Variety (Dec 1939)

Inaugurated In 1933 FOREWORD TKe Local ^rogYam Director's T)ilemma The heartbreak of the local radio program direc- tor often consists in this: his station is sinfully pros- perous and no thanks to him; worse than that, its plans and its prospects and the probabilities of its continuing contentment have little or nothing to do with anything he is doing or may do. He knows this, the management knows it, everybody knows it. And so he weeps on the bartender's shoulder. At least there used to be the mornings and the afternoons and the sustaining (illers. But more and more the mornings belong to Procter & Gamble and the afternoons to Sterling Products. Sustainers are killed by the remote control death rays of network contracts. The station keeps a musical conductor to have a fourth at bridge. The program director can't ask, and doesn't ask, his boss to quibble with i)rosperity. It may sadden a showman to have studio C used for ping pong. He may see the organ under a canvas shroud as a foot- note to his own unhappy fate. But the boss looking at the bank account thinks all is well in the best of all possible radio systems. And its hard to argue with a yacht. The dilemma of the program director reposes in the contrast between his own zest for action and his boss' indifference. When the boss is one of the rare personalities that doesn't want to keep all his eggs in the network basket then perhaps there is some scope for the creative yen. During 1939 some program directors were called into the front ofHce. They mumbled to themselves as they went, 'well, maybe it's all for the best.' In- stead of being kissed off the payroll the boss was sympathetic. 'You've been complaining you haven't enough to do,' said he. 'Well, we're setting aside 10:45 p.m. Saturday night for culture. From now on you have an additional litle: you're the educa- tional director!' The program director brightened. 'Say, that's a good idea—who suggested it?" •The network.' 'Oh/ said the program dircclor. He and the program director of the rival station play golf a lot in the afternoons. In the mornings he is called in on a conference on where to put chain- breaks when there ain't any chainbrcaks. Or maybe there's a sarcastic telegram from Blackett-Sample- Huniniert to answer. The P. D. vaguely wonders what will happen if the network should break down. He's haunted for fear somcliody would grab the first transcription off the pile to fill the emergency and it turn out to be 'Chandu the Magician.' With pad and pencil through the gray hours.be- fore cocktail time the reckoning goes on—how much, oh how much are we losing—on paper. And me, says the P. D. to himself, with great ideas! Sold out to the networks, bulging with daytime serials. Sluggishly tlie stream-of-consciousness throws up card rates, di-icc.unls, recapture clauses, graduating scales, first 20 liour^, second 20 hours. Gone are the glamorous da\ s—for the P. D.—when the station did exciting thing.-, wired Batten Barton • Durstiiie & Osborn that here, at last, was a local program with everything, (i.-nc arc the civic- minded programs, the gay interviews with people down in sewers and up on top of flagpoles. It's getting so bad sponsors are crowding in, de- manding local option time for their network shows. Count on a big national advertiser to act just like a big national advertiser. Who wised them up? Everybody wants what the station has got. Except its code. The program director may say to himself: 'Sure, I got a streamlined office, but what good is it to me? The radio kiddie in the most obscure advertising agencj' has. more prestige. Any smart ingenue would give me the ha-ha. She doesn't want to meet riie, she wants to meet Mickey Scopp.' But the most unhappy thought of all is this: what does the future hold for a local program director who doesn't sing tenor or control a good gambling game for radio? Does a self-respecting program director have the stomach nowadays to tune in his own station dur- ing the daylight hours? Those mush-brained con- tinued stories threaten his confidence in democracy and, after all, he is the Director of Educational Broadcasts exclamation point. What plots. How- Mother O'Brien and her five adopted kids (from a Jewish orphanage) paid oft' the mortgage. How plain Jane got a job. How the lady doctor oper- ated on her lover (and was she surprised) and saved his life. Just tunc in any time, any day and pick the plot up where you left it—discouraged with the human race. But let's not be too serious like a radio program devoted to 'democracy.' Let's retain our noncha- lance and our wholesoiiie respect for dollars and cents. Actually it has always to be remembered that broadcasters did not go into broadcasting to produce programs but to sell time. Any thought of building the show for the advertiser was an after- thought. Nor does the average affiliated station have any artistic pretentions. Afllliation with a net- work has, as a chief charm, the availability of a central source of fill-in programs through a tele- phone patch-board. It's easy to be a bit besidc-the-pointish in this matter of showmanship. Nevertheless many sta- tions have thrown away or not valued their pro- gram and talent facilities. So that, ever more so, they arc dependent on the networks. The networks like that. And they should. But whether it's smart for the stations is something else. It's significant that the stations are beginning to complain about the heavy daytime load, the unbalance of sheer talk among the network programs, the national pressure on local option time, the embarrassing lack of open- ings for tlic things the station often wants to do. in tlie realm of nightime radio the networks were uniquely the instrumentality for big, pretentious entertainments, the guarantee of the big national audience, the assurance of prestige and importance of all radio as an advertising medium and as a popu- lar amusement form. The local stations could not compete with the nctwork.s or the big advertisers on nightime stuff. But the daytime originally was anybody's lime. It did not reach its present state of cluttered dramatic inconsequence until-the last year or two. Most of the stations seemingly saw the davtiini' iK>t as something for thctnselves t'') > - control and exploit but. as just so many wide open! hours to be filled. If the networks could jam it U£^ with, commercials that was dandy. And now its' jammed up all right. It is a well known fact that office boys, no matter' how smart, often have to leave and collect their casht reward elsewhere. The boss, even years later, still, can't get out of the habit of thinking of him simplyi as the lad set to guard the postage stamps. It's been[ something like that with the program director oil many a local station. Originally the job was rated; by management as the clerk in charge of chimes.t First froni necessity and later from habit the job:' was one of the least-paid berths on the staff. Tlipj' man or woman who has the title today often suffers^', as lineal descendant of the original clerk with thel; chimes. This is no flight of fancy but a reulistict:^ rendering of one clement of ownership attitude to-j;; ward the program director. Too long and from too; far back ownership has reserved the star boarder^ privileges for the salesman, who seemed tlien, as he still does, the most [)ractical and self-justifying member of the payroll. u The fairly persistent neglect of local program cre-^ ation (other than one-time special events) reflects,? on the whole, an uncongenial attitude by top man-p.- agement. All too connnonly the occasional half-^' hearted excursion into 'showmanship' has beenj spiritual kin to that dispirited Elmer Blurp char-i; acter of Al Pearce who says ""you-wouldn't-think-ji this-was-any-good-would-you?' Trifling risks dc-?i manding magnificent and immediate response ontheiil penalty of being cancelled in two weeks does not|; represent an environment likely to foster much. \'. It is precisely because most broadcasters regard themselves as simply sellers of time and are so quick to alibi their lack of programming facilities, plana . or accomplishments that those stations that do carry out something showmanly are likely to stand ouLf' In the final essence showmanship means person-1'. ality and a radio station can personalize itself in|; no more genuinely impressive way than in the pre-1; sentation of locally-produced programs. At such|' moments a station ceases to be NBC, CBS or MBSi;; and becomes, for a fcxv moments, itself. Building local ])rc)giams is doing it the hard way. It is the way that many stations frankly duck. Some f of them just duck and don't talk about it. Other3 ji' duck and rationalize llieir behavior as a realistic f adjustment to external pressures. Why, they say,!; burst a neckband trying to do something—produc-r tion—that will inevitably be a shoddy second best, -• that few national advertisers will encourage, that '/ will merely eat up funds and drive up overhead. A They'll convince you in black and white with crush- i ing quotes from the .auditor that they are right and f that the whole cnii)liasis upon local production is J, silly and pointless. It still seems kinda vital to ? Varietv. 5 One final coniiiiciit on the plaques: V.\RiETy rather exhaustively combed the country in the hope of finding an impiossivc example of showmanship in the specialized licid of educational radio. There was much activity rc|K)rtcd during the year and undoubtedly this fi>ini of radio is on the upbeat. Ifuwever, nothing to warrant a p'".que was noted, : much to \ Aiur.rv"> legrct.