Variety (Jan 1949)

HOW TO STAY YOUNG! By FRANK STAINTON (President; Coluntbia Broadcasiing System) U the secret of staying young is, to keep developing, to keep moving froni one frontier to the next, to keep making tomorrow better than | \e^terclay, broadcasting evidently lias hold ol that secret. No industry in ancient or modern times has ever packed so much ex- citement and development into so tew years as broadcasting. And now, alter a quarter-century of galloping expansion, broadcasting has taken another deep breath and is; moving into another, new cycle even more fciioiting or important than what we've just been through. For broadcasting, of course, is now television as well as radio. These are twin electronic miracles to stir men's imaginations with new op- portiiriities to move ideas and goods, and to send entertainment and cul ture and news into every corner of every .honie in America. But observe that I call them ''twin" electronic miracles. I do not say , "successive" miracles, one following the other. For the most idle of all talk today is the talk that already has radio wrapped in a shroud, readj tor quick burial "now that television is here." Teleyision is here, cer- tainly. This "baby giant" of communication is growing faster than al- ■jnbsil anyone expected; is outperforming even the fondest hopes ol its fondest parents. ■ But is radio cowering in a corner shrinking before the sight and | sbund of television? Not so you could notice it. Is radio's expansion . stopped? Have you seen the latest figures? Is radio going to be pushed aside as an outworn, old-fashioned "listening box?" No more than radio itsell destroyed the piano or phon ograph. i , Hold Off on the Funeral |^ I'm sure that everj' Variety reader has seen or heard diflerenlly. 1 You have all seen or heard of swrveys which show radio listening drop-' Ping way off in television homes You have heard how, here and there, ' budgets have been shifted out ol radio and other media into television You have heard the cry: "Goodbye radio. Goodbye magazines. Here , comes television!" I But don't get dressed up for the funeral. For a great deal of radio i iind television material comes across my desk every day. Aqd-thc lacts I ©1 lile just don't bear the" sob-sisters out. - " ' ' ' | • Of course, there has been some fall-ofl' of radio listening in television liomes. Was there ever a bright baby that didn't get a great deal of I special attention? But to take tlie indications of current television re-' .search and say: "This is what television is like, and will be" is preciscb , like saying that the spotlight any bright baby gets in the family will be no dillerent when that baby grows up and lives as an adult among | adults. . " ' • In these past two great years of television's growth, what happened to radio? Radio set., ownership increased bv 20,000,000 sets! - Even more significant: radio listening has reached a new all time high ■ for war or peace, Nielsen reports four hours and 19 minutes ol radio listening for the average family each day, in the last full year ol record "^a full hour more listening per day tlian in 1941 and 1942. ■ And remember that Americans as a whole continue to get more and niore leisure time—-one ot the most important of all trends in America today—with more hours of the day* and more days of the week, for more people to fit in both radio and television. Television has its great virtues, radio has its great virtues—and in no fAmeriean family can either one or the other ever hope to satisfy all the hicmbers of the family all the time. Above all, remember radio's sr/.e. It i.s 91% as large as the United States Itself today—with 37,623.001) families. 94';'( of all American lam- flies, owning one or more radio sets: and with the vast majority of 'America's new automobiles today equipped with a radio as virtually ctandard equipment. Thus, even at the current and anticipated rate of television receiver •production (a miracle in itself! i, television, cannot reach one-eighth of 'today's total of radio families lor another two years at the least. This gives you a strong clue about radio's program schedules in the years ahead. For radio is the oniy universal advertising medium in the 'nation today, as widely distributed as the air itself in every type of mar^ ket. every type of home, every part ol the nation. ■ That is why America's advertisers-will eontinue' to use radio's, pror jgranis as enthusiastically and lieavily as they do now (and will continue to.look for better and belter programs to get the most out of their radio dollar). They know that "every customer owns a radio." They need radio's universal coverage of all marltets to maintain their sales and profits. i ■ These advertisers will use television too. for additional pressure in | television's^ growing markets. They will add television to their adver- i tising: arsenal, just as the American family is adding television to its i basic entertalntnent and news and cultural sources. i • So we'll face In the future what we've become familiar with in the j part—the healthy competition lor the American family's time and at- I lention by aU media; a competition which insures (as good competition always does) steady improvements on every front, especially in pro^ ■graxnraing. . ■ ■ • And no broadcaster will have a 'chance to grow old! r-:c: - \ Boffs In a Broom Closet How Do You Make A Hit? By HllBBELL ROBINSON, JR. (Program Vice-President, CBS) That's the triple-decker jackpot question, for any showman. If I knew a simple surefire answer f wouldn't be pecking away at this clatter box. I'd just be counting my capital gains. But after 18 years of association with a variety of hits and misses, I think tlicre are sign- posts which point the way to Hitville." The signposts read time, patience and people. If that seems obvious, tliere is an appalling number of people wlio are ignoring the obvious. When It comes to time there is no substitute for it. Sliows wliicli arc created against an arbitrar>' dateline are usually poorly made sliows. Wellmade shows ate those with which the creators have had time to "live" before they ever put their wares before the critics and the pulilie. A half-hour of entertainment doesn't just happen. The creators have to know the characters for whom they are writing as well as thov know their own wives and considerably better than they know their girl friends. They must know not only the principals but all thc subordinate characters and their relation to each other. They must know just what they would and would not say under any given set of circumstances. : "Irma" was a year in the making Tlie Godfrey shows had an equal amount of time and sweat, blood and tears poured into their making. Months have gone into ttie readying of the Godfrey TV productions. It took eight months to bring "Miss Brooks" off the drawing board and into a studio. Tlie Morey Amsterdam show had six months of work bef ore it went befor e the microphones. 1% Good Bnltiii": Avera«»e | PI.»i« 7-0700 JACKSON BECK Actop>Announc«r-(larrator And Television) Too! =By ART HENLEY= I wi.sh I could get the alarm | clock concession in L. A. and N. Y. For now that TV is hurting; the b o. of AM in the p.m., night- time radio may soon sliiit to, the lianKOvei' hours between dawn and dusk. And top names are already b'inking their; eyes . at. the '. glare ■ ol the sun on the wet ink ot their new contracts that put them on the day shift. Crosby. Kyser, War-; ing, Ameche and'even Mrs. Roose- : velt are working under-j;he solar system. Of course there's a difference between having fun in the sun and getting laughter by lamplight. The frantic pace in tlie race for bofls by night must give way to a. more leisurely approach to comedy, True, it may spell the end of the ulcer and thus destroy a lucrative source, of daytime money: the milk companies: But it's a fact to be faced squarely. Even now. vvrit;ers are snuffing out their eandles earlier and getting their Vitamin n from Old Sol instead of Old Granddad. There seem to be just about five kinds of da,vtime programs around: 1. The soap operas, whose ranks appear de.st;ined to dwindle to a state of obscurity, approaching that ot bathtub gin the Literary Digest and unreclaimed Dewey butt:ons. 2. The disk lockoys. who will be with us as long as.; there is Petrillo, who will be with uS as long as there is 3 The audi- ence participation sliows. which will probably be on the upswing again to provide more good clean wholesome refrigerators, and may- be give away some fun to daytime listeners. 4. The interview pro- grams, who.se tribe cannot readily increase until some substitutes are found for commercials and au- thois. 5. The variety shows, and here is where the revolution will occur chiefly with more big names in comedy and music scheduled to take to the kilocycles in the .sun*' drenched hours between Arthur Godfrey a nd Edwin C Hill. T o The Ladies " ' " ~ ~1 A new audience is wailingTtTbe wooed, an audience used to being wooed: the ladies. You will have to entertain them over the s'wish- swosh of the kitchen mop, , above the gurgle oi dishwater dribbling , down a clogged drain, on top of. the cries of tots, the yipings of chihuahuas, the jangle of door- bells and telephones, the calls of' bill collectors ■ and window-wash- ers. ,.■ ■ ■ : : It's time for the personality, ; vMth a blinking eye on sunlit kilo- ' CNcles to leara how to ad-lib. Thi.-i IS very simple< AU he or .she needs is a good writer, a patient director and the ability to leart what isn't quite on the paper. The best of i ad-libs have always been written, as the best of ad-libers viU tell you. They are written into a script so naturally, so briefly, that the personality can throw them away. You can't try too hard or too long in daytime radio. This is why soap opera heroines breathe so heavily and so often and why interviewers drone on and squeeze every lemon to the pulp. -You've i got to have fun and play easy for daytime means time to play, usu- ally across the board, with nola- roid vision and a bare modicum of benzedrine. But don't play too hard. And at night, relax by tak- ing pot. shots at the guy who in- vented television. Tune, of course, is one asset the netwvorks have. We think-it's more than an asset. It's a responsibility. Wo have the opportunity to create new properties and ti-y them out: develop them into values that will interest agencies and their clients. But only a long view approach will discharge that responsibility successfully. It can't be done by building shows quickly to meet sudden emergencies. It means always having more shows ready.,than you have open spots to fill. And that means a continuing, relentTess effort to find the best possibilities and make them "happen" as shows. If I'r-o of your starts finish on the air, .vou're doing fine. ^ . That's why patience is such a vital signpost in trying to arrive at a hit. No matter how well you start, there are bound to be those mo- ments of blank despair when you vvonder why you ever tried,when, the doubters seem sure to be vindicated, when your closest as.sociatcs s"cni like idiotsi your star a temperamental cretin, your writers fugitives from a grade school. It is then it seems the only man in history equal, to the task is Job. And even after you are underway; an:acknowledged: hit, things can suddenly collapse. . Parts of a show-^writers-or per- formers or directors—suddenly begin to give at the seams. A properly , that seemed headed for the top suddenly wavers and careens. Even an enthusiastic bankroller can abruptly evidence, what.seems to you. at least, unmistakable traces of dementia. And often a good properly that is going along swimmingly finds it seemingly ; impossible to find a taker: "Crime Photographer" was a non-paying boarder on CBS for ' a year and a half before it started its long and successful career as a ; big league audience-getter. "Suspense" has been such a long time aristocrat that it's hard to remember it went its lonely and unsponsored way for nine months before it started to play for pay. And not only relative newcomers like those tagged above but the succes.ses that have been up there so long they're legends have the same trouble. It's only because of their limitless-patience, understand* ing and sympathy coupled with their great basic sk-ill that Jack Benny, George Burns, Ed Gardner, to name a few of'which I can I speak from experience, have kept their shows among the leaders year in and year out, have sen.sed and repaired weaknesses before they became crises, have toiled and painstakingly improved and improved I their techniques, their conception and their execution until their shows , are ones of whose craftsmanship the whole industry can be proud. i Which serves well enough to emohasize the importance ol people in making a hit. Not .lUst any people but men whose consuming in-; : terest :jn life is making the show or shows which bear their label, hits. ■ It must be not only an occupation but a pre-occupation. Nothing else- ' can be quite that important. Divided interests can have no place among those who hope to land a show at the top. This, in turn, means people whose lite is the entertainjnont business, who find it so irresistible, so compelling they are not only willing but want to see, hear, study it through all their waking hours and dream about it after that. If they do.enough of that, long enough and have a basic talent the dreams become less bad. They even make some of the good ones come true. 1 They become professionals. Thej' build standards of professionalism from which they won't depart. Competition in the radio business lias gradually eliminated most of the people unwilling to give it that kind ot concentration; that unswerving fealty. It is that kind of absorption ■ with the job, that can be credited to showmen such as Harry Ackerman^ Cy Howard, Irving Mansfield, Jesse Oppenheimcr, CaroU; Carroll. . People like.that coupled with time for them to develop their ideas, pdtience -while the creative function gets under-way, :sputters. wavei^ and then gets going again may not get you a hit. But you can put it in the book you won't get one without them. Gfftetingii tp all. of my friends JOHN GIBSON "Ethelbert" CRIME PHOTOGRAPHER "Mr. Peatherfield' MILTON B£RLE A«R SHOW