Variety (Dec 1939)

S2 VARIETY SHOWMANSHIP SURVEY We<lnestloy, December 6, 1939 Station Activity During 1939 • • • (Continued /rom page 20) local loyalties through svich pro- grams as 'Our Community Sing' and 'Our Church of the Air.' The for- mer, patterned along the lines oX an old-fashioned country sing, brings en quartets, trios and various other combinations from many miles around, while for the 'Our Church' event it provides the music and radio sets for impromptu worshipping !;roups in country schoolhouses, etc., where pastors are not available every Sunday. KARK, Little Rock—Is especially hot on promotion of. national and local accounts and. itself. Has an employment program that hits the bullseye and is on its toes at all ■times in the matter of public events and educational programs. . KOMO-KJR, Seaftle^Merits a big bow, for the suslainer, 'Every Man's a King,' which dramatizes the recre- ational facilities of the Pacific north- west and in a different way. The situation in Cincinnati often ■ considered the most consistently spotlighted radio competitive center in the U. S. A. was amply described in considerable detail in one of Ed Grunwald's recent special articles for Variety. It seems rather super- fluous to dwell so soon theireafler on the personalities and characteristics of the market. The town now has a second 50,000 waiter, WGKY, which has moved over from Covington, Ky. WKKC is necessarily in an 'in- between' slate due to its prospective transfer from CBS to local newspa- per ownership. WSAI under Dewey Long has done its very considerable best to become an entity in its own right apart from its Crosley big ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦<«♦♦«♦♦♦♦♦♦«♦♦♦■»♦♦- ! 4- SOMEWHAT i UNUSUAL (In 1939) WADC, Ahron, established studios in Cleveland for foreign language programs. KOB, Albuquerque, spent more than the entire national spot in- crease on trips by station manager. WFBR, Baltimore, initialed uni- formed-guide tours through its plant. WBAL, Baltimore, exhibited a ra- dio news room in action and broad- cast same from downtown store win- dow. WGR-WKBW, Buffalo, reported 100,000 requests for brochure deal- ing with station staff. WLW, Cincinnati, awarded six months' scholarships in its agricul- tural dept. to college students, WFAA, Dallas, was key link of a special web of 26 stations tor a re- gional sponsor (Dr. Pepper). WHO, Des Moines, stayed open all -night to carry the papal coronalion ceremonies. WXYZ, Detroit, had 175 employees, -most of them on programs. WMPS, Memphis, developed a high school singer, Kay Starr, good enough to play dates with Bob Crosby and Glen Miller. WCAE, Pittsburgh, had 50,000 resisttations for its Junior Crime •Prevention Bureau. WEEI, Boston, held a 'perfect lips' contest and also broadca.st the Doc- tors Symphony. Orchestra composed ■entirely of M.D.'s. ! brother, WLW, which remains the heavy hitter. WLW in 1939 tackled a toxigh prob- lem, reorientation to 50,000 watts after the experimental operation in super-power ended. Once the FCC and the courts made the ruling and conftimed it. WLW promptly re- vised its tactics, tightened up for a socking bout to hold its preeminence against all comers, It has rechis- tened itself 'The Nation's most mer- chandize-able station' and has been displaying plenty of fight, ingenuity and all-round showmanship. The sheer hydraulic pressure behind the 1939 readjustment .of WLW, the in- creased spread and sharpened im- pact of its respect-commanding ma- neuvers scarcely leave.= much roiom for debate as' to 'it being the be;;! nationally exploited station of the year. WCPO, purely local, has made what seem.<! an intelligent and well- balanced adjustment to its own pos- sibilities land limiCations) and the station is listed as one that perked up in 1939. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area competition between WCCO and KSTP is so intense and determined, and the command in either camp is so alert and enterprising, that li.<!- tening in the Minneapoli.s-St. Paul area must be consistently full of sur- prises if not exciting. Ifs a rivalry evidently of little lost motion, of wits kept razor-sharp and of a de- sire to make themselves an integral part of the community life and not merely, channels for netwoyk com- mercials. The twosome prove to be on their toes whether it has to' do with .special events, educational or civic features, straight entertiiinment or self-promotion. WCCO has the past year especially figured as a pointer-of-the-way in transmuting hard-to-sell periods into gold. It introduced a genuine va- riety of the sunrise species, which goes on at 6 a.m. and runs for 45 minutes. Through its Saturday Opening House (9:15-10 a.m.) the station paved the way to making food merchants conscious of the value of Saturday morning time as a reminder for housewives on the verge of starting out for their week- end buying. It also worked out a Sunday daytinie news package, an item that can mean much to listen- ers in times of major events since there's a long hiatus of printed news once the Sunday paper (often at 10 p.m. Saturday) is put to press. Both WCCO and KSTP are eon stantly on the qui vive to infu.se in terest and appeal in their educa tional and civic interludes. A WCCO winner in this department is its Min neapolis High School Radio Work shop, while KSTP can take bows on its "Tangled Lives,' a dramatic pre sentation of the problems of today's youth by the NYA Radio Workshop KSTP studiously avoids the 'stunt taint in its special event tmdertak ings, and the 'cutting room' slant it gives its 'Tales of Two Citie.s' points up the station's flair for editing and dramatic values. KSTP's allotment from the musicians union is sold to a couple of commercials and has been whipped into such shape as to be a welcome sustaining inning on the NBC red network. WCCO. KSTP and WTCN each have ,mobile units and they're kept pretty much in use. WTCN puts i lends a generous hand In giving a local promotional push to network commercials. As for publicity, the edge is .still WTCN's, what with its ownership by a coviple of the local newspapers. SIncalarly little was done in 1939 a<i between local stations and (heir na.Uonal sales repre- sentatives to establish coordina- tion in atlractlnfr advertiser at- tention to home town programs. Sonic stations do make a prac- tice of preparin); folios of avail- able local programs. There was. scattered mentloc of creatine participation programs at 'hard (o sell' times of the day or niebt at the surc«fiti'n of the sales rep In N. y. or Chi. Some towns change very little from year to year, such as Milwau- ' kee, for example. WTMJ apparent- ly has the town to itself on the sub- ject of community showmanship. Not that WISN isn't in there trying, but WTMJ has worked out the play thoroughly and put it over in touchdown form. Considering the circumstance that the town is in- evitably-somewhat of an outpost of Chicago, 'WTMJ has ideas that would do credit to stations in more impor- tant markets. Smartest trick marked up for the station , is contained in its own re- port: 'In (lie past it was customary to give to the Red Cross, Comnimiili/ Fund, etc., lS-iiitiiu(e spots, but we Sound that few speakers could hold an audience. Therefore, xue now give them a five-mintite period right in the middle of a good sustaininp or participating prot/ram, and yind that this gives the organization much bet- ter re.<iuUs ^nnd doesn't lose listeners for us).' WJJD dominates in Chicago as the station most closely identified with Chicago community life. That qual ty is the very blood and marrow of the station. Though privately owned it ranks in the true sense as a mu- nicipal station. The NBC m.o.'.s, WMAQ and WENR, have snapped out of their local sloth of recent years and now do far more than fill their unwritten requirements for the public weal, WLS, always a model of showmanly alertness, figuratively ignores the inetropolis to gather the rural folk of the hinterland into the warmth of its informative entertaining and shopkeeping embrace. WBBM finds time out of its welter of network and local commercials to keep its listeners in touch with important special events, but none too imagi- natively, while WGN plods along,- rather smugly the mouthpiece of the Tribune, with but an occasional burst of extra-curricular fire. WFAA caters handsomely to the live Stock trade, and at odd moments plays grand opera recordings and airs the regular meetings of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, WJJD doesn't slop with its bang- em-up job on the educational and special events front. It fashions a species of entertainment not to be found on the other local outlets. WJJD has materially stepped up its scope of civic service by assigning a sizeable staff to assist the 'radio chairmen' of various organizations in putting on their programs, with the result that instead of public service being the low spot on the day's sports specialist in strong form, and makes it pay added dividends by a consistent barrage of the right kind of promotion. In other words, the station has built itself a reputation in one corner of the listener-bemus- ing field and it knows how to sell it. No bet in merchandising co-op with the advertiser is passed up. During the past year WLS intro- duced the idea of farming out its talent to other and smaller stations for development. With a mobile unit on the wing, this mouthpiece of the farmer kept in touch with practically every public event that might be of interest to its li.stener clientele, and this despite a heavy cash register schedule. It has it,s sales promotion, on both national and local accounts, niftily co-ordinated, and has devised the programs that it takes to ca.sh in on what others might consider hard-to-sell time. WLS still keeps clean of commercial usurpation that' noon half-hour, the 'Dinnorbill Pro- gram.' It's strictly for .service and the station's idea of mealtime enter- tainment Its publicity director goes along with the production per.sonnel. on all outside-the-city program pickups. WMAQ and WENR further escape tagging as just network outlets by lending their facilities to covering the more important of local specicil events and the development ol stu- dio programs that strike at com- munity interest. The tie-ins include university roundtable.s, the Chicago Historical Society, high schools and special civic celebrations. L,ocal pro- motion and publicity is well in- tegrated. For WBBM the local commercial emphasis has been on sports pro- gram and it has done some pioneer- ing work in developing a cash value for Saturday morning spots. Its in- formative efforts are largely of the 'Meet Chicago' and 'Know Your Job' type, with the broadcasts emanating from industrial plants, offices, etc. The station's rep for promotional co- operation with both web and local customers remains splid. WGN's chief claim for attention during 1939 is the. aid it gave Mutual in getting the exclusive rights to the World Series broadcasts and in orig- inating the guessing game, Musico, and when its studio was thrown open for a 7:30 a.m. (Good Morning) program 600 persons flocked to the event A pertinent factor in any e.stimate of showmanship in Philadelphia is the city's proximity to New York All four network origination sta- tions are readily tuned in Philadel- phia, so the local network outlets must battle a tendency of somf hometown dialers to tune in New York direct That is particularly true in the case of WFIL, which is af filiated with NBC blue (WJZ) and Mutual (WOR), both of which have okay signals in Philadelphia. WCAU is aided by its own powerful trans milter (.50,000 watts) in holding local CBS listeners and KYW is helped by the fact thai its NBC red originating station, WEAF, is not too clear in the Philadelphia area But in every case it must be re- membered that the three largest Philadelphia" station.s, WCAU, WFIL and KYW, mu.«t compete with their own networks as well as with their local rivals. In showmanship, Philly broadcast realizing more and more that good .showmanship is concerned with pro- ficient operation of the station, in- telligent programming, participation in local affairs and policies, ralher than merely calling attention to the station, frequently by childish stunts and occasionally by becoming a pub- lic nuisance. Even so, two Philadel- phia stations this year called atten- tion to their own antics in the latter regard—one by blocking traffic with an o'utdoors loudspeaker for war bulletins, the other by sponsoring public dances that the police had to stop. There still remains the ex- ploitation executive's tendency to at- tach more importance to mention In the news columns than to the sta- tion's- prime function of supplying lislenable programs. WCAU, which has belter and more complete facilities than ils local rivals, continued to improve and in- crease those assets during 1939. It added another studio, bringing the total to 11 (the station is strong on various kinds of audience shows >, improved its technical equipment in .several ways, employed another sta- tion supervisor, so one would be in charge during all broadcast hours, ncrcased its hour.s on -the'air and greatly expanded its shortwave ac- tivities. WCAU gives extensive cov- erage to sports, airing all the A's and Phillies baseball game.s, Penn and pro football games and the usual .i.s.<iortment of local sport events, for Philadelphia Is one of the mo.st im- portant sports town-s. Because of ils nearness to New York, the slut ion (.Continued on page 23) ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦«♦«♦«*♦♦♦♦ 4-4-»-»» much time on sports coverage and .schedule it has become the peak of with the right sense of values. Like | the day's entertainment WIND, its , the other two network outlets, it sister station, retains its status as a ' be coming of age.' That is, they're' koW.kj'r '"seiiiTi" I Reporting Mobile Unit | KSTP. St. Paul. WTCN, MlnnrHpoliH. Wr.MJ, .MIlKHllkca. WUO.M, OhlcuRo. W.-KAK, <-hlrago. V/XAg, Chlraiin. WE.Nn, ChlcOKO. Wt.s. Ohlcnco. W«N, i-hlraco. WJ.IP, Chlcnsn. WI.SO, ChlcHKO. WKir,. l'hll«(l»Bhla. ^vr.K^]. PhllnOflvXiM. 'WKY. Oklnhomii. WAOC, Akron. %Vi:.><'r, .fllanta. WKKII, U.-iltln<flr«- W.SC.V, llll'mlnKham. WOU-WKBW, nutrnlo. W.-iOf, Charlotte. ■WVW, Cincinnati. •W.SAI, (.'Inclnnoil. WCAU, Olevelaiid. WHK. Clev«luml. NVIIN.S, <'oliimbus. WFAA, Dolhia. WHIO. Unytun. K0^. Denver. KFKL. Denver. Htj'/t, Drnver. K.SO-KRNT, Dea Molnta. WD AY, Fni'ica. KGKO, Kt. Worth. KFJ/.. Ft. Worth. WHI'. HiirrluhuiK. WDBC, Hartford. Wlllli:, Incllan.ipnila. KMIti'. Kansaa City. WHK, Kansaa City. KN'X, I.oa .VnKCleii. KFr, Lorn Angelen. Los AnRclea. K?l.l, Ixs AnRclen. WAVE, IJ)ui«vllle. K<;t.o. Mason i:iiy. KVO-KOO. .S;in FianclBtO- W.AIi-, .Mcmpblg. WIOI>, .Miami. WSM. Nantavllle. KDIvA, PUtnburtch. WMIIU, Itlrhmonil. KDYL. Kalt Lake. K.SU .Salt Lake. KOMO-KJR, Seattle. KFIIC, .San Francisco. KM.<. Shenandoah. KFrv, Spokane. WSYll, .Syr.TCUse. W.I.SV. Waslllniiton. W.VYC. Sf.vr Yuik. KANS, Wichita. ers, as cl.sewhere, generally seem to I jyiy.'*',;-?,'; .'"'lif'',"."'-, Previous Winners of T^rIett Plaques NATION- ALLY EXPLOITED STATION WCK"Y Cincinnati No Award WOR New York City WFBR Baltimore COM- MUNITY EXPLOITED STATION KFPY Spokane KWK St. Louis WON Chicago KVOR Colorado Springs, Colo. CANADIAN STATION CFRB Toronto No Award No Award