Variety (August 1957)

Wednesday, August 28, 1957 PSstiEfr RADIO-TELE VISIOST 23 FIELD DAY FOR PRESS AGENTS Joe Ream Back in Harness Joseph H. Ream is coming out of a five-year retirement to rejoin GBS as a vicepresident. He'll head up the CBS Inc. Washington office as successor to Ralph Hardy, who died last month. He makes his first official “reappearance” at the CBS-TV affiliate meet later this week in Colorado. Ream, who resigned from CBS in 1952. was exec v.p. and a mem¬ ber of the board of directors at the time. He had joined the web* as general attorney in 1934, becoming secretary in 1938, a v.p. in 1942, a member of the board in 1945 and exec v.p. in 1947. He had been living in total retirement in Tallahassee from the time he quit CBS until a year ago, when he moved to Washington and entered Government service as deputy director of the National Security Agency. His new appointment is effective Sept. 16. For 'Di-Depth' News Treatments First “special assignment unit”> in television news, designed to 1 freewheel on major stories and come up with “in-depth” special programs, has been created at . CBS-TV. The eight-man unit is headed by Leslie Midgley, former producer on the Eric Sevareid “World News Roundup,” with Midgley’s operation assigned solely . to come up with half-hour-or- longer news treatments either on prepared-in-advance basis or at a moment’s notice. New unit is already at work on two shows, “Wirtsschaftswunder,” the story of Germany's economic recovery (translation is “Economic Miracle”), timed to the German elections and set for telecast Sept. Id at 5:30 to 6, and “Korea Today,” tentatively slotted for the -follow¬ ing Sunday in the same time pe¬ riod. In addition, the special unit will do a 45-minute wrapup of Que^n Elizabeth’s U. S. visit the end of October, and will be han¬ dling the news “specials” on Pru¬ dential’s "The Twentieth Century.” Apart from * the planned shows, the unit will be on call for Spot coverage-in-depth, as in the Am drea Doria sinking last year. Unit comprises Midgley as pro¬ ducer (he’s being replaced on “World News Roundup,” which is being eut. to 15 minutes on Sun¬ days during the pro football sea¬ son, by Ed Hoyt, former Collier’s (Continued on page 42) Armstrong, Kodak Into Daytime TV CBS-TV racked up a trio of day- time “firsts” this week, signing Armstrong Cork and Eastman Kodak to their first daytime deals and at the same time drawing first . sponsorship blood on the early- morning Jimmy Dean Show. Arm¬ strong Will sponsor an alternate Wednesday quarter-hour of the Dean segment starting Oct. 9, via BBD&O. Kodak, which for a time had been looking at “Let's Take a Trip” as a possible vehicle - , changed its mind and instead bought an alter¬ nate-week quarter-hour of “Beat the Clock.” Kodak is “Clock’s” first new client, but the daytimer re¬ tains several of the sponsors of “Our Miss Brooks,” which it’s re¬ placing. Kodak deal, via J. Walter Thompson, starts Oct. 9 also. NBC lints Up Sports NBC-TV is going all-out . in tint¬ ing up sports this fall.' With the World Series already scheduled as a part-col6r attraction, web last week firmed up tolorcasts on four of its NCAA football telecasts, in-; eluding the Army-Navy game Nov. 30 out of Philadelphia. Other tint- ers are Oklahoina-Notre Dame on Nov. 16 and the two Big Ten games to be televised Oct. 19 and Nov. 2, with the actual teams not yet selected. World Series arrangement calls for all the games from the Ameri¬ can League city to be colorcast, with those of the National League city also to be^tintcast if the city is close enough to the AL locale to permit movement of equipment in time. Booking Governors Rival networks seem to have unconsciously entered a new kind of talent race—for Gov¬ ernors. Connecticut Gov. Abe Ribi- coff appears. Sunday (1) on “Alcoa Hour” With a plea for safe driving (he’s an advocate of tightened speed laws) on the repeat of “No License to Kill,” the safe-driving script. Now New York Gov. Averell Harriman is booked for the same day on “CBS Radio Workshop” with a Labor Day safe-driving plea in connection with an original drama by “Workshop” producer Dee En- gelbach on the same topic. Its Tint n Set, Much More Yet, For Mutual Net Mutual, keeping the biz kettle popping since the takeover by the Paul Roberts management group, has signed up. additional clients, inking a 10-day saturation drive by Reader’s Digest plus two long range campaigns by Tint ’n Set and Diversified Cosmetics of America, the latter two accounts new to net¬ work radio. Reader’s Digest project calls for 51 of Mutual’s five-minute on the half-hour newscasts* beginning at 8:30 a.m. and continuing thrpugn Labor Day. J. Walter Thompson is the ^gency. The spot tv-to-radio switch for Tint ’n Set and Rand’s Permanette will use morning and ' afternoon newscasts on MBS on a Monday- through-Friday five-per-day basis. In signing up with Mutual, Martin Himmel, prez of Dunnan and Jeff¬ rey agency, took a potshot at the (Continued on page 42) Perelman’s love’ Kicks Off TV‘Arts’ S. J. Perelman will kick off CBS- TV’s “Seven Lively Arts” show Nov. 3 with his first television script, “The Changing Ways of Love,” tracing the. manners of love from the 1920s to the present. Perelman is already at work for CBS on the book for “Aladdin,” the upcoming du Pont spec for which Cole porter is doing.the score. Perelman will not only write the “Love”, script, but will appear With host John Crosby and a cast of dramatic players on the kickoff show. Also set for the opener by exec producer John Houseman is Sidney Lumet, who will direct. Program will take up the effects on American lovemaking of such diverse arts and works as the mo¬ tion picture, magazines, novels, ad¬ vertising and the Kinsey Report, Films will come in for major at¬ tention, with clips of the screen’s great lovers. Dramatic inserts will include scenes from F. Scott Fitz¬ gerald’s “Winter Dreams” (done on tv last season, % via CBS-TV’s “Playhouse 90”) ahd Clifford Odets’ “Awake aid Sing.” The television press agent (or, on a more dignified level, the public relations man) will come into his own this coming season. The sweet smell of success will reach its sweetest apex during ’57-’58 in the big grab for space as newspaper columns — in fact whole sec.tions—open up as never before. Here’s the situation in a nutshell: By virtue of the fact that so much space will be opening up, the tv networks are simply not equipped to cope with the demand for copy. And since manpower is so limited (and that goes for NBC, CBS and ABC), the major concentration will perforce be aimed at the '“glamor dopy,” that is, the big one-hour, 90-minute and two-hour shows, with their bigtime name talent and production entrepreneurs. There will be enough of them (100 of them alone at NBC) to keep the network boys hopping all over the lot. But because many of these “specials” are now attracting the type of name; personalities (in talent, producers, directors and even writers) from other show biz media who have long been ac¬ customed to operating with their own press agents, they’re already demanding similar attention and going out on their own in acquiring the necessary space grabbers. Be¬ cause the networks are hot equipped to give them the proper attention, even the sponsors are on a constant prowl for “press repre¬ sentatives,” as are the individual packagers of programs. The networks, who are already showing evidence in the>r press releases of focussing major atten¬ tion on the “big ones,” are be- seeched with complaints from agencies and sponsors riding with the so-called “bread-and-butter” half-hour shows (which still con¬ stitute television’s major staple) demanding attention, and pronto, on their upcoming product. The networks frankly concede that they are not equipped to cope with the problem and welcome outside press agentry oh the part of the client and the agency to get them off the hook. The network press chiefs have only one major con¬ cern: With everybody working at cross-purposes, they’d be mighty grateful if the press agents would “report in” at the webs to help coordinate matters. The major tv film companies, jn particular, are concerned over get¬ ting . the proper breaks on their “held over” network showcasings, recognizing that, all things being equal, they’re bound to get the sluff-off treatment from the webs in trailblazing their half-hour product. As result the vidfilmeries, like the agency and the sponsor, are expanding them press-exploita¬ tion divisions, and at least two of the biggest companies are at the moment on the lookout for top¬ flight guys who can do a job for their films in crashing the dailies and the Sunday supplements in the maior markets around the country. The tv boom in press agentry began a few years back, though on a minor scale, when Max Liehman took on Dave Tebet, and subse¬ quently .Frank Goodman, to extol the virtues of the Liebman Produc¬ tions: when a Bill Doll moved in for Oldsmobile on Its specs, when CBS enlisted the outside help of Bud Brandt, when a Jack Perlis 24-sheeted an “Omnibus,” etc. But these are no longer isolated illus¬ trations. Today everybody wants his own built-in press agent. Johnny Stearns to ABC Producer-actor Johnny Stearns Mary Kave & .Tohnpy) is exiting his longtime NBC-TV producer slot to join the American Broadcasting Network as an exec producer. He’ll handle one of the hour-long musical strips being plotted by the Web for a fall preem. Stearns Is currently orodticing ‘The Arthur Murray Party” on NBC-TV. Loriliarf s Diversification Can Go Hang in Kent Switch to L&N Kaye Makes Hay If Danny Kaye and CBS had their way about It, the kids of America would convert “trick or treat” night into more bene¬ ficial channels. . Motive behind the reslotting of the Danny Kaye “See It Now” global junket on behalf of UNICEF is an interesting one. it will be slotted on the pre-Halloween night of Oct. 27. Kaye is shooting some supple¬ mentary footage—urging the kids to continue their doorbell ringing, but to collect coins and even dollars on behalf of the UNICEF organization. NBC Lashes Back At Philco, Claims Its All a‘Vendetta Washington, Aug. 26. NBC lashed out at the Philco Corp. with the charge that its re¬ cent protest against the license renewal of NBC’s WRCV-TV in Philadelphia is "Philco’s most re¬ cent maneuver in its vendetta against RCA’ and a weapon in its $150,000,000 antitrust suit against RCA. NBC made the charge in a reply to the Pliilco protest, submit¬ ted to the FCC yesterday (Mon.). Charging Philco with an abuse of the FCC’s regulatory processes, RCA urged dismissal of Philco’s protest as “sham in its entirety” and a “further publicity spring¬ board to injure RCA*and NBC.” The RCA brief charged that the basis for Philco’s “continuing and vindictive attack” on RCA is the latter’s refusal to grant Philco’s demands for preferential treat¬ ment in royalty payments. Brief stated that “Philco’s management is seeking a scapegoat for its own business deficiencies and weak¬ nesses” and that the protest is “an j effort to divert attention from its admitted poor past’ performances." j Philco, which once owned the station but sold it to Westinghouse, which in turn sold it to NBC (that sale, which involved a trade of facilities in Cleveland, is now T the subject of a Government antitrust suit against RCA and NBC), pro¬ tested the pending renewal on the basis of RCA and NBC’s character qualifications for license, undue concentration of control in Phila¬ delphia and the public interest. NBC in its reply further stated that Philco has no right to protest since it is not a party in interest to the renewal under the meaning of Sec. 309. (c) of the Federal Com¬ munications Act governing such procedure, and that the issues raised by Philco are unsupported by fact, thus rendering the pro¬ test “fatally defective.” ■f Switch of P, Lorillard’s Kent and Newport cigaret accounts from Young & Rubieam to Lennen & Newell, which handles the-“par¬ ent” Old Gold eigarets for Loril- lard, has, to some degree, thrown Madison Ave. Satjeney second- guessers into something of a tizzy. For, the switchover comes in the face of a general trend toward a diversification formula among com¬ panies tand this applies .not only to eigarets) handling various brands. Up until now only two com¬ panies—and these happen to be the biggest in cigaret volume- have put their multiple-brand bill¬ ings in one agency basket. Thfcse are American Tobacco Co. (BBDO) and R. J. Reynolds (Esty). AH the others have hopped abroad the diversification pattern on the premise that a more efficient job can be done by individual agency campaigns. Thus the Lorillard switch to the American Tobacco- Reynolds way of thinking has come as something of a surprise to agencymen in general and has cued the thinking: “Perhaps there’s more method in their madness than we originally thought.” Aside from that, the switch from Y & R to Lennen & Newell took everyone by surprise, for it was generally thought that Kent was getting lots of effective mileage from the Y & R handling. Just what induced Lorillard to give the whole kaboodle (representing an approximate $20,000,000 a year in annual billings) to Lennen & Newell is figured to be anybody’s guess. Nobody’s saying much about it. Some srdve came to Y & R in the form of its inheritance of the Beech-Nut Life Savers’ baby food account from Kenyon & Eckhardt. This, too, represents a veering away from diversification, since Y & R also has Ed Noble’s Beech- Nut biz. ABC-TV ‘Bowling Stars’ For American Machine ABC-TV filled In another half- hour in its Sunday night commer¬ cial schedule by signing American Machine & Foundry to sponsor a half-hour “Bowling Stars” segment out of Chicago in the 8:30-9 p.m. segment. New bowling stanza will follow the Kaiser Aluminum-spon¬ sored “Maverick” show, giving the web a 7 to 9 p.m. sellout. “Bowling Stars,” to be aired live out of Chicago with Joe Wilson handling the narrating, is being packaged by Matt Niesen’s Cham¬ pionship Productions Inc. of Chi. It’s being coproduced by AMF. Deal is quite a sponsorship switch for American Machine & Foundry, which made its network 1 1 debut as a sponsor of “Omnibus.” T to P’Angling Dr. Salk Pickup “Person to Person” is angling to get Dr. Jonas Salk for an appear¬ ance from his Pittsburgh home for the coming season. “P to P” pro¬ ducers John Aaron and Jesse Zousmer have taked to Salk in the past, but a pickup wasn’t feasible because CBS-TV had no affiliate in Pitt. Now that KDKA-TV is a fulltime Columbia outlet, Aaron and Zousmer are preparing to re¬ new discussions with the eminent scientist. Aaron. & Zousmer have already set parts of the first two shows, with Julie London doing the kick- offer from the Coast Sept. 13 and Rhonda Fleming as the - Coast en¬ trant in the second show. Set for Oct. 4 is “P to P’s” first pickup from Little Rock, Ark., where Ed Murrow will be “yisiting” the Win- throp Rockefellers at their Winrock Farm. Also new on the schedule this season will be the first remote from Boston, where the show will be carried for the first time (via the new; WHDH>. probably with photographer Bradford Bachrach. 500G MORE IN GROSS BIZ FOR CBS RADIO , CBS Radio inked another $500.- 1000 in gross new business last week, signing three advertisers to daytime sponsorship and two more to the nighttime-weekend “Impact Plan.” Daytime sponsors are Car¬ ter Products, for fi've 7 1 ,2-minute units each alternate week for a 26- week span; Mentholatum, five of the 7 1 -2-minute units on alternate weeks; and Woman’s Day mag, for five of the same for a single week. “Impact Plan” clients are Pfizer Co. for 13 segments starting Sept. 19, and Chrysler Division, for six jegments a week over four weeks.