U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1960)

Program Services A SILVER SPOON IS NOT ENOUGH She may be born with "advantages" and raised with love -but there still can be plenty lacking. That is. if the school she goes to isn't good enough. Crowded classrooms, unqualified teachers, outdated equipment, inadequate curriculum — any one of these can shortchange your child's education and her future. Look into the quality of the .schools she'll attendwork through your local committees or your School Board for their improvement. Doesn't she deserve the best? FREE BOOKLET! Measure the quality of eclucalion offered in your ihild's sriiool. Find out how it <ompares with the best in the country... how you can make it better. For your < opy— and free guidance on many school problemswrite: Better Schools, 9 Eost 40th Street, New York 16, New York. Yardsticks for Public Schools m ^^HV oilier on ni;uiia,!4C (oiuiseliiig aiul a ihiicl on .sports. A one-niimite stock niarkci report heads up the three talk shows. ,Sani Sluilsky, financial writer for a New York metropolitan daily newspaper, delivers the market report. The program is not of the news variety, hut caters to general economic trends. The capsides come in a package of 2()() jjrogiams. which are leased to the station for 52 weeks. The cost of the entire program is S300, or a liiile more than SI per program. Dr. l*anl Popponoe is fealined on the minute capsules on marriage counseling. This program is also distributed in a block of 2G0 features for 52 weeks. Don Dunphv, noted sportscaster and liglii aimoiuicer. does a series of minute capsules on sports which is disiributecl on a contract basis by arrangement with the station. Twenty sports fealines on current activities in sports aie available for broadcast each week, at a cost ranging from $15 to $'M) per week. Accc^rding to Miss Leslie Roberts, partner in the New York firm, several new "Miiniie Mats" are in the thought stages. • More evidence ol the trend toward talk featincs comes from George Skinner Radio Featurettes, New York, which now has in the works a series of five programs, all inider one miiuite. The programs are designed for sale to national advertisers for use in national spot camjjaigns as well as to local stations. Now in production are Strictly for Men, with liert Bacharach; Tips to Mother, with Charles Heiimiann and fietsy Pearson of Herald-Tiibune Syndicated Bcjx Features; ]Vonderfiil World of the Autotnobilc with Ken Purdy; The Glamour Point with Kate Lloyd; and Tasty Tips on Food with Poppy Cannon. The programs will be available for broadcast at the rate of 10 capsules per week, with a mininuim contract length ol 13 weeks. George Skiimer, who is director of jjrogramming services for the Katz Agency, New York, is supervising the production of the programs, which will be sold through LangWorth Feature Programs, New York. • Program Development R: Research (k)rp., a recent entry, is packaging a monthly service of capsule |)rograms, approximately one minule long. Called "Informacast," the service provides researched scripts cm various subjects that can be inserted anywhere in the regular scliedide. Ihe "Informacast" offers a basic library of 250 scripts, which is augmented by 50 new ones each month. There are bonus "Informacasls" during the year to cover special events. Each script is categorized by subject matter so tliat it can be arranged in a binder that is provided. Subjects cover a wide range of topics — great literature, taxes, nature, boating, camping and outdoors, |)hotography, auto care, cooking, gardening, health, money management and household hints, among otiiers. .\ leather-covered binder with dividers for the separate categories is also part of the basic service, which is made available on an exclusive basis to one station in its primary area. A suggested way in which stations can use the "Informacast" service is by having, for example, a drug store chain sponsor health scripts or a haidware store sponsor the gardening hints. Subscription tales for the service are based on U.S. Census population figures. Accoicling to the rate card, the cost varies from a low of S20 a month in cities of under 50,000 po]nilation to a monthly high of .S75 lor cities of over one million popidation. In cases of multiple station ownership, a discount of five percent is allowed for each additional station up to 20 percent. • Public Afiaiis Radio Inc., New York, offers syndicated financial news, wrapped in two separate program packages. One is a 15-minute weekly survey. Dateline Wall Street, available for weekend broadcast at a flat rate of .| 1 7.50. The show gives a wrap-up of the week's news in the financial world, as well as a six-min11 le feature on one company. 118 U. S. RADIO • AIRF.\X 1961