Variety (November 1954)

Wednesday, November 3, 1954 P%RlETT TV-FILMS , 39 TIME OUT TO GINGER VIDPIX Charles Wick's Telefilm Enterprises appears to have latched on to the most prolific publicity-generating personality since Lib- erace in the person of Inspector Robert Fabian, the retired chief of Scotland Yard’s murder squad, who’s the subject of the firm’s “Inspector Fabian, of Scotland Yard” telepix series. Couple of months ago, Fabiaff got a front-page spread in the^FBrpnto Teler gram when he agreed , to investigate a kidnapping case there; last week he topped this, by getting front-page spreads in all the 25 Scripps-Howard papers with the announcement that he would cover the Sheppard murder trial in Cleveland for the newspaper Chain. Toronto publicity resulted in a major regional deal for the telepix series with Molson’s Brewery, and Wick is almost afraid to think what the Scripps-Howard play might bring. Aside from the by-lined pieces daily in the Scripps-HOward papers, Fabian’s, trial coverage is being fed to more than 80 other newspapers through United Features; In New; York,, the S-H World-Telegram & Sun broke the details of the coverage, which began Monday •d), last Thursday (28) with a front-page spread including a two- column picture of the sleuth* Fabian is in the U.S. on a lecture tour in connection with his two books. on his Yard experiences. He appears briefly in each of the telefilm episodes, which star Bruce Seton as Fabian. Atlantic Productions, the John 4 Alien-Bob Mann telefilm' produc- tion outfit producing ‘‘Mandrake the Magician” and ‘‘Charter Boat” in Bermuda, is in the midst of a reorganization. Discussions are tak- ing place in New York and Ber- muda this week which if successful vill bring about a reshuffling and ■j a resumption of production on both series. Atlantic shut down its Dar- rell’s Island operation three weeks ago, after turning out nine “Man-’ drake” films for ABC Syndication and six of the “Charters;” for which a distribution deal hasn’t been set. ..Manny who’s president of Atlan- tic, said in N. Y. this week that several production snags caused the shutdown, but described it as perfectly normal. More trouble has been caused by rumors than any- thing else, he said, pointing out that if a production : outfit stopped shooting in N. Y. or Hollywood it would pass unnoticed, but in Ber- muda “it’s like operating in a gold- fish bowl.” What actually happened, Marin, said, is what happens when- ver a new company is formed and a production team gets together for the first time—mistakes are made and there has to be a breathing spell during which time the pro- ducers look over their mistakes arid try to plan to avoid them for the future. Firm is backed by local Bermu- dians, and under the current re- organization they presumably would remain in the picture. John Gibbs, who agented the ABC deal on “Mandrake,” planed to the island Friday (29) for meetings, and it’s understood Jhere have been meet- ings this week in N* Y. Reorgani- zation, if it' comes about, would be consummated this week. J ust what did happen at the Pan American air base which was con- verted into, film studios isn’t know , but there were, reports from Bermuda this week that liens, have been placed against the firm as soon as it was heard 1 that pro- duction had stopped. Crews were; sent back to tile States and ; one group of technicians went off. to Rome on another assignment. Reruns on ‘North’ Los Angeles, Nov. 2. Suit involving reruns of the “Mr. nd Mrs, North” telefilms was filed in Superior.. Court by Federal Telefilms, Inc., asking an account- ing from John W. Loveton, Vir- ginia F, Loyeton and Advertisers Television Program Service, Inc. Complaint also asks the appoint- ment of a receiver and an injunc- tion. Plaintiffs claim that Loveton Paid what purported to be 15% of the proceeds of the reruns after deducting distribution fees of 30%. They contend.-that the deal called mr 15% off the top. Closed-Circuit Client What’s believed' to be the firjst telepix sale to a commu- ity antenna systerii for local Origination over its own closed- circuit was wrapped up last •week by Guild Films. It sold the “Joe Palooka” to the community antenna outfit operating in Livingston, Mont. Community antenna firms traditionally have picked up . signalg of: regular tv stations via towers and mountain-top installations and piped them into homes via a closed-circuit. But with the development of the vidicon camera, it’s become possible for them to originate their own shows for their closed-circuit clientele. Vidi- cori merely picks up the pic- ture off a projector. Official. Films will distribute the nevv Gil Lamb starrer “Bozo the 1 Clovvn,” the half-hour juve series based on the Capitol kidisk series which Hal Roach. Jr. is producing on the Coast. Official is handling the. show on a straight distribution basis, and is putting it up for na- tional or regional sale only, with With a Feb. 1 airdate .tagged on the series. “Bozo/’ the creation of Capitol artists ,& repertoire chief Alan Livingston, has been a top entry in the juvenile record field for eight years, with a sales mark of 1,300,000 disks racked up in that' period. Capitol has a couple of touring “Bozos” making personal appearance tours among dealers arid stores, and- Official will add additional clowns to visit sponsors i various markets. In addition, it will back up the show \yith an - panded merchandising version of Capitol’s present operation, which includes comic books, dolls, etc., based on the character. Acquisition of the “Bozo” series (Continued on page 40) Seiler’s TV Bow . Hollywood, Nov. 2. One of the. real directorial vets of the pix biz, William A. Seiter, made his megging debut in tv over the weekend, on “Marked Down,” Ida Lupino starrer for “Four Star Playhouse.” It was. the first time Seiter had. directed at RKO Pathe since 1921, when it was the Thomas Ince studio, and he niegged a Doug- las McLean starrer, “Bellboy 13.” J. Gwen Bagni penned teleplay of “Down,” which has Hal March, Joan Banks and Peter Raynold in support. Current rush of jiew product into syndication is causing some: indus- try executives to ask whether it isn’t time for some fundamental changes in production, selling, and most important, pricing. Stepped- up competition and increases in supply, combined with a constant amount of playing time (demand), is causing them to wonder just how anybody is going to make money in syndication. Reasoning behind this concern lies in the economic facts of syn- dication life, which can be sum- marized or at least typified in a glance at the expenditures arid the expectations of one particular show. Call it “the average syndi- cated show.” Here’s what gives: Take a show that’s budgeted at $22,000 per episode, or a. total of $858,000 for 39 shows. Distrib draws up a price schedule which for a show of this budget will have a maximum total aggregate price —that is, the total income if the show is sold in every one of the 250-odd markets in the country— of $45,000 per week. Assuming the show is sold on a 39-13 basis, 39 firstrun and 13 repeats. at half- price, the total potential 52-week income for the 39 shows comes to $1,755,000—and that’s if. the show is sold in .every market, something that hasn’t yet happened to any show with the possible exception of “Liberace.” and Then Assuming such a sellout, the po-. tential. profit comes to $900,000. Subtract from this a 35% distribu- tion fee, which comes to $614,250, computed on the total gross, which; leaves only $285,750 for potential profit. From that, subtract $48,800 for print and mailing costs ($1,200 per episode). This leaves $236,950. Subtract another $5-$10,000 for a merchandising package that’s never used but without, which the show can’t be sold, arid you’ye got $226,- 950, On a per-show basis, this means a producer’s profit of $5,600. This, again, assumes a complete sellout, and if the producer has signed a star on a participation basis, there goes some of that profit, Putting it another way, this par- ticular show reaches its break-even point on the first 39 wheh it gross- es a total of $1,530,000. This means ari average weekly . gross,, if fig- ured on the basis of the first year’s distribution, of almost $29,500. In terms of markets, this means the film must be sold in every one of the 20 majors and at least 150 mi- nor markets before that kind of gross, can be achieved. And there are very few shows, on the market that are doing that kind of busi- ness. If the producer happens to be the distributor also, it comes al- most to the same figure, since ac- tual selling expenses amount to an estimated. 28% of the gross, and advertising an additional 4%. It might therefore mean a difference of 3% more profit if the distrib produces his own. If the distrib is working on a straight, distribution deal, for 35%, he might come out with a 3% profit, ori the gross, if he’s got an efficient Organization. FLAMINGO SETS DEAL M’WOOD PREVIEW’ Br Balabari’s “Hollywood Preview,” the half-hour series that contains clips of upcoming, motion pictures and interviews with the stars, will be syndicated by Fla- mingo Films under a deal firmed last week. Series will continue to air live on WOR TV, N. Y., where it started a couple of months; ago. Program has a verbal okay from the 10 Hollywood major produc- tion companies,, under which they’ll furnish clips of upcoming releases three weeks before the national release, date, and will also furnish visiting stars for interviews. Pro- grams will consist of four film clips plus an interview segment with th star of one of the films. < r CBS News for Japs CBS Newsfilni, which has been: active in distribution to Latin American stations for le time now, last week signed a deal to service Tokyo with its daily news service, markirig the .first time it’s, moved out of the Western Hemisphere. Service, to Tokyo will be supplied fi’oiri two sources, with shipping routes operating in two dif- ferent directions. Newsreel service has set up European editing facilities, so that its Continental o f f ices will ship all European news footage directly to Tokyo, fly- ing it out over easterly routes. At the same time, all Ameri- can footage will be planed out from th Coast westward. Tokyo qn-the-air footage will be about two days late under the plan. Newfilm, incidental- ly, now services Caracas, Havana and Mexico City, with possible deals in the works for Sweden arid Paris. Complete revamp of services arid shipping operations of CBS News- film instituted earlier this year by CBS Television Film Sales v.p.- general manager Leslie T. Harris has paid off to the tune Of a.500% increase in subscribers in the past six months. Newsfilm, which last April had only eight stations, as regiilar subscribers, now has a total of 40, and now operating in the black, is second only to INS-Tele- news in the number of subscribers. Latest in a series of new stations subscribing to the service are KPRC-TV in Houston; WHAM-TV 4 Filmed soap operas for local day- time, sale will eventually constitute an important area Of the syn- dication business, in the opinion of Ted Sisson, director of the NBC Film Division, but production and sale of such soapers won’t be economically feasible for at least another year. Sisson said last week that the Film Division has been studying the .daytime picture for some time, but won’t make a move in that direction, for at least a year; until the filming of soaps for local sale is practicable on the basis of Cost and acceptance. Sisson, pioneer in television soaps Via his stint as program chief of the N. W. Ayer Agency when the latter started “Hawkins Falls” and “The Bennetts,” believes that serials and “personality” shows will emerge as the great staples of day- time television, much as they did in daytime radio. But this hasn’t happened yet, Sisson points out, and until/ it does, filmed soaps with their relatively high per-mar- ket cost for daytime use, won’t receive widespread acceptability. Sisson believes that in another year or two, the live serials will gairi acceptance as one of the best , ccist-per-thousand. daytime televi- sion vehicles. It took the radio in- dustry from 1928 to about 1938 to evolve to the point where soaps emerged as the doriiinating day- time program fare, Sisson*says, and with television taking form at about twice the speed of radio, it won’t be, long before tfie tele soaps are recognized as day tim program staples. Once, the network strips, are rec- ognized as valuable programming buys and they have success story to tell, the syndicators will be able to move, in and gain wide acceptance for the serials on the local level. Experiments in filmed soaps so far, Sisson says, haven’t received the acceptance necessary to launch the*"daytinie fare in syn- dication a feasible economic ■ bask;. _. As to cost, ' Sisson says current (Continued on page 40) in Rochester; WJBK-TV, Detroit; WSEG-TV in Altoona; WTVH-TV in Peoria; KEDD-TV, Wichita and WSAU-TV in Wausau, Wise, Film Sales also signed Tokyo for the service (see separate story). Big revamp in the service came with new station: services; includ- ing the provision enabling stations to retai possession of their film, provision by Newsfilni of scripts for .weekly wrapup shows with the film used as the visual material, and odd services such as the latest, a cutout map with arrpws, pointers, figures, armies, etc., to help local newscasters. Main change in ship- ping procedures was the establish- ment of three shipping points, in New York, Chicago and Los An- geles, plus a schedule to take ad- vantage of all scheduled airline de- partures, 'with, motorcycle couriers making iri-person deliveries of prints to the plane’s stewardess in each.case./ Latest promotional s.c h e rii e cooked.; up by Harris is a nation/ wide oratorical. contest for high school istudents in all cities serv- iced by CBS Newsfilm. Series of regional contests will be held as eliminations, with the students al- lowed to speak on any news event shown :on CBS Newsfilni over the past three months. Contest;will get under way next month, with the cooperation of the local stations, sponsors and civic and fraternal groups. Prize hasn’t been decided yet, but Harris is mulling a college scholarship. BELL’S NSS COAST POST Sidney C. Bell has been, tapped by National. Screen Service to head up television, filrn commercial sales at NSS’ Coast .studios. He left for 'the Coast Friday. (29). after a testimonial, luncheon tendered him by NSS. colleagues. Ziv Television Programs, which is going into its second year of Latin American distribution of its Spanish-soundtrack versions of six 6f its shows, has sold all six of them to Radio Difusora Nacional de Colombia, the government-owned videoperation in Bogota. Six shows,. “Favorite Story,” ... “Cisco Kid,” “Boston Blackie,” “Mr. District At- torney,” “The : Unexpected” and “Yesterday’s Newsreel,” will be sold by the station to participating sponsors. Opening of the Bogota station marks the emergence of the fifth major Latin American, video market. Firm also Signed renewals and new deals in. existing markets, with Westinghouse picking .up “Mr. District Attorney” on WKAQ, Sari Juan; General Electric renewing' “Favorite Story” and American Airlines renewing ‘‘Newsreel” on XEW, Mexico City;, arid Richard Hudnut again riding with “Story”" on CMQ in Havana. ‘CAN’T TAKE IT’ ■ . i ■ Hollywood,. Nov. 2. “You Cari’t Take It With You,” prize-winning Broadway play be- fore it became .an Academy-award winning film, may become a tele- vision film series. Moss Hart- Geol’ge S. Kaufman property lias been acquired for television by Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Co- lumbia Pictures, which made the film, version in 1938. Present plans are to make a pilot film shortly with Lou BrcsIoW and Berne Gilcr co-producing. Decision on* a series will be held up tirflil the pilot is completed.