Variety (Dec 1940)

Wednesday^ December 4^ 1940 Thompson To bid bold's radio ilate Is being. Avashed clein so that the new agency on the account, j. Walter Thompson, cjin havei; a fresH start in that direc- i'loii immediately aftei: the first '.ol th0 year. Cancellation notices on the cig brand's Texas Rangers regional arid transcription campaign went out last week through Lennen & Mitchell, which placed the .business, with Jan. 3 the termination date. Texas Rang- er^s has been getting a live .release over the CBiS Pacific link and tran- ■ Jscribed versions of it have been ruri- hingori some 20-odd other stations. Sensation, another Lorillard cig, is tntcing over the' two. ;quarter-houV; ; spots on the, GBS regional affected bv the Old Gold cancellation. The i))acements will be two quiz. shows now running on the Don Lee Net- work, nam^lyi 'Don't Be Personal* jirtd 'Talk Your Way , Out of This One.' .Switch becomes efTective RADIO 37 NEW SCRIPPS-HOWARD U.P. Hanrahim^ Waticri, Waiterraard Get TUlCii In Rtorr. Scrlpps-Howard Radio, Inc., now hai an execdtiy* vice-president and two v.p.'i under the organization's president, .Jack Howard. Jamiss Han- rahan wai m.ov«d up .from v.p. to executiv* v.p. and the titles of v.pi. went to Mortimer Watters, general mhnager of WCPO, Cincinnati, and Dick Westergaard, of WNOX, Kriox- Vllle;-;, in liaming Wiatters .and Wester- gaard; bfficers of the company the directors figured that much time .would;be saved when it ;came to sig- naturing jFCC reports and; corpora- tion papers. : Instead of sending doci uments to the home office for such signatures Ihe - stations* heads can now conveniently do it themiselyes. Report on Tecl GoU - Ted- ;Cprt,: vwhose 'So ■ You Think .You Know Music' is a part of the Schaefer beer show, has . [irdduced ; ftiid directed a new flve-a-wieek sei-ial called 'Live for Tomorrdw,' Vhich ! has been recorded for; aftency Hudi- ti.oiu Cast includes Morris Carnov- i sky, Bernard Zcinville and F'rances. I .■';On.ver.' ■ -.'-.J' •■■■i ; Prbducer-directbr has also been appointed managing •direclpi' of Ihie . hewiy-bpened children's record der vpartmcnt of Musicraft Records, Inc. Raymond Paige Directs In Pittsburgh Dec. 12 Raymond Paige will baton. the Pittsburgh; Symphony orchestra in- stead of his regular group for the Dec. 12 broadcast of the 'Musical Americana' program,' Which will originate In ; the Syrian Mosque, Pittsburgh. John Charles Thomas iahd Helen Jepson will be guest solo- ists for the shoW. Visual audience will; be chiarged ah admission scaling to $6, proceeds, of which wll go to pay off the dehcil of the Pitfeburgh. symph. There will be a studio shoW to ipllow the broadcast. Westinghouse. is bank- rolling tlve entlrer works. ; Amateur Thespians Play HKO Rochester, N. Y.. Dec. 3. riaycraffers, winhers in WHEG-; Lauers- aihattur dramatic cbntest, 8ta{;cd one-act play, 'The New Bride,' at RKO;- Palaice on publicily str.englh' of; victory,-•■ ■ _ Store, used pictui;e; of group In large ad ,to pllig the single pertprjti- nnce. ..-■■ . A June Battle • ; .Los ArigeleSi Dec. 3. . Who's who in the June; Knight club, will be decided" by iuperior court; ;Wher.e a $25,000 danriage suit, has beiEin filed by June Cameron, actress, against -June.; Paickard, ac- tress, for. the right to use the pro- fessional name, -June; Knight.' ; In addition to damages, Miss Cameron asks an injunction, to re-, strain Miss Packaird from using the Knight , appellation.. EXPERIMENTS NEH, RCA WORKS TOWARD NETWORKS Kaufman Gb^ii Radio George S. Kaufman ■spotted' : in, at CBS, N. Y., by Lanhy Ross during his Franco spaghetti show .last week was called to the :mi-' ; crpprone and accorded a flossy , reception but remained mum un- til a^ked why. Satirist answered: .'I was waiting for a quiz ques- tion, so r cpuId win sPme money.' After the program Kaufman was tendered a chPck for $150 for 'exp'jhses'. which he refused, saying; he thought he could taxi to the- Lyceum theatre for less. House h.is: his and Mess Hart's 'George Washirigtoh Slept Here/ To further pluR the show. ■ Kaufman went on CBS with CoL Stoopnagle Sunday (1), . mak- ing frequent mention of the 'George Washington' show. Au- thor was egged on by the press department. Mullen and Morton Discuss Status With New York Press—Still Same Number of Employees as Be- fore FCC Crackdown Tom Modre, who has been working on Black Horse Ale copy and general contact"! In Montreal, back in New York ofTice of J. Walter Thompson. ON NBC BUI . ' Staqk-Goble agency had added still another band to its list. It's Orrin Tucker plus Bonnie Baker for Yeast- foam (Consolidated Chemical Co.) Time contract calls for Sunday 5:30- 6 p.m. on the NBC blue. Series will start either Jan. 5 or 12. Same agency also has Horace Heidt, Tommy Dorsey and Tommy; Tucker, for TumX and. K-I. (Lewis- Howe), Hike for WISN, Milw'kee ' WISN, Milwaukee, has obtained a construction permit for 5,000 watts day and night on 1120 k.c. . . - It now operates at 1.000 watts days and 250 watts at night By HOBE MORRISON Regardless of whether the National Tellivision Systems' Committee 'is- sues a go-ahead in its" report due next month, the primary problem in television is still a technical rather than a programming one. That view was expressed by Frank K Mullen, NBC vice-president and general man- ager-, and A. H. Morton, vice-presi- dent in charge, of television, iri a press conference luncheon last Thursday (28) at the Waldorf-As- toria,. N. Y. ■. Asserting that NBC is spending about $500,000 a year on television research and that its number of em- ployees working on television: is as large as before the FCC/ handed down its decjsibn some' mpriths agp holding up commercial television; Mullen announced that the company will begin ; testing theatre television with 9-by-12 .screen within four weeks. New Yorker theatre, in 53d street hear Broadway, N. Y., will be used for the tests and an enlarged screen 15-by-20 feet may soon be' .iised) the. network exec asserted. Explaining^ that the programming problems would await solution of many remaining technical difficulties, the two. NBC. officials listed the mat- ter of FM broadcasting in conjunction with visio, use of color, synchrpniza- tiPn ahd various other points, for ex^ perimenting. It was stated that NBC is definitely planning on a television network; with New York. Philadel^ phia and Washington as the first key points, so as to make possible a y/ider distribution of overhead for the more iexpensive medium. Coax- ial cable already connects New York and Philiy. but will have to be ex- tended to Washington. Sites in the two other cities will have to be chosen and .transmitters constructed, it;was added. Question of the possible effect of the international situation. on tele- vision came in for extensive discus- sion by Mullen and Morton.. It was pointed out that with radio expected to play a vital part in any national emergqpcy in thie. U. S., it would be out of the question to launch a new industry such as television if a war crisis were to develop. On the other hand, it was explained, all new in"" dustries, television 'included, would. help take up the slack in the in- evitable post-war economic and pro- duction letdown. . . Morton estimated that there are some 4:000 television receivers in tfie New York area, basing his figure on the assumption that NEC's mailing list covers about 75% of the total. Predicting that when NBfC resumes •rcTiilar television transniission it will be on a schedule of about three to five, hours a day. Morton indi- cated his belief that procrams for the most part would tend to be " the genera] nature of spot news coy- erntre and the'like. Speculating on the future of com- mercial television. Morton predicted that such establishments as depart- ment stores, which have alwa.vs de- pended on visual appeal in mer- chandising, and adycrtisin.g. ipight find the new medium profitable.' He said he believes that various kinds of sponsors 'will go for it;' MBS' Grand Junction Station KXFJ, Grand Junction, Col., joined the Mutual network ef- fective Sunday (1). It has 250 watts power and airs on 1200 kc. Brings the number of Mutual af- filiates to 163. CHARLOTTE. N ® wo 50,000 WATTS CBS s For mart information bout WBT, en* of the fixteai CBS 50,000 watt stations, inquire of Radio Sales: Sew York, Chicago. Detroit, St. Louis, San FrancUco, Lo» Ansele» lA'S STATI n i A 1 tn ft 11 \J 1^ 1