Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

trade. Wiley's 20 years of food products selling through brokerages makes it possible for him to call on local brokers and agencies in person and present his story. When he assumes the advertising burden for some product, he personally checks the distribution setup, confers with the local broker on sales strategy, ways to open new outlets, and other means to move the commodity. Wiley has turned down many products. Filed in his fourth-floor office in the CBS Hollywood building are names of 3,500 housewives who are members of his "testing bureau". When a sponsor approaches him with a product, Wiley turns it over to 50 of these housewives for testing. If it meets their high standard test, nine times out of ten Wiley will accept the sponsorship. Wiley, too, is one of the few showman-salesmen in radio. Although his fan mail averages more than 2,500 letters monthly, he doesn't answer a one. He discounts fan mail as an index of the job he is doing for a sponsor and sticks with sales results^ — on that he rises and falls. He is actually a sales manager with a flair for entertaining and informative commentary. His personal contacts are reflected in the tremendous weight he has acquired with the Southern California grocery and market trade. Two groups of voluntary grocery chains — Certified Grocers and the Red & White Stores, representing some 700 independent grocery stores throughout Southern California— conduct quarterly Fletcher Wiley Adds KSFO FLETCHER WILEY'S Housewives' Protective League, heard regularly on KNX, Hollywood, has started on KSFO, San Francisco, on a twice-daily basis under direction of Galen Drake, following Wiley's established format. The Housewives' Protective League, which is a formally chartered fraternal organization as well as a program, has a Southern California membership including more than 3,500 voluntary registered housewife-testers who determine acceptability of products submitted for sponsorship. Wiley will continue to conduct the KNX program. Wiley Sales, and "push" products currently being promoted by the commentator on his Sunrise Salute and Housewives Protective League programs. Besides including boxes in their newspaper advertising to promote the Wiley Sale, they also decorate stores with silk screen banners and have special store displays during the quarterly campaign. This all without cost to the commentator. Says What He Wishes Wiley's commercials, like his programs, are strictly ad lib. He says what he wishes, without interference from the sponsor. He hi.s sacrificed some important national accounts because of his insistence that all commercials be ad libbed. He speaks the way he feels, and commercials are drawled out slowly, woven in and out of his discussions. In a typical day he'll discuss air FBI Head Remoted FOR what is believed the first time in history a major university's commencement speaker, unable to attend the exercises in person, carried through with his address via radio network lines. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was slated to visit Drake U in Des Moines and deliver the commencement address. However, pressing business kept him in Washington. In the midst of the complications he offered to broadcast his speech via WOL, MBS Washington outlet, direct to the Drake graduating class. The plan was followed out through arrangement completed by KSO, Des Moines, MBS-NBC affiliate in Des Moines. raid precautions in Britain; the story of an accountant's error due to a fly speck; the story of Napoleon's literary career and how it affected Europe; how the stock market works — all in a slow Pegleresque and picturesque Americanese — as if talking informally to friends. He talks from brief typewritten notes. Sometimes he pauses to take off his coat and rearrange his chair. The radio audience has come to expect and appreciate the showmanly ease with which he talks to them. It was only recently that he allowed his picture to be published, declaring that "no matter how handsome a commentator is, he never looks like what women picture him to be. She doesn't like it because it limits her imagination. And then, she may not listen." Although numerous civic organizations have approached him with offers of kudos, Wiley universally declines them. One of the few exceptions was when, in early January, he accepted the Citation of Service from the Disabled American War Veterans. It was awarded him "because of his sympathetic understanding of veterans' problems, because of his ready willingness, without consideration of cost or personal sacrifice, to champion their justifiable causes over a long period . . ." This was the fourth time in 20 years that the award had been given. The other recipients were Madame SchumannHeink, Eddie Cantor and Jack Warner, vice-president of Warner Bros. Though Wiley's schedule is one of the most rigorous in radio, in actual number of hours of broadcasting, he still is able to give the same impression that he did when conducting a half-hour daily program on the old KNX. He still can be found lounging in his office, feet on desk, reading a magazine, perched on a salesman's desk discussing world problems, apparently with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it. Yet he confers long hours daily with his researchers and staff. KSL SALT LAKE CITY 50,000 WATTS CBS Unquestioned leadership in all the rich^ stable Inter-Mountain West. For more information about KSL, one of the sixteen CBS 50,000 watt stations, inquire of Edward Petry & Company. ■(} VOICE OF THE INTER-MOUNTAIN EMPIRE BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising June 15, 1940 • Page 47