Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1952)

7 Station Accounts: Hughes Aircraft Co., sponsoring new type of sports program titled Here's How with Harmon, alt. Wed. on KNXT, Los Angeles, at about 7:40-8 p.m., following kine-recorded versions of Pabst prizefights; each show, Tom Harmon interviews sports luminary relating and demonstrating the “how” of respective sports . . . Esso Standard Oil Co. trying out TV version of Esso Reporter, 15-min. around dinner hour, on WPIX, New York; WBALTV, Baltimore; WTOP-TV, Washington; WTVR, Richmond; WDSU-TV, New Orleans; placed thru Marschalk & Pratt, feature doesn’t mean reduction of 53-station radio news campaign, but TV will be expanded if it clicks . . . U. S. Envelope Co. (Self-Seal Envelopes), thru S. R. Leon Co., and Locatelli Inc. (Provolino cheese, olive oil, salami), thru H. C. Rossi Adv., new participations in Kathi Norris Show on WABD, New York . . . Crawford Clothes has bought 13 weeks of The Cases of Eddie Drake and 26 weeks of The Files of Jeffrey Jones /or placement on WABD, Thu. 9:3010, starting March 6, thru A1 Paul Lefton Co., N. Y. . . . Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Clayton, Mo., to spend $750,000 on 26 thirty-min. films titled This Is the Life, to be produced-distributed by Lutheran Television Productions (Rev. Herman Wr. Gockel, religious director of project; Ian B. Smith, exec, producer, Hollywood) . . . Chicago Auto Show telecast for 2 hours on W’GN-TV Feb. 16 had 20 auto manufacturers as co-sponsors . . . Unaffiliated with any AM station, Miami’s WTVJ has nevertheless joined with WBRD, Ft. Lauderdale, to present regular Wed. a.m. simulcast, 5 retail stores participating, titled McCauley Callin' and featuring disc jockey Elliott McCauley . . . Among other advertisers reported using or preparing to use TV: Venice Maid Co. Inc. (Chili Mac), thru Schoenfeld, Huber & Green, Chicago; Marie Designer Inc. (contour chairs), thru Walter McCreery Inc., Bevei'ly Hills; Coleman Co. Inc. (gas & oil water heaters), direct; Genesee Brewing Co. (Genesee beer & 12 Horse ale), thru Rogers & Porter, Rochester, N. Y.; H. Fendrich Inc. (La Fendrich cigars), thru G. A. Saas & Co., Indianapolis; Senator Hotel Corp. (Senator Hotel, Atlantic City), thru Dorland Adv. Agency, Atlantic City; Taylor-Reed Corp. (Chin Lee Chinese dinners), thru Tracy, Kent & Co., N. Y.; Sitroux Inc. (Sitrue facial tissues), thru Franklin Bruch Adv. Corp., N. Y.; Lamour Hair Products Inc. (Color Comb & Shamp-o-Pads), thru Kenneth Rader Co., N. Y.; Bisceglia Bros. Wine Corp. (Paradise wine), thru St. Georges & Keyes, N. Y.; G. N. Coughlan Co. (Spandy disinfectant), thru Lewin, Williams & Saylor, Newark; Chin & Lee Inc. (canned & frozen food products), thru Kastor, Farrell, Chesley & Clifford, N. Y.; Charles G. Summers Inc. (Superfine Limagrands canned lima beans), thru Kal, Ehrlich & Merrick, Washington; Walter Bainum Inc. (Mary Lowell lotions, creams, deodorants), thru Robert Acomb Inc., Cincinnati; Lejon Freres Inc. (Neckline beauty creams), thru Weightman Inc., Philadelphia; North American Sweets Corp. (Sweetop creamed frosting), thru W’eiss & Geller, N. Y.; Texas Rice Promotion Assn. (Rice-Its preparation), thru Wilkinson-Schiwetz & Tips, Houston; Atlas Fence Co., thru Ecoff & James, Philadelphia. Network Accounts: Westinghouse adds DuMont’s 3 owned-&-managed stations (W’ABD, WTTG, WDTV) plus Chicago Tribune’s WGN-TV for coverage of political conventions in July (Vol. 7:52 & 8:6), presumably will tie them into its CBS-TV network, thru Ketchum, McLeod & Grove, Pittsburgh (for further details, see story on p. 6) ... Columbia Records, starting Feb. 26, sponsors Tue. & Thu. segments of Douglas Edwards and the News on CBS-TV, Mon.-thru-Fri. 7:30-7:45, thru McCannErickson, N. Y. . . . Procter & Gamble (Ivory Flakes) begins sponsorship Feb. 26 of Tue. & Thu. segments of The Egg & I on CBS-TV, Mon.-thru-Fri. noon-12: 15, thru Compton Adv., N. Y. WHY HAS ADMIRAL, one of earliest and most consistent sponsors of network TV programs, decided to drop its Lights Out program on NBC-TV (Vol. 8:6) and turn to network radio — using CBS world news roundup Sun. 5:30-5:55 p.m., starting Feb. 17? Admiral president Ross Siragusa explains in press release Feb. 13 in which he says radio and newspapers need not fear TV inasmuch as those media have “a permanent place in the American way of life.” He figures it this way: “The total circulation of daily and Sunday newspapers has registered increases in each postwar year, and it is obvious that the newspaper can never be replaced. One cannot minimize, either, the power of the more than 2275 AM broadcast stations and the estimated 105,000,000 radios now in use in American homes, hotels, institutions and automobiles. These sets reach into practically every home in the U. S. and provide a powerful medium for carrying coverage of many election year featux’es that cannot be telecast.” Admiral is sponsoring both TV and radio coverage of forthcoming political conventions via ABC (Vol. 8:4), also telecasts of special events, but hasn’t used any radio except spot in recent years. Siragusa explained that “Admiral feels so strongly about the future of radio, it has provided a standard AM radio in 9 of its 1952 table model and console TV receivers . . .” New obstacle to release of recent movies to TV is this week’s agreement between Screen Actors Guild and Indedependent Motion Picture Producers Assn. Seven-year pact px’ovides: (1) Each actor in list of 70 feature films made since Aug. 1, 1948 shall receive additional payment of 12%% of his original salary if film is sold to TV for less than $20,000, and 15% if film brings $20,000 or more. (2) None of the 70 films may be released to TV until at least 3 years after their first theatre showings. (3) Producers must negotiate with Guild befoi'e x-eleasing to TV any other films made since Aug. 1, 1948. American Federation of Musicians also has standing demand that sound tracks of theatrical films released to TV be re-recorded and 5% of film’s gross from TV be paid to AFM royalty fund (Vol. 7:17). Screen Writers Guild also plans to open negotiations with IMPPA for extra-pay arrangement, and Screen Directors Guild is contemplating similar move. All 4 TV networks have filed appearances for theatreTV hearings, now scheduled to begin March 10. At deadline Feb. 15, ABC & NBC filed as result of FCC action enlarging issues to include questions of (1) competition between types of TV service and (2) whether home TV networks should be permitted to distribute theatre-TV programming (Vol. 8:5). ABC’s petition says it will participate “inasmuch as [the added issues] may have a beai’ing on the proceeding concerning the merger of United Paramount Theatres and ABC.” CBS and DuMont filed Jan. 25 (Vol. 8:4). Motion Picture Assn, and National Exhibitors Theatre-TV Committee jointly filed list of 18 additional witnesses to their earlier star-studded array of 43 (Vol. 8:4). New list includes producers Cecil B. DeMille, Darryl Zanuck, Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan, Theatre Owners of America director Gael Sullivan, other film industi’y notables. Those Chicago theatre closings in 1951 (Vol. 8:6) — 91 out of city’s 336 — ax’en’t necessarily or primarily attributable to TV, says Chester B. Bahn in Feb. 11 Film Daily editorial. He points not only to growth of drive-ins, but to higher living costs and taxes, theatre obsolescence, population shifts, incx’eased business of x-emaining theatres. Overall income of movie business is better index to theatres’ health than individual closings, he argues, giving example of United Paramount Theatres, whose latest quarterly report shows $6,400,000 greater gross than same 1950 pex'iod.