Variety (Dec 1946)

84 RADIO Wednesday, December 4, 1946 Inside Stuff-Radio Spokesman for American Jewish Congress last week answered N. Y. Times columnist Arttiur Kroclc on latter's eliarges ot press freedom in- frinBemont. Kroclc liad claimed tliat tlie FCt', by talong into account Us basis lor decision whellier (lie N. Y. Daily News should be awarded an FM license) charges by AJC that the News showed racial bias m. its-nevvs and editorials, was abridfiinft the freedom of the press guarantee of the First Amendment. Answer was made by Alexander H. Pekclis, prol al NeW':Sipi)Ool Graduate Faculty, in, a letter to the Times last Wednesday '''(27)'' ■■■^ " "Tiie News," said Pekelis, "not only applied for a radio license as a hewspaper, and set forth its. newspaper policy in the proceeding—but also declared that 'this policy will carry over to the radio station. . It was therefore the, News which invited the: comniisston to look into, what. j.t had done'in print in order to find but what :it intended to, do on; the. M^^^^ True enough, when its invitatio'n wa.« accepted, the News resented it. But obviously it cannot have it both wa\s. It cannot invoke its newspaper ,,ljgUey' to;supB6rt its case,!tH^^ (he. same time„pri5vent its opponents from examining that policy, , "Moreover, it should not be overlooked that what is being discussed at the FCC hearing is not the News' unchailen.eed constitutional right to cdn^ tinue to be the kind of newspaper it has cliosen to become-^but onlj*- its right to hold a public trust and franchise. The manner in which a consti- tutional right is exercised may have a legitimate bearing upon the fltnoss of a candidate for a position of trust and confidence. "The Case of the News goes to the very heart of the commission's regu- latory power. The United, States has adopted a unique system, unparalleled in other countries, for the control of broadcasting. Congress has rejected both the idea of public censorship and that of a public monopoly. It has confined public control to the selection of private licensees and' has left with those licensees sole responsibility for the proper use of the facilities it has put at their disposal. t "This is a daring experiment, based on the belief that properly selected private licensees prompted by the profit motive will be capable of perform- ing a delicate public duty." KrOdk, answering Pekelis, still i.nsisted he was right. Even if the News had defensively originated this issue and no. one had thought of raising of meeting it, he said, ''I continue to believe that for the FGC to enter- tain it is a conditioning of press freedom and therefore an abridgement." Although Judge T. Alan Goldsborough barred broadcasting from the trial of John L. Lewis in Washington last week, the network and indie stations alike in the D. C, hurdled the obstacle. Throwing their entire newsrooms into the breach they effected an up-to-the-minute coverage ot the proceeding. NBC covered the trial by direct telephone lines to WRC transmitter and to New York after Goldsborough made the ruling, CBS ducked the "no direct lines out of the court" rule by setting up WTOP's mobile trans- mitter outside the court building with lines maneuvered through a third- rfory Window. Gunnar Back and Winston Burdett broadcast the proceed- ings at 10 and 10:45 a.m. The mobile transmitter shortwaved- their shows to the WTOP transmitter, from which they were fed to the full network. ABC also got a line into th« District Court building before Judge .GoldB- borough ruled them out of order. As a result John Edward and Jack Beall covered the trial for ABC with few headaches. Macon Reed, WOL-Mutual' newsman, look his wire-recorder to court with him and asked John U for a quote. All he got was a glare. Beed nimbly told his radio audience they would hear "two seconds of genume recorded silence" from the mine chief. For the second successive year, the National Council ot YlVTCA's is running a contest for the best radio script that "will help most, in the opinion of the .iudges, to stimulate in individuals a desire to live thefr cvery-dav lives in a way that will help promote international peace." Prize is $500 and guarantee ot production. Conducted by Henriette K. Harrison, national radio director for the YMCA, the contest will be judged by a committee composed of Sam Woore, prexy of Radio Writers Guild; Helen Siou.ssat, CBS director of talks; Bob Saudek, public service director for ABC net; Frank Papp, public service program producer-direc- tor for NBC; and Harper Sibley, chairman of international committee of YMCA. Contest tloses Jan. 31 and winner will be announced early in March. ■ ' Networks who've been kicking because they don't get any news out of Russia thi-ough their correspondents had the chance this week to air Mos- cow's No. 3 man on foreign relations, Andrei Vishinsky, deputy foreign niihister, who ranks only below Stalin and Molotov in his sphere. But they turned the opportunity down. Vishinsky spoke Monday night (2) before a Madison Sq. Garden (N, Y.) rally arranged by the National Council of American Soviet Friendship. Each net in turn nixed an invitation to carry Vishinsky. Rcfasona were: It's too late, we have commercial commitments, we don't like a foreign speaker, etc. Vishinsky, whose English is not good, was translated by Popov, interpreter for Molotov; but the nets would have none of the show anyway. : Meyerhoff Buys Into IKw Milwaukee Outlet Chicago, Dec. 3. New Milwaukee 1 lew outlet on 1430 kc, which ftled application with FCC last week, is toeing backed flnan. cially by Arthur MeyerholT, Chi« cago ad agency head. Meyerholf holds only six of the listed 100 shares, with George Grabin, also of the Meyerhoff agency, coming in for 10 shares ol the new station, tabbed as the An- dave Radio Co. Staging that he had no interest ia the station as a test market, Meyer- hoff further claims he will have no active function in the new setup. Other stockholders of Andave are; Fred Froede, Milwaukee bank prez, 24 shares; Sydney . Charney, 20 shares; Gerald Bartell, 10 shares; Ben Barkin, five Shares, and Lee K. Bez- nor, five shares. "HIRES TO YA'" FOR SECOND YEAR HIRES SUNPAY PARTY ARC. eoAsr-TO-eoAsi Station Porter Trapped . Stealing Money Letters , Louisville, Dec. 3. Porter at WHAS, Christopher Co- lumbus Sykes, was arrested last week and charged with stealing more than 500 letters containing money sent to the station by listen- ers. W. Lee Coulson, station man- ager, said suspicions were aroused when letters began disappearing regularly some time in September. A trap was laid for the porter afiout 10 days ago. Sykes made full confession after his arrest and lad the police to more than 500 letters in a garage at his home, most of which wera unopened.; He is pastor of a Baptist church in LaGrange, Ky., and said he had taken about $200 from letters he had opened. At least two of the hetworks that were embroiled with American Fed- eration of Radio Artists on "secondary boycott-small station" clause matter will be met With a similar headache in January or February. At that time negotiations with the National Assn. of Broad'cast Biigineers and Techni- cians are expected to start and NABET will very probably again press for an agreement that will cancel feeds to affiliates of NBC and ABC, in which NABET has jurisdiction, at which technicians are on strike. If the nets continued to feed a station where NABET men were actually on strike, the situation would in effect make,NABET men at program sources strike breakers against their own outfit. In a move to widen coverage during its 1947 drive, the March of Dimes is preparing a series of foreign language e.t.'s to be used by indies catering to the various nationar groupings. First of the platter series was turned out last week at WOV featuring top Italian radio talent. Roster included Enrico Caruso, Jr., as emcee, with Margaret Rogero. mezzo soprano; the Ciaremella's, Neapolitan comics; and Nicola Paone, Italian musical folklore expert.. Lisa: Sergio makes the pitch far the March of Dimes in Italian^ Studio facilities, orchestra directed by Paul Romeo and producer Renzo Sacerdote were supplied by WOV. ABC net show. World Security Workshop, will air a Washington-pre- miered "plea for tolerance" program—"Memo to the People"—Thursday (5), at 10 p.m., e.s.t. The play was written and produced by Sol Panitz, public service director for WINX and WINX-FM, Washington indepen- dents. It was first broadcast lOver WINX as a V-J Day ani^iversary pro- gram last August, Clifton Fadiman wiir narrate the play for the ABC broadcast. ■ Baseball-Tele Continued from page 1 ; tft^ On your memo pad. w iwher* it says^ '^o ^ ^ i your (Shrislmas'shopping early".,. better add another note: "WTM and 200,000 radio fam^es join Columbia on January 1,1947." Put an exclamation mark beside it and "ACTION NOW" in big, ibold,letters beeause this is a new, powerful selling combina- tion. It blankets three prosperous cities of Albany, Troy and Sche- nectady, plus eight high ineome counties* where people earned nearly a M{«0n dollars last year. If you delay you may be disappointed. WTRY's best time spots, itt most popular loeal programs will bring the most profitable returns to advertisers who schedule this new WTRY-CBS combi- nation early. The good availabilities wont be open for long. This is certain. Wire or call US or the nearest Head|j5y-lleed ( today. You won't be sorry (unless you put it off). «BMBsay« it's 12 counties. MMy-Tny-SclMmcMir ■MiMiiiiTnyMiMMr iMfMilffln-SllfllmlirliiiUni Walter Thomps6n ad agency for Ford to pick up the. tab on at least .50 of the 77 homes games. Ford is currently the top bankroUer of I sports events on video and already has a deal with CBS to sponsor many events from Madison Sq.:, Garden this winter. John F, Royal, NBC tele chief, reportedly wanted to sign with both the Yanks and Dodgers and made .several visits to MacPhail's office waving a check for $80,000 in his hands. MacPhail, however, after ftrst holding out for more money from NBC than he accepted from DuMont, finally decided he wanted to sell to a .station that had no other team, so signed on with DuMont. Royal is assertedly satisfied with his Giant pact, though, figuring N. Y. is basically a Giants' town and that the club should eventually perk up to emulate its league-leading tend- encies of several years ago. NBC Carried Bmll All three tele nets covered base- ball on an experimental basis last year, with the big league prexies willing to let them in for nothing then, NBC carried the brunt of the schedule, scanning two ■ or three games a week of at least one of the. three teams all during the season. Web got a taste of things to come during the final playoff series between the Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals when It was forced to pay $6,500 for rights to the game played in N. Y. Specific plans lor selling baseball to television stations are expected to be made at the baseball owners' meet Dec. 31. > Since the television scene varies with each city in ac cordance to the number of sets on the market, it's believed the owners will allow sale of video rights to be the prerogative of each local manager. W3KB (Balaban & Katz, Chicago), for instance, experimented with picking up several home games of the Chicago Cubs last year but, with the few number of home- owned sets in Chi, the station couldn't afford to pay high prices to the Wrigley club. Team owners are expected to pay strict attention to the effect of tele vision on their gate receipt:;. Most of them, however, believe that video will tend to boost attendance at ball parks in much the same way radf<) did by creating fans out of people who hadn't , previously paid much interest to the game. MacPhail, for instance, predicts that he'll gain two new customers for each old fan who decides to watch xfie game from the comfort of his, own easy Chair. AFRA Continued from page 27 WTEY-FM BOWS Troy, Dec. 3. WTRY-FM went on the air at 3 p.m. Sunday, with a dedicatory pro- gram from studios on the third floor of the Proctor Theatre Building, Greetings from the mayors of Troy, Albany and Schenectady, and from the General Electric-owned WGY, WGFM and WRGB, Schenectady, were broadcast. Cincinnati—WKRC has a tiein with RKO theatres for gifts of min- iature records to and by individuals during the pre-Yule season, the cut- ting being done by the station's engineers at afternoon and night intervals in lobbies 'Of three down- town houses. CAKE * ity of the station's talent signed up for membership, call and win an NLRB election, call for negotiations with the station, and be in position to prove that the station stalled and did not negotiate in good faith. All that takes months. Fun Begins In Fall at'47 AFRA expects to be ready to put the ''unfair" tab on stations by the fall of 1947. And then the fun be- gins. AFRA agrees in the contract never to strike one network if there are unfair stations on another net— i.e., there will be no discrimination against the nets or stations. But AFRA does not have to declare more than one station "unfair" at one time. It can mop up with one station, before it tackles another. It will not be violating its network contract, its members. on other shows and other nets will still be getting the agreed-upon scales. All else, after having won this victory, is negotiable, which is what both AFRA and the nets meant when they issued a statement last Friday (29) about how beautifully the negotiations were progressing. Having bowed on this one point, the nets had not far to go. There was never'any doubt that a compromise Could be reached between the nets and AFRA on all other important issues like scales, basic shows, etc. The networks are not expected to win .in their desire to have a scale set for five-minute and 10-minute shows, although AFRA may give on this: too. AFRA has already con- ceded the argument about regional contracts, as long as the negotiations are held simultaneously. Talks re- sumed in New York yesterday (Tuesday) after AFRA reps had ar- rived from Chi" and the Coast. An Arthur 1. Church Prerfvction • HOTEL PICKWICK, KANSAS CITY C, MO. Albaity-iEd Walker, publicity and promotion director for WTBY, has resigned to become promotion man- ager for the Albany fimes-Union.