Broadcasting (July - Dec 1937)

S & W Divorcee — Copper Pieces — Ranger Mail — Not Forlorn — Chinese Waves — Where to Buy — Stooges I WANT A DIVORCE." With that eye-catching title, Sussman, Wormser & Co., San Francisco (S & W food products) will launch a novel series over nine NBC-Pacific Red stations Oct. 17, Sundays at 8:15 p. m. and Wednesdays at 7:45 p. m. (PST). Conducted in conjunction with the broadcast series of dramatizations there will be a "Perfect Mate" contest in newspapers and on the air. A total of 2,606 cash prizes totaling $10,000 will be awarded the winners of the competition, which is scheduled to continue until January 15, 1938. Emil Brisacher & Staff, San Francisco, advertising agency handling the account, has prepared a 6-column, 16-inch ad announcing the joint newspaper and radio contest, to appear in all the leading newspapers in the key cities on the Pacific Coast. The broadcasts will be a series of dramatizations of real life stories. There is a direct tie-in between the contest and the radio program, the latter to call attention to the contest after each dramatization. In the newspaper advertisement announcing the "Perfect Mate" contest and the broadcasts — / Want a Divorce, there will be printed the S & W official entry blank. Just above the blank spaces for the contestants' answers appear nine points over a "perfect husband" guide and an equal number over a "perfect wife" guide. With each entry the contestant is required to enclose a one-inch piece from the end of the tin strip that unwinds from the side of a can of S & W Mellow'd coffee, or a reasonably exact replica of the S & W Mellow'd coffee label. Contestants are asked to keep their suggested tenth point within 20 words. Each contestant is entitled to send in one entry each week during the life of the contest. All the entries will be primarily judged on the basis of originality of ideas, with literary style being secondary. Each week 200 cash prizes of $2.50 each will be awarded. The capital cash prizes at the termination of the contest will be: first prize for women, $1,000; second prize $500 and third prize $250. A duplicate set of grand prizes will be awarded the male winners. DURKEE FAMOUS FOODS Inc., Chicago, for its nut margarine, has taken 39 quarter-hour transcribed episodes of Komedy Kingdom from Radio Transcription Co. of America, Hollywood, for broadcast from one to three times weekly on 15 stations nationally, through C. Wendell Muench & Co., Chicago. Series started the week of Oct. 3 on KOA, KMOX, WDZ, WSBP and WGBF and other stations are being added to the list. As a merchandising tiein, premiums are being offered to users of Durkee's margarine upon presentation of 24 coupons. One coupon is enclosed in every pound carton of the nut margarine. * ^ * WINNER of the $500 first prize for a new name for Grand Stand & Band Stand was a 21-year-old clerk who will add the money to a fund to take him to college. The winning name was Wheaties Reviewing Stand, selected from 8,125 entries. Program is heard three hours daily on WMCA, New York, sponsored by General Mills Inc., Minneapolis. Agency is KnoxReeves Adv. Co., Minneapolis. * * * ED CRANEY, operator of KGIR and KPFA, is sending out copper promotional pieces to advertising agencies. The copper pieces are as large as a quarter-page in Broadcasting and are of the same material as the full-page copper ad that attracted wide attention when it appeared in Broadcasting, July 1, 1936. * * * KIDW, Lamar, Col., staged a swatthe-fly campaign recently, with a sack of sugar being awarded to the listener reporting the greatest number of flies killed while the program was in progress. The winner reported a kill of 27 flies, 1 moth, 1 cricket, 2 grasshoppers. WHP, Harrisburg, and the affiliated Harrisburg Telegraph, cooperated in a 12-page supplement to the newspaper in which set distributors advertised their new lines. The supplement contained numerous articles about WHP and CBS programs and artists. M. F. WOODLING, general manager of KYOS, Merced, Cal., recently specified that all employes submit an idea to increase th§ station's local influence. uEY' WHERE* (sio\} GOING? , HOME TO LISTEN TO WDAS/ JR.-8-10 » " SR.-7-4 " ' " MERRY-GO-ROUND iL' i M EVERY NIGHT— Philadelphians grin at the cartoons of WDAS published in the Evening Ledger as the result of a trade off with the paper which gets a full hour of classical music on WDAS each morning. "The local kids have quit saying "Wanna buy a duck" and scamper around shouting "Going home t" listen to WDAS", according to the station. IN RESPONSE to an offer made on The Lone Ranger program on WOR sponsored by the Gordon Baking Co., Detroit, the station received 24,000 pieces of mail on Oct. 1, breaking its all-time daily record. Previous record was set Feb. 3, 1935, with 19,000 pieces of mail. Followers of the western drama were invited to write for a map with which to trace the search for the lost Lone Ranger. During the first week of October 78,000 pieces of mail were received by WOR in response to the offer. Brooke, Smith, French & Dorrance Inc., Detroit, is the Gordon agency. GENERAL ELECTRIC Co., New York, will turn over its Hour of Charm broadcast period on NBCRed on Monday, Oct. 18, to the University of Pennsylvania in connection with the school's bicentennial celebration, starting on that date. Program will be broadcast from Convention Hall, Philadelphia, and will include the college band, glee club, choral society, and speakers. Announcement of weekly winners of the Electrical Standard of Living contest will be made at the opening of the program. G-E agency is Maxon Inc., New York. * * * WOAI, San Antonio, has issued two promotion pieces, one of which contains a series of cartoons showing the success of a local client and indicating that the client's accounts prefer WOAI to other stations in that city 10 to 1. The second brochure contains facts about WOAI's market and advertisers as well as photographs of productions in the making. * * * THE "Advice to the Forlorn," advertisement of WOR, Newark, on the front cover of the Sept. 1 issue of Broadcasting, caused so much comment that the station has reprinted it as a folder with the high-hatted gentleman on the cover and the column of advice printed on newsprint in the format of a regular newspaper column. * * * KROGER stores in Memphis pay $50 in prizes for best answers to foolish questions propounded in the aisles of the Orpheum theatre, Memphis, by Paul Hodges, WMPS announcer, winding up with a $100 grand prize for a special question. Questions are selected from lists of 25 distributed in Kroger stores a week before the program. * * * UNITED BROADCAST SALES, Calgary, taking note of increasing U. S. interest, issued recently from its Toronto office a promotion book for advertising agencies in the United States and Canada, giving all data about the stations it represents—CKY, CKX, CKCK, CJOC, CFAC, CJCA, and CJAT. * * ♦ WAVE, Louisville, uses its wellknown Chinese and wave themes in a plastic-bound brochure dealing with the Louisville trading area. Market and population data are broken down with colored symbols. Comparison is made with coverage of competing stations. * * * WISN, Milwaukee, has distributed a promotion piece describing its promotion program. Described are display advertising, window posters, radio previews, newspaper publicity, publicity releases, Wisconsin state papers and a billboard campaign. TROPHY— John Nesbitt, announcer of WBNS, Columbus, receives the American Association trophy for largest attendance at radio appreciation night. Presenting the trophy is George M. Trautman, president of the baseball league. COLEMAN LAMP & STOVE Co., Wichita, is giving $25 weekly to the best performer on the Fireside Party program broadcast over WLS, Chicago. Amateurs are selected from the WLS Prairie Farmer home talent shows given all over the country. Each week three are presented on the program with the best receiving $25 in cash. At the end of the series, a board of judges will choose the best act, who will receive a four-week contract with WLS as the grand prize. Potts-Turnbull Co., Kansas City, is agency. * * * KSFO, San Francisco, recently inaugurated a merchandising service to its sponsors. When a listener writes or telephones to ask where a certain advertised product can be purchased, the station's merchandising department writes a letter to one or more stores in the neighborhood of the questioner, informing them that persons are inquiring for the product advertised on the air. The information desk at KSFO is now furnishing the name of the store handling the product they inquire about, which is nearest their home. * * * UNDER the big sign on San Antonio's Gunter Hotel is a smaller but conspicuous illuminated sign reading "Home of KTSA". New studios of the Hearst station were dedicated Oct. 2 under the direction of Harold C. Burke, station manager. They were designed by W. G. Egerton, chief engineer of the Hearst stations in the Southwest. KTSA also recently installed a new 5,000-watt Western Electric transmitter. * * * COLUMBIA PICTURES Corp., New York, and Pillsbury Flour Mills Co., Minneapolis, will conduct a tiein advertising campaign for Columbia's "Three Stooges" comedies and Pillsbury's Farina. On Oct. 18 the "Stooges" will be introduced into the script of Today's Children. Pillsbury program is broadcast five days a week on the NBC-Red network. The Pillsbury agency is Hutchinson Adv. Co., Minneapolis. * * * WBT, Charlotte, N. C, has published a loose-leaf booklet containing analyses of its historical development, market data, coverage and program production. The folder is designed so that additional releases from WBT may be accommodated and its display of maps includes photostats of survey and coverage maps. Page 90 • October 15, 1937 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising