Broadcasting (July - Dec 1943)

and Broadcast Advertising Vol. 25. No. 9 WASHINGTON, D. C, AUGUST 30, 1943 $5.00 A YEAR— 15c A COPY NAB Hires Bob Bartley as War Director Retains Karl Smith As Legal Aide To Miller By SOL TAISHOFF CONSISTENT with plans to bolster the NAB's war activities on the Washington front, Robert T. Bartley, vice president of the Yankee Network and a former official of the FCC, has been retained by NAB President Neville Miller in an executive capacity. While no formal announcement has been made, Broadcasting learned authoritatively that Mr. Bartley accepted an offer of the new post, effective next month, and had already resigned from the Yankee Network. It is expected he will become director or coordinator of war activities of the trade association and will be second man in the organization. Smith Made Counsel Simultaneously, it was learned that Mr. Miller, pursuant to authority given him by the Board and the Legislative Committee, had retained Karl A. Smith, of the law firm of Hogan & Hartson in Washington, to act as legislative counsel. Mr. Smith, who was an attorney with the old Radio Commission before entering private practice just a decade ago, will assist President Miller in the handling of legislative matters incident to efforts toward writing of a new communications law at the forthcoming session of Congress. Mr. Bartley, who is 34, is no stranger to Washington. Originally from Texas, he was assistant to Walter M. W. Splawn, special counsel to the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in 1932-33 when the Communications Act of 1934 was being written. His uncle, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, was then chairman of the Committee. Joined Yankee in 1939 Mr. Bartley, upon formation of the FCC in 1934, served as the first and only director of its Telegraph Division. In 1937, when the division system was abolished by the then Chairman Frank R. McNinch, Mr. Bartley left the FCC. Afterward, he became senior securities analyst with the Securities & Ex ROBERT T. BARTLEY change Commission in Washington, but left in March, 1939 to join Mr. Shepard as executive sec retary of the Yankee Network. Mr. Bartley was elected a vice president of Yankee in August 1942 and has served in that capacity since. He has resigned from the network effective Sept. 25, and will terminate four and a half years with that organization. Mr. Miller, it was learned, conferred with' Mr. Bartley in Boston August 16, and completed arrangements for his association with the NAB. Mr. Miller was away from Washington on a brief vacation last week. Loucks Unavailable In retaining Mr. Smith as legislative counsel, Mr. Miller made the arrangement with the Hogan & Hartson law firm. Mr. Smith will continue his legal practice and will be available to the NAB for consultation. A vacancy has existed in the post of NAB counsel since the departure two months ago of Russell P. Place, staff counsel, for government military service. Both the Bartley and Smith appointments, in separate spheres of activity, were authorized by the NAB Legislative Committee at its meeting in Washington August 17. The matters also had been discussed by the NAB Board at its meeting in Chicago last month. Efforts had been made also to retain Philip G. Loucks, Washington attorney and former NAB managing director, in a legal consulting capacity. Mr. Loucks, however, advised the Legislative Committee and Mr. Miller at the August 17 session that he would be unable at this time to consider such a retainer because of previous commitments and the manpower situation in his firm. His partner, Arthur W. Scharfeld, recently reported for active duty as a captain in AMGOT. The decision to bolster the NAB was reached by the Board because of the emphasis on new legislation and the necessity for postwar planning. Since the Supreme Court decision in the network cases on May 10, delegating to the FCC control over the "composition of the traffic" as well as other broad powers, the industry has gone all out in favor of remedial legislation at this session. The NAB is expected to carry the ball at hearings tentatively scheduled before the Senate Mutual to Launch Rebroadcast Plan Will Air Night Shows 3-5 p.m. Time Free For Experiment By DORIS HILLMAN HOW WILL nighttime radio be affected if advertisers with current evening network shows repeat recorded versions of those programs in the daytime hours? What will the sponsor gain from such a policy, definitely a departure from standard commercial practices? Will the long-established audience for the daytime soap operas, made up of thousands of housewife listeners, be harmfully affected by such a move? These and other questions which have arisen in the minds of advertisers and their agencies ever since the idea was first proposd a year or so ago, Mutual is prepared to answer, according to Allen J. De Castro, MBS executive, who told Broadcasting last week that, starting the day after the last World's series broadcast in October, Mutual is setting aside 3-5 p.m. Monday through Friday for advertisers interested in experimenting with the idea. Experiments Cited To combat the possible objection that a program's nighttime audience will suffer if the same show is rebroadcast during the daytime hours, Mr. De Castro pointed to the experiment made by General Foods Corp., New York, from March to July of 1942, when the company recorded its NBC evening halfhour program The Aldrich Family, and presented it in 11 test cities — Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland; Peoria, Des Moines, Topeka, South Bend, Richmond, Oklahoma City, Dallas and Seattle. The network program's high Hooper rating during that five-month period was not affected in the least, and the only reason G-F discontinued the experiment was the ban on recorded music by the American Federation of Musicians, Mr. De Castro stated. The potential daytime audience for these recorded evening shows is tremendous, he added, remarking that "any possible loss of nighttime rating for a show will be dwarfed by the new listeners the program will be able to reach." Swing-shift war workers, numbering between four and five million persons, who are unable to hear the live shows in the evening hours, are most likely to be at home and awake during the late afternoon hours from 3-5. Also, the Mutual executive said, what's to keep people from listening to a radio show a second time in the same way one goes again to a particularly good motion picture? Some advertisers have expressed the fear that this daytime plan of Mutual's, when it goes into ef(Continued on page 65) BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising August 30, 1943 • Page 9