Variety (December 1954)

Wmlneg«1«y» December 29, 1954 * RADIO-TELEVISION 19 THE YEAR TV BROKE THE RULES Post-Mortems on Gleason Deal While it’s generally conceded that Jackie Gleason’s just about the hottest tv property around at the moment (the one reason that influenced Buick’s decision to cancel out on Milton Berle and latch on to the CBS-TV star in a two-year. $11,000,000 firm deal), the circumstances surrounding the new commercial venture are still cueing considerable pro and con trade debate. For one thing, the fact that Gleason is abandoning his hour live format (in favor of a 30-minute film series in which he’ll own all residual rights), is not without its element of risk, many feel. The impact of the full hour live format has been one of the major success stories of tv. But for the top comedy star to embrace the 30 -ininute situation comedy vidfilm pattern has its undeniable hazards, it’s felt. For every “Lucy,” they point out, there are a dozen “also rans.” Equally to the point is the fact that Gleason, in full hour dress, has been less vulnerable to competition this season than any other personality in tv. (He’s been grabbing off 45 and better on the Trendex, to an 8 to a 9 rating for the NBC entries.) But relin- quishing the 8 to 8:30 Saturday night lead-in to his own “Honey- mooners” series, is an open invitation for NBC to move in with some heavy artillery (vvhich, incidentally, it intends doing). Par- ticularly since the Gleason-packaged Dorsey Bros, variety show has been earmarked for the 8 o’clock time. Latter property, which did summer duty for Gleason last summer and is now pencilled in for two w'eeks while Gleason rests, has been kicking around the agencies for months with no takeis. Gleason No. 1 In New Nielsens ‘Lucy* Down to Third Spot (‘Toast’ 2d) On Latest National Ratings The new Nielsen ratings (for the last two weeks in November) pro- ject Jackie Gleason into the No. 1 spot, with the comic deposing “I Love Lucy” for the first time. (Previously Gleason had already moved into the kingpin berth on the Trendex returns.) “Lucy slipped to No. 3 position, indicative of the fact that the competing “Medic” Monday at 9 show on NBC-TV has already made its mark in grabbing off a good chunk of the “Lucy” share of audience. Moving into the No. 2 Nielsen spot is Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town,” also reflecting the weakness of the competing “Colgate Comedy Hour” this sea- son. The new Nielsens are revealing from several other aspects as well. ABC-TV’s Wednesday night “Dis- neyland” has moved into the No. 5 position (with Milton Berle fourth), and DuMont pulled off a major surprise by copping the sixth position with its Thanksgiv- ing afternoon pro grid telecast. The NBC specs don’t come into the picture until No. 9 position, and missing from the Top 10 for the first time in several seasons is Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life,’’ which generally has been hitting among the top five along with “Dragnet." Latter settles for seventh spotting on the new Niel- sens. Here’s how the Top 10 comes off: Jackie Gleason (CBS) 53.0 Toast of the Town (CBS).. 52.1 I Love Lucy (CBS) 48.9 Milton Berle (NBC) 47.6 Disneyland (ABC) 44.4 Pro Football (DuM) 43.7 Dragnet (NBC) 43.0 Martha Raye (NBC) 42.1 Liebman Presents (NBC).. 41.4 Jack Benny (CBS) 39.7 ‘You Are There’ Shifts To Coast as 1st Dozier Move in New Status Hollywood, Dec. 28. Coincident with the return to Hollywood of William Dozier a® director of tv network programs will be the transference to the Coast of one of the network's top programs, “You Are There.” which has been a pet project of Dozier’s since he developed it. He took hold of the idea from scratch, nursed it along and brought it to its present eminence as the skein’s top entry in the historical- documentary category. It is still undecided whether Walter Cronkite will continue as narrator or that a picture personal- ity will be engaged for the role. Program airs weekly in half-hour form and will be filmed by one of the CBS outside production units. Transfer of Dozier back to Holly- wod from N. Y. is effective Jan. L5 when James Fonda relinquishes the program director post to join the CBS staff as creative producer. Dozier first joined CBS here three years ago in charge of new talent and stories. DIYALS TOO BIG' F By GEORGE ROSEN Some unprecedented shenani- gans have been going on in tele- vision over the past couple of weeks—a fitting climax to a year that saw all the established eco- nomic patterns go out the window. Not in radio-tv’s long history has the economics of a business changed so radically or accepted sponsorship formulae been subject to such alternation as occured in video during '54. But the clincher came last week when NBC-TV firmed up three rival soap companies tis sponsors of the same program. If, five years ago. anyone would have been rash enough to predict that tv would undergo such an upheaval as to permit Procter and Gamble, Manhattan Soap and Colgate to underwrite the same show, he’d be railroaded out of the business so fast that he wouldn’t know what happened to him. Yet that is precisely what happened, when all three companies last week negoti- ated with the network for spon- sorship segments of the web’s morning “Ding Dong School” (a deal, incidentally, that accounts for more than $1,000,000 in bill- ings). It reflects, of course, not only tv’s ever-expanding flexibility in coping with changing times, but perhaps more to the point, points up the octopus-like branching out of major corporations that are moving in on control-of diversified products—to such a degree, in fact, that not a single product conflict is involved in the three- way sponsorship wrapup. Thus, P&G has bought into the show to plug pin curlers; Colgate for its toothpaste and Manhattan Soap for its Sweetheart soap. Room For All The days, for example, when a General Foods couldn’t venture near a General Mills program, either fore-aft or in competition, are now over, thanks to such cor- porate branching out which now finds them in control of products that are in no way in conflict with one another. Even a General Elec- tric can compete with a Philco (as Sunday nights) because of their diversified product interests. The “year, that tv broke all the rules” found a complete new thinking on the part of major ad- vertisers to whom plugging of the corporate name meant less and less and w'hen they w r ere willing to (Continued on page 26) Weintraub Jr., Trenner in Agency Exit; New Org Brings Craig In B-M’s ‘4-Star’ Buy Parker Pen relinquishes its al- ternating sponsorship of the CBS- TV “Four Star Playhouse” to Bris- tol-Myers, effective Jan. 13. Other underwriter, in since the start of the vidpixer, is Singer Sew- ing Machine. NBCVIfM&L Fail to Deliver, That’s AD, Boys’ NBC isn’t saying it out loud, but the network brass is nonetheless disturbed over both the critical and lay reaction to the first Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis tv show of the season last week on “Colgate Comedy Hour." It’s not exactly a secret that the network has been having some anxious moments over the manner in which “Toast of the Town” has been dominating the Sunday 8 to 9 hour (some of the web brass aren’t averse to blaming it on the kind of “Comedy Hour” shows that the Colgate agency. Ted Bates, has been bringing in this season). Thus the initial M & L appear- ance was considered one of the eagerly-anticipated events of the season, with NBC backing it up with some unprecedented pre- show promotion. That the M & L show barely squeaked past “Toast” on the Trendex ratings is attrib- uted in large measure to the fact that, while the comedy duo may have had the audience going iti. they lost large portion of it as the show progressed. NBC has ordered a breakdown of the Trendex to as- certain if that’s what happened. NBC wouldn’t mind doing some kind of qualitative measurement to find out just why Martin & Lewis were far below their pre- vious boff standard. Some say. aside from the material they were working with, they had stayed out of the medium too long. Whatever the reason, NBC already has moved in with a major promotion- exploitation campaign, utilizing the comics in person, in the hope that their second time up will be like old times—when they used to double the “Toast” rating. ♦ When Walter Craig (ex-Benton Si Bowles and for the past year with Pharmaceuticals Inc.) returns to the agency business on Jan. 17, as radio-tv veepee of the Wm. H. Weintraub agency (a stock deal is also involved), it will correspond with the inauguration of a whole ! new Weintraub regime, topped by: 1. ) The resignation of Wm. H. Weintraub Jr. His future plans are not known. 2. ) The resignation of Harry Trenner as radio-tv veepee, with Craig succeeding to his post. Tren- ner’s future-status is also not de- termined. 3. ) The ascendancy of Elkin ! Kaufman to the presidency of the agency, with Weintraub Sr. becom- ing chairman of the board. Wein- ' traub sold out his majority inter- ' est to the younger management group, topped by Kaufman. How- ever, it’s understood Weintraub will remain active on some ac- counts. Weintraub agency reorganiza- tion follows on the heels of a simi- lar reshuffle at the Blow agency ^in which the founder, Milton Biow\ similarly divested himself of his majority holdings to assume the board chairmanship. Craig checks out of Pharmaceu- {licals this weekend. He’ll spend two weeks in Florida before punch- ing in at Weintraub. He’s now the owner of a 600-foot strip of land in Sarasota on which he's building a motel. Liebman Dickers Yankee’ as Spec Max Liebman Is negotiating for the rights to Rodgers & Hart’s “A Connecticut Yankee” as an NBC spectacular with a late February oating The former Broadway musical has been treated on tv a couple of times. Liebman, who expects word in m next week or so as to whether , . P r °Perty win be available to , ^ is s P ec ola series, looks 81 , n 8|y on Ray Bolger to play Questionable, however, ,. in , 'f r Bolger can undertake ex- mm, ed r , ehear sals in view of his Ul( pix show on ABC. OUT NEXT WEEK! The 49th Anniversary Number Of Forms closing shortly • • - Usual Advertising rates prevail Special exploitation advantages Copy and space reservations may be sent to any Variety office NEW YORK 34 154 W. 44th St. HOLLYWOOD 29 4311 Yecca St. CHICAGO 11 412 N. Michigan Ave. LONDON. W. C. S I St. Martin’s Place Trafalgar Square G-T Quizzer Axed, Tanto’ as Sub Revlon has axed “What’s Going On,” the Goodson Si Todman panel- quizzer -played with remotes, after only five outings on ABC-TV. Cos- metic outfit has made a contract settlement with G-T, with whom it had pacted for the show for 13 w'eeks, and is bringing in instead the veteran “Pantomime Quiz,” which starts in the Sunday at 9:30 ABC slot next Sunday (2). “Panto,” which In the past sev- eral years has made the rounds of virtually all of the networks, is a Mike Stokey package which will h« originated in New York. Stokey is coming in from the Coast to pro- duce and emcee the stanza. G-T office, incidentally, said that it had warned Revlon when it bought “Going On” that it would take more than a 13-week cycle, let alone the first couple of weeks, to iron out the kinks in the show, but Revlon apparently wasn’t satisfied to wait till that happened. IKE’S STATE OF UNION TALK IN TINT VIDEO Barry Wood, NBC-TV special events director, planed to the Coast on Monday (27) to o.o. the web’s coverage of the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena as part of his* 10-day vacation (and his second California trek within a couple of w'eeks). Although the tinted version of the pageant has been shelved by the network, it will be colorized locally via KTLA. Meantime, the u r eb was attempt- ing to get the go-ahead on tinting up President Eisenhower’s State of the Union message slated for Jan. 6 from the House of Representa- tives in a joint session. Air time is 12:30 to 1:15 p. m. Cantor Salt Guestars Eddie Fisher makes his first ap- pearance in a syndicated series via a guest shot in the fourth in (he ; “Eddie Cantor Comedy Theatre” series. He’s set in a variety seg- ment which stars Cantor and w hich is currently being shot by Ziv on the Coast. Other guesters in the Canlor j series so far include Charles Co- burn, Billie Burke, Brian Aherne, James Gleason, Pat Crowley and | Don Defore. I