Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

They Toe the Mark for Fletcher Wiley Sponsors Must Submit to Laboratory Composed of 3,500 Housewives By DAVID GLICKMAN FIVE YEARS ago a man with an idea and without money approached KNX. He worked six months without a cent of pay, so convinced was he that housewives would take to a program protecting them from household frauds and phoney advertising. He set up a "testing bureau" of 3,500 housewives, and the ball started rolling. So did the cash, and Wiley recently signed a network contract augmenting his income some ^100,000. He can afford to be choosy, and sponsors must toe the mark if they wish to be represented on any of his programs. ONE of the highest paid local radio pei-sonalities in the United States entered the big time April 29 to become one of the highest paid national radio figures when Fletcher Wiley, for five years a KNX, Hollywood, commentator, went on 36 CBS stations under sponsorship of Campbell Soup Co., for 52 weeks, Mondays thru Fridays, 2:30-2:45 p.m. (EDST). Wiley, who continues to be heard 2V2 hours daily, six times weekly, over the local station in the combined Sunrise Salute and Housewives Protective League participation programs, is reported to have received in excess of $50,000 yearly for the last two years from sponsors — local, regional and national— who have participated in these shows. It is said that sponsorship by Campbell Soup Co. will add nearly $100,000 to his annual income. Five years ago, Wiley smilingly admits, he would have had great difficulty in raising $100 cash. No Hokum Wiley's skyrocketing rise into the highest income brackets of radio is a triumph of perseverance, endurance and his asserted policy of "no hokum in advertising". Born E. Mclntyre de Pencier 44 years ago near New Orleans, Wiley is French-Irish in ancestory. Before entering radio he was a jack-ofall-trades. To a smattering of medicine and law, acquired through formal education, Wiley added "mucking in the mines, shipping on a freighter, sales work, working on a railroad and research in chemistry". In the latter he developed two processes now in general use by the food industry. When he turned up at KNX for an interview with Naylor Rogers, then general manager, in August 1935, he was almost broke, but he had an idea. Briefly, the idea was the Housewives Protective League, a program built to protect housewives from fraud, deception, crooked rackets, magazine subscription rackets, shortweighting and false advertising. He proposed setting up a "testing bureau" consisting of 3,500 Southern California housewives who would pass on the merits of every product plugged on the program. Impressed, Mr. Rogers gave Wiley a daily half-hour spot, without salary. The commentator went to it, and didn't hestitate for a moment to hit the rackets he promised to smash. When he found a food market was consistently shortweighting customers, Wiley named the culprit and warned listeners. As a result there were several convictions by the Los Angeles Bureau of Weights & Measures, and Southern California area markets are more honest today. While listeners flocked to his banner, with fan mail exceeding that of any performer on the station, sponsors stayed away. No advertiser ventured to back Wiley. The idea seemed too new and radical for most advertisers. It was too uncertain a venture, they believed. Several proprietary advertisers offered to underwrite the program, but Wiley flatly refused. Six months passed, and still no sponsor, but the salaryless commentator chatted on, in his own particular way, about household problems and a variety of subjects of interest to the housewife, giving friendly advice and warning against frauds. How Wiley managed to eat during that period no one knows, but scores of apocryphal tales have sprung up. He laughs them off. Finally, just as his time on the station was to be preempted by some national spot business, Wiley secured a sponsor — Golden State Co., San Francisco, whose distribution of dairy products on the Pacific Coast is widespread. Golden State signed for two weeks participation in Housewives Protective League, but remained a sponsor for 20 months. The daily plug on that program was designed to develop leads for the firm's drivers, and the dairy company provided Wiley with a standard pamphlet offer to get names and addresses of interested listeners. Wiley drew more than 8,000 leads the first month. He averaged more than 5,000 a month for the siibseqnent 19 months that Golden State Co. underwrote him. And No-.v 25 Sponsors That was the first of Fletcher Wiley's radio successes. It was first in a long series, a series almost unmatched bv any other radio personality. Wilev's immense sij'^n^-r list now embraces moi"e thai 2"> national, regional and local advertisers. Currentlv such important nation^\ a^^vertisers as Procter & Gamble C-^. (Dash); Pillsburv Flour Mills Co. C flour) ; Manhattan Roan Co. C Sweethear t soan) : La Mont Corliss <^ Co. ("NTpstle's SpTni-Sw''°t CViocolate) • Cudahy Pf>fkino Co. CTanc) : Scott Paner Co. ^r"5T)°r t"wel = "t : and 19 regional and local !'dvp''"tisers are among those bu^inqr three participations weekly in Housewives Protective League, Mondays thru Fridays, 3:20-4:15 p.m., and Sunrise Salute, which is heard Mondays thru Saturdays, 67:30 a. m. The participations are on an alternating basis, sponsors using one program every other day. Almost without exception these advertisers enjoy unparalleled success, which accounts for Wiley's renewal record — 71% of all accounts re-signing for additional time on the combined programs. Helms Bakeries, Los Angeles, the world's largest home delivery service operating more than 450 delivery trucks in Southern California, is one of Wiley's earliest con SHORTLY after Fletcher Wiley was coerced into posing for this photograph in late April, he shaved off" his beard. He doesn't approve of published pictures of himself. He believes that if a radio listener saw the picture, it would militate against him. Wiley maintains "no matter how handsome a commentator is, he never looks just like what women picture him to be. She doesn't like it because it limits her imagination. She may not listen." sistent sponsors, and Paul H. Helms, president, is one of his staunchest rooters. Early in 1936 Helms Bakeries went on the Housewives Protective League in a brief test, and during the last four years har participated in that program and Sunrise Salute an average of 25 weeks yearly. Every day he is on the air for Helms, Wiley advertises some special item, and, according to executives of the firm, has done a better job than all other media combined. As example, the average weekly sale of cookies for the six weeks before Wiley mentioning them on his programs in 1939 was 300 dozen per week. During the brief time they were advertised on the combined programs, the bakery company sold an average of 11,494 dozen cookies per week. Before Helms had started promoting its canned popcorn on the combined programs, the firm averaged $237 in sales per week. Sales jumped to $1,158 a week during the time Wiley plugged the product on his shows. A Bank's Story Coast Federal Savings & Loan Assn., Los Angeles (banking service) was averaging $17,933 a month in deposits as results of other advertising media. When the organization in June, 1936, undertook participation in Wiley's Housewives Protective League, deposits started mounting and during that month averaged $136,395. At the peak of last year's investment period (July, 1939), Wiley shattered his own record in bringing in depositors. Joe Crail, president of the firm, in a letter commending the job done, said: "Your program reached its peak last month, July, 1939, during which we received $241,570. In addition to this, we received $115,235 from 'Radio, General', a large proportion of which can be attributed to your programs because the other two radio programs were very small and had very small results." Within the last six weeks, Wiley has established another brilliant success for himself on behalf of a cooking ingredient manufacturer. The firm began a six times weekly participation in the combined programs about seven months ago. During his first three months of advertising the product, two 7 oz. packages of chocolate for 25 cents, Wiley concentrated on setting distribution. It went up from 20% to 90% during the campaign. Then he went to work on sales. In the first quarter of 1940 Wiley's plugs, the only advertising used in the Southern California area, sold eight carloads of the products which brought $50,000 to the sponsor. But in the entire 12 months of the previous year only one carload, about $8,000 worth of the produce, had been sold in that area. In short, Wiley was selling the chocolate product 32 times faster than it sold before. During the first two years on (Continued on page U6) BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising June 15, 1940 • Page 19