if unimaginative packaging are the "simple, direct, visible and accurate" type used for staples like sugar and flour. Board To Study CATV Applications New York — Despite the fact that the city's tv stations are able to transmit from the world's tallest building, television reception in many sections of New York leaves something to be desired, and five companies think they have the solution — CATV. New York's Board of Estimate is expected to begin hearings ihis week on the first of the applicants — Sterling Information Services. Other applicants for the franchise — RKO General, WOR-TV, The TelePrompTer Corp. and Teleglobe Pay-Tv — will be heard at later dates. SPONSOR