Broadcasting (Apr - June 1950)

WHO'S HIT BY TV? A" Mediq' Not Just Radio' Krue9er s*r«ses By HERBERT KRUEGER COMMERCIAL MANAGER WTAG WORCESTER, MASS. THERE'S nothing like digging your own grave — and paying for the privilege! This television, . . . it's doing an awful job on radio audiences! Everyone knows that! I know it, you know it, Young & Rubicam knows it, BBDO knows it and the proprietor of Helen's Hatte Shoppe on Main St. knows it! And that, broadcasters, is what " I mean when I say we are digging , our own graves, and paying for i ! the privilege! In our city there are no television stations. We are in a "fringe j listening" area. Before television our Hooper reports showed the usual negligible rating under the 'Others" column. Then came |, "FM & Others" and the rating was still small. Then came "FM, TV ll & Others" and that started small, but kept growing and growing. Certainly it wasn't the "Others" !; or the "FM" that caused the in| crease. It was television. LookE ing at a current index and comparing it with the same period a L year ago, one gets quite a shock. For years we've used Hoopers Has a sales tool. Took them out, r showed the client, rubbed our L hands and said, "See, I told you a.you had something there!" We still take out the Hoopers and show them to customers. What happens? The proprietor owns a television set in his home. Thousands and thousands of people in our city don't own television sets. But this fellow does — and he uses it. He looks at the Hooper, runs his fin'iger horizontally along the page and says, "Wow!, Television is .sure cutting into your audience, ,!isn't it?" Client's Decision Right there the client decides two things. First, he's going to be darn sure to use TV if it ever rcomes to his city. Second, maybe he'd better cut down on his radio ^expenditure and pour a little more back into good old newspaper advertising. ! The salesman comes back to the office and says, "What can I tell him?" So you again point out the 'growth of your audience, you get jout the new BMB, you repeat the stuff about impact and the many tried and true sales plusses of radio. You tell the salesman that ■television is a glamour gal reaching only a minority, and a small minority when it stacks up against other advertising media. Then you admit that a person looking at a television screen can't be listening to a radio program. But, he also can't be reading a newspaper, or a magazine, or be Dut riding around looking at billboards, or reading his mail ... or even going to the movies, playing bridge, working in the garden, or anything else. You point out that television has an impact on everything, not just on radio. So the salesman passes all that along to the client. He nods, but he isn't convinced. Maybe television viewers don't read the newspaper so much, but the "solicitor" from the paper was just in and showed him the ABC report and it looked pretty good. There was nothing in there about television. Nothing in the line of figures to show that. Wait a minute! What, then, are we doing with TV figures on our Hoopers? Drop that shovel — let somebody else dig the grave. As broadcasters, we have become victims of our own zealousness. picture of how many people are listening to radio programs — and that's what the survey was ordered to show. In television markets there can be television surveys and radio surveys; order one, or order both. Each will give a fair picture of its own particular audience. 'Evaluate All Media' If advertising agencies then want to find out the facts about competing media in a given market, let them gather their own data, at their expense, or at least at the expense of the respective media. Let them evaluate all media covering the market, each in its own relative position. That radio is not alone in the steamroller path of television is INDUSTRY sales problems have held the attention of Herbert Krueger for many years. As a member of the NAB Sales managers Executive Committee he was active in the association's steps to improve the industry's advertising position. When the All-Radio Presentation was set in motion over two years ago he was given the job of handling finances. The NAB sales managers group spawned the idea that led to formation of the present Broadcast Advertising Bureau. At WTAG Worcester, Mass., Mr. Krueger is commercial manager. He raises in this article a point that all broadcasters should recognize, and appreciate. Mr. Krueger We have always led the advertising field in research for our clients. So maybe it was a natural and logical step to drift into Hoopers, or Nielsens, or Pulses, or whathaveyous that gradually noted the trend toward television. But if we become objective in our viewpoint we recognize the radio and television and magazines and newspapers are all competing media. Our relationship with television is certainly closer than with the others in that it is "broadcast" advertising. However, we must realize that we do compete with television, whether .we own it or somebody else owns it. A Word on Research The next step then, is a suggestion that the research firms recognize this competition also. When we order a Hooper sm-vey, we order a Hooper radio survey. It will give us the breakdown and division of the radio audience. When Hooper interviewers call a home and the respondent says the radio is not turned on because he is reading a magazine, or a newspaper, or playing Canasta, that doesn't show up in the Hooper. Why then should the Hooper go out of its way to ferret out the television viewers? Maybe the sets-in-use figure will change, and maybe the overall proportion will be altered somewhat, but the result will be a fair borne out by two recent statements from newspaper trade journals. In Editor & Publisher of April 1, 1950, was the following: Television's effect on newspaper circulation is apt to exceed the 4.7% readership decline noted in the Washington, D. C. survey, in the opinion of Charles Thieriot, manager of the "San Francisco Chronicle's" KRONFM and KRON-TV. Addressing a luncheon session of the Western Conference of Circulators here this week, Mr. Thieriot pointed to the algebraic growth of video and predicted similar impact on newspaper advertising and on newspaper size. Circulation wise, convention delegates privately estimated inroads on newspaper sales as high as 17%. In the Editor & Publisher of Feb. 25, 1950, in a story concerning the report of a survey by the National Retail Dry Goods Assn., Howard P. Abrahams, manager of NRDGA's sales promotion division, is quoted as saying: Several retail admen believe that evening newspapers are securing less minutes of family readership than they did before. If this continues, these retailers plan to reduce their advertising in these newspapers. How many newspapers do you think are rushing around to show their advertisers these findings? For years the chief aim of farseeing and aggressive broadcasters was to convince advertisers, and the majority of their fellow broadcasters, that the advertising power of radio was priced too low. In face of the growth of radio as an advertising medium, rate structures failed to keep pace. Now, just when the idea is about to sink in, along comes television, and broadcasting has the problem of maintaining its rate structure instead of increasing it. Intra-station competition, leveling of consumer sales conditions, and the fact that orders ceased coming in over the transom made us all easy prey for the present television scare. Here and there a few broadcasters announced "new Class A rates," or "timebonus packages," and the cold war became a hot one. Who can blame the advertisers for jumping on the band wagon and doing all they can to knock down the rates for broadcast advertising? Radio Bigger Than Ever Running like a frightened rabbit, the broadcaster hasn't time to stop and look at the facts. Radio today is bigger than it ever was, with nearly 90 million sets in use. It's a rare home with only one radio set. It's a rare car without a radio set. It's also a rare station or network that has increased its rates in accordance with the tremendous increases in delivered audiences. Meanwhile, other media, at the drop of an ABC report, will announce an increased rate, backing it up solidly with circulation data. It's happened with newspapers; it's happened with magazines; and if you've had any printing done lately you'll find it's happened in direct mail. And radio, delivering fuller impact, non-divided attention, the smoothest and most effective type of advertising to more and more and more people every day, is cutting rates! SEN. Edwin C. Johnson (D-Col.) (I), president of the Western League, discusses Wichita, Kan., return to organized baseball for the first time in 18 years, as well as baseball in general, with Sportscaster Glen Per' kins of KFH Wichita. Occasion was the Perkins sports review ors KFH prior to the opening game April 18 between the Wichita Indians and the Pueblo Dodgers. BROADCASTING • Telecasting May 8, 1950 • Page 27