Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan - Mar 1951)

A 52-week contract for Sunday afternoon musical show, Down Memory Lane, on KXOK St. Louis was forged between KXOK, Mutual Bank & Trust Co. and Erskine, Delorenzis & Whiteside Adv. Agency. Seated is Edmund B. Welshans, bank v. p. Standing (I to r) are Charles E. Burge, KXOK salesman; John J. Whiteside and Marjorie Stemm, pres. and radio dir. respectively of agency. WJVS Owensboro, Ky., signs Grant Jewelers for some 11,000 spots featuring World time jingles. Sonny Clark, firm adv. mgr., is shown inking contract. Standing are (I to r) Malcolm Greep, WJVS v. p. and gen. mgr.; John T. Rutledge, WJVS comm. mgr.; Oscar Grant, firm owner. KOMA Oklahoma City's female disc jockey, Nicky, signs for her program. Your Late Date, an hour devoted to friendly conversation and musical minutiae. Much pleased are J. J. Bernard (I), station v. p. and gen. mgr., and Bob Eastman, station program director. RENEWAL of Mystery h My Hobby, weekly half-hour program over KLZ Denver by sponsoring Western Appliance Co.'s Joe Mongold (I), brings smile to face of Lee Fondren, KLZ national sales mgr. WTTM Trenton, N. J., will air 15 trackside broadcasts of Roller Derby from Trenton. Account Executive Harry Barnum and Station Manager Fred Bernstein watch George W. Lee, of H. D. Lee Co., set contract. SIGNING 13-week contract to sponsor Norvell Gillespie's Garden Guide over California NBC network, which started Feb. 18, is Louis F. Czufin, of California Spray-Chemical Corp. Standing (I to r), Walter G. Tolleson, asst. sales mgr. for NBC Western Network; Carson Magill, McCann-Erickson account executive, and Richard Tyler, M-E timebuyer. RADIO HISTORY Columbia U. G/vei Funds for Project FUNDS to carry on a radio history project, in which leading perso alties are recording their recollections of broadcasting's growth, ha been contributed to the "Study of Radio Broadcasting" conducted the Oral History Project, Columbia U., in cooperation with the Twen Year Club. Work has been under way nearly five months, financed by such organizations as BMI, General Electric Co., Westinghouse Electric Corp., Institute of Radio Engineers, C. E. Hooper Inc., Broadcasting • Telecasting, several stations and a number of other groups. Thus far $9,450 has been contributed, enough to carry on the work for 10 months in the New York area. An additional $5,000 has been pledged. When more funds are available the field work will be extended. Director of the study is Frank Ernest Hill, with Prof. Allan Nevins, director of the Oral History Project, and Dean Albertson, assistant director, assisting in an advisory capacity. Thirty-two persons have begun to record their reminiscences, with 16 completed and the others well along. Another 25 industry figures will be interviewed within the next three months. Interviews are conducted via tape recorder, with material then transcribed for permanent reference. Varied Activities Wide range of personalities and activities features the project. ExPresident Herbert Hoover, for example, recited a history of the first six years of radio control when he was Secretary of Commerce. O. H. Caldwell, editor of Tele-Tech, gave a history of the Federal Radio Commission, predecessor of the FCC. He was a member of the original regulatory body. Coverage of the era prior to 1930 will be handled in the first year of the project, with two years needed for adequate coverage up to 1940. Many of those interviewed have supplied material right up to the present time. Original objectives of the study developed out of conferences with William S. Hedges, NBC, president of the Twenty Year Club; H. V. Kaltenborn, its founder and past president, and others. Areas to be covered include: Organization and development of stations, networks and other important units in the radio field; technical research and engineering; advertising; government regulation; technical facilities, including studios, transmission units, long lines, etc.; network and station policy (which may overlap other areas at a number of points) ; programming, including general patterns and such particular areas as news, music, special events, drama, discussion, education and sports; legal developments affecting broadcasting; FM and television; audience research and measurement. Intensive work on legal, FM-TV and research has been deferred. The general plan will be altered as experience dictates. A few those interviewed include Dr. R. G. Baker, General Electric G Walter Evans, Westinghouse Rac Stations Inc.; Jack Poppele, WC New York; Abel A. Schechti formerly MBS, now with Crowe Collier; John V. L. Hogan, pione engineer; Arthur Judson, CBS, a many others. By using the tape method, hour's interview can produce 9,0 words, many times the quanti that could be obtained if stori were written. In the first 33 i terviews some 800 typed pages, 250,000 words, were produced. "The material already gathei also throws valuable light on t early days of radio," Mr. Hill sa "We have testimony about I Forest's early experiments a broadcasts, about Fessenden's perimental work and about ea: AT&T experiments. We have p sonal accounts of early WJZ, WC KYW and WGY. We have tes mony about the work at the Gene Electric laboratories, about t first serious news programs a about the beginnings of adv' tising and news coverage. "The fund of pertinent epist and anecdote is valuable, amusi and often sensational. We hi the promise of a new kind of I tory; human, abundant and in j highest sense exciting. Most what we are receiving shows i most scrupulous desire to give true and full record, and we belii that this will be a characteris of the majority of those who h to tell the story of radio. "A few tapes are preserved full, but in most cases samp are taken to show the voice of personality in question." NAMES GOTTLIEB To CBS Radio Program Pi LESTER GOTTLIEB, leading p d u c e r at CI ! last week w appointed t network's dir tor of radio p grams, New Yo Mr. Gottli went to C three years £ from Young Rubicam wh he had been pervisor of 1 talent division of the radio depa ment and producer of We i People. He entered radio in the public department of WOR New York 1935, a year later becoming ht of the MBS press department, joined Young & Rubicam in If as head of radio publicity and came supervisor of the agenc radio talent division in 1946. Mr. Gottlieb BROADCASTING • Telecasti