Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct - Dec 1951)

I Text of Code Okayed in Chicago (Continued from page 3U) gram time to the support of worthy causes in the public interest in keeping with the highest ideals of the free competitive system. (g) A charge for television time to churches and religious bodies is not recommended. ACCEPTABILITY OF ADVERTISERS AND PRODUCTS— GENERAL 1. A commercial television broadcaster makes his facilities available for the advertising of products and services and accepts commercial presentations for such advertising. However, a television broadcaster should, in recognition of his responsibility to the public, refuse the facilities of his station to an advertiser where he has good reason to doubt the integrity of the advertiser, the truth of the advertising representations, or the compliance of the advertiser with the spirit and purpose of all applicable legal requirements. Moreover, in consideration of the laws and customs of the communities served, each television broadcaster should refuse his facilities to the advertisement of products and services, or the use of advertising scripts, which the station has good reason to believe would be objectionable to a substantial and responsible segment of the community. The foregoing principles should be applied with judgment and flexibility, taking into consideration the characteristics of the medium and the form and content of the particular presentation. In general, because television broadcast is designed for the home and the family, including children, the following principles should govern the business classifications listed below: (a) The advertising of hard liquor should not be accepted. (b) The advertising of beer and wines is acceptable only when presented in the best of good taste and discretion, and is acceptable subject to federal and local laws. (c) Advertising by institution or enterprises which purport to offer instruction and which imply promises of employment or make exaggerated claims for the opportunities awaiting those who enroll for courses is not acceptable, except that if thorough and complete investigation of the enterprise and its claims is possible and practical it may be accepted [to be revised]. (d) The advertising of firearms and fireworks is acceptable only subject to federal and local laws. (e) The advertising of fortune-telling, occultism, spiritualism, astrology, phrenology, palm-reading, numerology, mind-reading or character reading is not acceptable. (f) [deleted.] (g) Because all products of a personal nature create special problems, such products, when accepted, should be treated with especial emphasis on ethics and the canons of good taste; however, the advertising of intimately personal products which are generally regarded as unsuitable conversational topics in mixed social groups is not acceptable. (h) The advertising of tip sheets, race track publications, or organizations seeking to advertise for the purpose of giving odds or promoting betting or lotteries is unacceptable. 2. Diligence should be exercised to that end that advertising copy accepted for telecasting complies with pertinent federal, state and local laws. 3. An advertiser who markets more than one product should not be permitted to use advertising copy devoted to an acceptable product for purposes of publicizing the brand name or other identification of a product which is not acceptable. ADVERTISING OF MEDICAL PRODUCTS 1. The advertising of medical products presents considerations of intimate and far-reaching importance to the consumer, and the following principles and procedures should apply in the advertising thereof. (a) A television broadcaster should not accept advertising material which in his opinion offensively describes or dramatizes distress or morbid situation involving ailments, by spoken word, sound or visual effects. (b) Because of the personal nature of the advertising of medical products, claims that a product will effect a cure and the indiscriminate use of such words as "safe," "without risk," "harmless," or terms of similar meaning should not be accepted in the advertising of medical products on television stations. CONTESTS 1. Contests should offer the opportunity to all contestants to win on the basis of ability and skill, rather than chance. 2. All contest details, including rules. Page 36 • October 22, 1951 eligibility requirements, opening and termination dates should be clearly and completely announced and/or shown or easily accessible to the viewing public, and the winner's names should be released and prizes awarded as soon as possible after the close of the contest. 3. When advertising is accepted which requests contestants to submit items of product identification or other evidence of purchase of product, reasonable facsimiles thereof should be made acceptable. 4. All copy pertaining to any contest (except that which is required by law) associated with the exploitation or sale of the sponsor's product or service, and all references to prizes or gifts offered in such connection should be considered a part of and included in the total time allowances as herein provided, (see Time Standards for Advertising Copy.) PREMIUMS AND OFFERS 1. Full details of proposed offers should be required by the television broadcaster for investigation and approval before the first announcement of the offer is made to the public. 2. A final date for the terminiation of an offer should be announced as far in advance as possible. 3. Before accepting for telecast offers involving a monetary consideration, a television broadcaster should satisfy himself as to the integrity of the advertiser and his willingness to honor complaints indicating dissatisfaction with the premium by returning such monetary consideration. 4. There should be no misleading descriptions or visual representations of any premiums or gifts which would distort or enlarge their value in the minds of the listeners. 5. Assurances should be obtained from the" advertiser that premiums offered are not harmful to person or property. 6. Premiums should not be approved which appeal to superstition on the basis of "luck-bearing" powers or othe TIME STANDARDS FOR ADVERTISING COPY Since television is a developing medium, involving methods and techniques distinct from those of radio, it may be desirable from time to time to review and revise the presently suggested time standards for television advertising as formulated below: 1. As a guide to the determination of good telecast advertising practice, the time standards for advertising copy, presently suggested, are as follows: CO M 5g All other Prograr cu S g in w SSI CD CO :00 u < 1:00 1:15 1:45 2:00 2:10 2:15 2:30 3:00 25 2:50 4:00 30 3:00 4:15 45 4:30 5:45 60 6:00 7:00 2. The time standards allowable to a single advertiser do not affect the established practice of allowance for station breaks between programs. 3. Announcement programs are designed to accommodate a designated number of individual live or recorded announcements, generally one minute in length, which are carried within the body of the program and are available for sale to individual advertisers. Normally not more than 3 one-minute announcements (which should not exceed approximately 125 words if presented live) should be scheduled within a 15minute period and not more than six such announcements should be scheduled within a 30-minute period in local announcement programs; however, fewer announcements of greater individual length may be scheduled provided, that the aggregate length of the announcements approximates three minutes in a 15-minute program or six minutes in a 30-minute program. In announcement programs other than 15 minutes or 30 minutes in length, the proportion of one minute of announcement within every five minutes of programming is normally applied. The announcements must be presented within the framework of the program period designated for their use and kept in harmony with the content of the program in which they are placed.' 4. Programs presenting women's services, features, shopping guides, market information, and similar material, provide a special service to the listening and viewing public in which advertising material is an informative and integral part of the program content. Because of these special characteristics the time standards set forth above may be waived to a reasonable extent. In the present state of experimentation in programming and advertising techniques in television programs of this type no definite limitations to these exceptions are set forth at this time. 5. Any casual reference in a program to another's product or service under any trade name or language sufficiently descriptive to identify it should, except for normal guest identifications, be prohibited. 6. Stationary backdrops or properties in television presentations showing the sponsor's name or product, the name of his product, his trade mark or slogan may be used only incidentally. They should not obtrude on program interest or entertainment. "On Camera" shots of such materials should be fleeting, not too frequent, and mindful of the need of maintaining a proper program balance. DRAMATIZED APPEALS AND ADVERTISING Appeals to help fictitious characters in television programs by purchasing the advertiser's product or service or sending for a premium should not be permitted, and such fictitious characters should not be introduced into the advertising message for such purposes. When dramatized advertising material involves statements by doctors, dentists, nurses or other professional people, the material should be presented by members of such profession reciting actual experience or it should be made apparent from the presentation itself that the portrayal is dramatized. SPONSOR IDENTIFICATION Identification of sponsorship must be made in all sponsored programs in accordance with the requirements of the Communications Act of 1934 and the Rules and Regulations of the Federal Communications Commission. REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES The following REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES shall obtain as an integral part of the Television Code of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters : I NAME The Name of this Code shall be the Television Code of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters.* II PURPOSE OF CODE The purpose of this Code is cooperatively to maintain a level of television programming which gives full consideration to the educational, informational, cultural, economic, moral and entertainment needs of the American public to the end that more and more people will be better served. Ill SUBSCRIBERS Section 1. ELIGIBILITY. Any individual, firm or corporation which is engaged in the operation of a television broadcast station or network, or which holds a construction permit for a television broadcast station withlri ^ Umte<i States or its dependencies, shall, subject to the approval of the Television Board of Directors as hereinafter provided, be eligible to subt^S^0 the Television Code of the NARTB to the extent of one subscription for each such station and/or network which it operates or for which it holds a construction permit; provided, H1 ft,™3 non television member of NARTB shall not become eligible via code subscription to receive any of the member services or to exercise any of the voting privileges of a member. Upon subscribing to the Code, sub * "Television Board. The Television Board is hereby authorized: —(4) to enact, amend and promulgate standards of practice or codes for its Television members, and to establish such methods to secure observance thereof as it may deem advisable; — ". By-Laws of The National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, Article VII Section 2, B. (4). upcoming NARTB DISTRICT MEETINGS Dates Dist. Hotel City Oct. 25-26 6 St. Charles New Orleans 29-30 13 Shamrock Houston * * * Nov. 1-2 5 Soreno St. Petersburg 8-9 7 Seelbach Louisville 12-13 3 William Penn Pittsburgh 15-16 1 Somerset Boston * • * Oct, 22-23: Seventeenth New York BMI Program Clinic, Peacock Lounge, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York. Oct. 22-24: National Electronics Conferference and Exhibition, Edgewater Beach Hotel, Chicago. Oct. 22-24: Talent Committee of Salary Stabilization Board meets, 641 Washington St., New York. Oct. 22-26: AIEE Fall General Meeting, Hotel Cleveland, Cleveland. Oct. 25-26: Ohio Assn. of Broadcasters, Cleveland. Oct. 25-26: A AAA Central Council Annual Meeting. Blackstone Hotel. Chicago. Oct. 27-28: Inter-City conference, Women's Advertising Clubs, Toledo, Ohio. Oct. 28: BMI Program Clinic, Shamrock Hotel, Houston, Tex. Oct. 28-Nov. 3: National Radio & Television Week. Oct. 28-31: Life Insurance Adv. Assn., Annual Meeting, Williamsburg, Va. Oct. 29-31: IRE-RTMA Annual Meeting. Papers on noise in TV receivers, suppression of local oscillator radiation and color TV. King Edward Hotel, Toronto. Oct. 30: BMI Program Clinic, Skirvin Hotel, Oklahoma City. Oct. 30-31: AAAA Eastern Council Annual Conference, Roosevelt Hotel, New York. Oct. 31: BMI Program Clinic, Broadview Hotel, Wichita, Kan. Nov. 2: BMI Program Clinic, Utah Hotel, Salt Lake City. Nov. 2-3: Florida Assn. of Broadcasters, mid-year meeting, Soreno Hotel, St. Petersburg. Nov. 2-3: Michigan Assn. of Broadcasters, Fort Shelby Hotel, Detroit. Nov. 5: BMI Program Clinic, Hotel Northern, Billings, Mont. Nov, 7: BMI Program Clinic, Alonzo Ward Hotel, Aberdeen, S. D. Nov. 9: Hearing for objections to petition for reorganization of LeBlanc Corp. (Hadacol), U. S. Court (Southern New York District), Foley Square, New York City. Nov. 9: BMI Program Clinic, Radisson Hotel, Minneapolis, Minn. Nov. 12-13: First District Meeting, Adv. Federation of America, Boston. Nov. 12-14: National Assn. of Radio News Directors Convention, Sherman Hotel, Chicago. Nov. 13: AAAA Michigan Council Annual Meeting, Statler Hotel, Detroit. Nov. 14-15: American Public Relations Assn., Seventh Annual Meeting, Philadelphia. Nov. 26-29: Financial Public Relations Assn., Annual Convention, Hollywood Beach Hotel, Hollywood, Fla. Nov. 28-Dec. 1: Fifth Annual NBC Radio and Television Affiliates Convention, Boca Raton (Fla.) Club and Hotel. Dec. 7-9: Television Authority Convention, Park Sheraton Hotel, New York. 1952 Jan. 24-25: Advertising Assn. of the Jan, 25-26: Assn. of Railroad Adv. Managers, St. Louis. ,iect to the approval of the Television Board of Directors, there shall be granted forthwith to each such subscribing station authority to use the "NARTB Television Seal 'of Approval," a copyrighted and registered seal to be provided in the form of a certificate, a slide and/or a film, signifying that the recipient thereof is a subscriber in (Continued on page 38) BROADCASTING • Telecasti