Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan - Mar 1951)

The Plotkin Thickens IT'S HAPPENING again. The FCC majority, still hypnotized by its brain-trust lawyers, has authorized action that would sabotage the McFarland Bill (S-658) to institute desperately needed reforms in FCC procedures. The bill has been approved by the Senate for the third time — with no open FCC opposition. It is in the House that the FCC legal cabal is at work. It is using practically the same script as a year ago, but with a defense twist. The FCC lawyers want no new legislation that will wrest the control they hold over all FCC policies — engineering and economic, as well as legal. The McFarland Bill would halt ex-parte maneuvering, and place responsibility where it belongs — with the Presidentially picked and Senate-confirmed Commissioners. In closed House hearings a fortnight ago, the FCC resubmitted its "model" bill. It saw no need for legislation along the lines of the McFarland Bill. It wants merely three or four changes in the present Act at this time. It blandly selected palatable parts and talked down changes in substantive provisions that would take away its gun (and the lawyers' powers). As always, greatest secrecy surrounds the FCC's suggestions. The hearing was held behind closed doors — at the FCC's behest. But the "model bill," which we reported in detail in our issue of Jan. 30, 1950, is about as secret as yesterday's Congressioyial Record. Things have changed since the FCC lawyers did the machete job on the McFarland Bill last year. Rep. Sadowski, who introduced the FCC bill in January 1950, is now Mr. Sadowski, citizen. Sen. McFarland, who was a member of the Senate Interstate & Foreign Commerce Committee last year, is now the majority leader — No. 1 party man in the upper chamber. House Committee Chairman Crosser, who last year was told the McFarland Bill was a radio version of the Taft-Hartley Bill (h3's a pro-labor man) now knows the facts. Of course, the Cottone-Plotkin-GoldmanSolomon quadrumvirate of FCC legal lights still has in its vest pocket the House communications expert, Mr. Kurt Borchardt. It was his collaboration last year that aided the FCC lawyers in thwarting remedial legislation, keeping inviolate the FCC's record of blocking any changes in the substantive law since 1934. It is our guess, however, that the strategy won't work this time. The FCC wants, anl perhaps needs, the authorization for new monitoring station facilities. It covets a radio fraud law, similar to the postal fraud law. It wants other sugar-coated provisions' of the McFarland Bill. Its device is to get them piecemeal, thereby kicking the bill in the teeth. What will the Senate do? Communications bills automatically go to the Interstate Committee, headed by Sen. Big Ed Johnson, and of which Mr. McFarland remains the ranking majority member. While we do not have the confidence of these distinguished statesmen, we surmise they will see to it that these piece-meal amendments will be attached to the thrice-approved McFarland Bill, and shunted back to the House. In fact, this happened Wednesday on the monitoring amendment. Thus, if the FCC wants its monitoring money, or its sugar candy, it will have to take them hand-cuffed to the lawyer wing-clipping provisions of the McFarland Bill. They can play shuttle-cock that way all year. How long this travesty will endure we do not know. It's our feeling, however, that a few well-timed speeches on the Senate and HouSe floors, laying bare the artifices of the FCC's legal minions over the years, would yield the essential results. WCFM (FM) Washington, a cooperatively owned station that is endeavoring to finance itself by public subscription, is demanding a Congressional investigation of FM set manufacturers who WCFM alleges have failed to promote FM. What this means, obviously , is that WCFM is trying to unload the blame for its own difficulties on somebody else, a trick that cannot be done. The failure resides in the concept of subscription radio, which is contradictory to the principles upon which the U. S. broadcasting system was built. Blueprint To Ruin AT THIS juncture in our defense economy both the administration and at least a majority of Congress are disposed to treat advertising costs in relation to taxation precisely as was done in World War II. Then, all ordinary and necessary and reasonable expenditures were recognized as deductible. The new excess profits tax law takes cognizance of this, both as to capitalization of advertising, and expenditures for advertising and goodwill. It tacitly approves, therein, the necessity for manufacturers to protect their competitive positions by institutional or "brand name" advertising, even if they do not produce a single item to sell the public. But advertisers, and the advertising media, cannot rest on their oars. The new excess tax law comes at a time, technically, when we are not at war. We are in a defense emergency, and in its early stage at that. What will happen if all-out war comes ? What when government revenue requirements reach new peaks due to full-tilt mobilization ? Even now some left-wing members of Congress are talking loosely about a "tax" on advertising. In the military there are those who (having never worked in industry) oppose an allowable advertising deduction. The gradelabelling zealots are omnipresent, and many of the. professorial gentry, who abound the Washington scene when there's an emergency, get in their licks via the brain trust vistas. The most potent danger reposes in the philosophy of some of the labor leadership, who espouse a limitation on institutional advertising, which traditionally increases when the available supply of consumer goods declines. The notion is that if advertising remains a deductible item, the government will lose a substantial pot of new revenue. And Uncle Sam, in his quest for new money, may look toward the now tax-free labor unions — biggest business in the U.S. today — for that money. They even hazard the view (cockeyed, we think) that newspapers and magazines would be only passively resistant to a limitation on purely institutional advertising — because of their competition with radio and TV. They base that on impending cut-backs on newsprint and possible rationing of newspaper display space, which could be reflected in diversion of institutional budgets to the broadcast media. All this may sound ludicrous. Yet it's an open secret that union leadership is seeking means of postponing the day of labor union taxation. They brush aside the argument that to kill brand names is to kill opportunities for employment in normal times. Here we have the ear-marks of nationalization of industry. The plight of the British economy as a consequence of nationalization should be lesson enough. our respects to: WESLEY IRVIN NUNN SEVEN YEARS AGO, a leading efficiency organization made an analytical study of the structure of Standard Oil of Indiana and discovered it maintained one of the smallest advertising departments among all multimillion-dollar companies. The department, purposely small, was itself based on a system of efficiency, with a few key people responsible for decisions and directing duties of others. This is a principle and standard practice of Wesley Irvin Nunn, advertising manager of the company since 1936. He heads a staff of 19 persons, seeing that Standard Oil's advertising agencies (McCann-Erickson and BBDO) and other "suppliers" assume as much of the work load as possible. Efficiency is effortless and unobtrusive with Mr. Nunn. His absorption in advertising, however, is obvious to anyone. Almost all his activities— both in and away from SO headquarters on Chicago's Michigan Blvd. — center on advertising. A member and former president of the Chicago Federated Advertising Club, Mr. Nunn is vice chairman on the board of directors of the Assn. of National Advertisers, board member of the Advertising Federation of America, board member of the Advertising Council—in which for the fourth year he is coordinator of the "Stop Accidents" campaign on behalf of the National Safety Council — and one of three men on the national advisory council of Alpha Delta Sigma, professional advertising fraternity. A natural conviviality and sense of humor blend easily with his slight southern accent, as Mr. Nunn was born in Martinsville, Va., and lived for many years in Oklahoma. Mr. Nunn, one of 10 children, was born in "the heart of tobaccoland" April 23, 1895. He is one of the few stalwarts who can comprehend a tobacco auctioneer's scrambled speech, as he watched such proceedings almost daily until he was 12. His father, a tobacco wholesaler, conducted many auctions at their home. Western traditions became a part of the youth's life when, in 1907, he joined an older brother in Indian Territory, two months before it merged with Oklahoma Territory to become the state of Oklahoma. Interested in many things, young Wes enrolled at Oklahoma A & M after high school and "dabbled" in engineering. When "I found I was spending all my spare time writing for college publications," he converted to journalism school at the U. of Oklahoma. There, "purely by accident," he took the first step toward an advertising career. A Kappa Sigma fraternity brother, ill and (Continued on page 76) Page 46 • March 5, 1951 BROADCASTING • Telecasting