Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1955)

PERSONNEL RELATIONS PROGRAM SERVICES FUND FOR THE REPUBLIC CONTINUES TO EXPAND ACTIVITIES IN RADIO-TV Ford Foundation-endowed activity plans Herblock tv film series, announces winners of script competition. Report also shows status of other studies involving mass media. ments when films are used over again after the initial showing, it is speculated that IATSE will ask for residual payments in addition to a higher initial minimum scale and better working conditions. Heretofore, IATSE has not shared in residuals. The Writers Guild contract with tv film producers expires next February, it was reported, and negotiations should begin later this fall after Guild talks with the majors are concluded. The latter should begin next month at present estimate. Under the present contract, Writers Guild members receive 150% additional payment from tv packagers for the second through fifth re-run of a film, but they do not get any payment for the first re-run. The first re-run payment was the principle on which SAG struck and won. It is believed WGAW also will fight for first re-run money, plus other new benefits. John L. Dales, national executive secretary of SAG, announced the guild has mailed ballots to 10,000 members in a referendum for ratification of its new contract with the producers of television entertainment films. A letter from the guild's negotiating committee and board of directors, recommending approval of the contract, accompanied the ballots. Votes must be cast by Sept. 12. A Hollywood membershsip meeting of the guild on Aug. 16 voted 735 to 307 to call off the 12-day strike and approve the contract. The New York Council of SAG by unanimous vote approved the guild's new contract last week, according to a telegram received by the guild's Hollywood headquarters Wednesday from Harold M. Hoffman, executive secretary of the organization's New York branch. The guild has approximately 2,000 members in New York. THE FUND for the Republic Inc., a non-profit corporation supported by Ford millions, not only is "studying" certain aspects of the radio-tv field but is planning still other studies and additional use of the media. Already, some three quarters of a million dollars have been funneled into current or proposed activities connected in some way with the radio-tv field. Here is a summary of plans, for the future or already underway, some of them heretofore undisclosed: • A $100,000 study of "blacklisting" in the motion picture, radio and tv industries. This study, authorized last September, had used all of its funds except $32,215 as of last May. A report by its director, John Cogley (formerly executive editor of Commonweal, and his principal assistant, Michael Harrington, is slated for publication early next year. • An authorization last May of $25,000 for a "commission" to explore the possibility of a "continuing agency to appraise the performance of the media of mass communication." A meeting of this group will be held next month. • A tv film series featuring Herbert L. Block, editorial cartoonist of the Washington Post and Times-Herald and twice-winner of the Pulitizer Prize. Details of the project, for which $200,000 has been appropriated, were announced last week. • Also announced last week were winners of a contest for outstanding original drama and documentary scripts on civil liberties themes. By last May, all but $6,070 of a $75,000 allocation for this project had been expended. Also last May, the Fund authorized $65,000 for awards to be presented for outstanding dramatic and documentary tv shows already on the air, and last September allocated $200,000 for the production of pilot tv films and for participation in tv programs "of interest to the Fund." All but $81,169 of the $200,000 thus appropriated had been spent last May. Funds Authorized The Fund for the Republic's grants authorized, as of last May, include $5,000 to the American Friends Service Committee "for assistance to radio tape programs on civil liberties topics"; $40,000 to Columbia U. for activities including radio programs and $35,000 to the National Citizens Commission for the Public Schools for a radio series on "problems confronting public schools." The $85,000 in grants, combined with the monies allocated for projects, brings the broadcast media-connected funds to a total of $745,000. Of the $665,000 authorized for these projects, the Fund had spent $193,586 as of May, leaving a balance of $471,414 unexpended. The Fund for the Republic Inc., created by a $1 million grant of the Ford Foundation in October 1951 and made quite solvent with another $14 million of Ford monies about 16 months later, has as its objective the advancement of the understanding of civil liberties. As of last May, the non-profit corporation, which is independent of the Ford Foundation although financed by it, had assests of nearly $13 million. Paul G. Hoffman, board chairman of the Studebaker-Packard Corp., is its chairman and Robert M. Hutchins is its president. Mr. Hutchins, formerly chancellor of the U. of Chicago, succeeded Sen. Clifford P. Case (R-N. J.) who in April 1954 resigned to run for the U. S. Senate. In the May report of the Fund, Mr. Hutchins noted that the "citizen should know what bis rights are and what is happening to them. This is the reason why the Fund has used all the media of communication — radio, television, newspapers, magazines, records and books — to arouse an interest in civil liberties and to encourage debate about them." Mr. Hutchins said that the Fund's board of directors "believes that the rights of Americans should not be compromised or lost through neglect or confusion." In summarizing its activities, the report noted that among them has been the making available to educational institutions and public affairs groups an expanded version of the tv film of Edward R. Murrow's interview with J. Robert Oppenheimer. The interview was first seen on Mr. Murrow's See It Now show on CBS-TV. Tv Experiment The report said the Fund also has used tv experimentally on the Pacific Coast where brief films of events in the "current history of freedom" have been supplied to tv newscasters "who appear to welcome them." The Fund said the venture has been so successful that it plans to extend this use of film to other parts of the country. The Fund last week said it has selected Information Productions Inc., a New York tv film producer, to produce a series of 26 15-minute tv films entitled Herblock's Week. Cartoonist Block is known professionally as Herblock. The tv series, the first commissioned by the Fund, will feature Mr. Block in a discussion of current events. It will be filmed in Washington, D. C, either at Mr. Block's home or at a studio, starting next month. First release of the initial films — the program later will be filmed on a weekly basis — is set for October. Reggie Schuebel, New York representative of agencies, will handle distribution to stations. The series can be sponsored locally. Information Productions, headed by Alfred "KRIZ Phoenix says you have everything—please, sir, may I have a wolf-trap?" cIuhxW km afcoirf TV k WaAlwgfoitJXC. Without changing its current rates, WMAL-TV will boost its power to 252,000 watts this Fall and spark the new ABC-TV programs with the greatest promotion campaign ever conducted by a Washington TV station! Ask Katz about prime adjacencies for the Fall . . . at current rates on SUPERPOWER WMAL-TV **\^ Washington, D. C. Represented by The Katz Agency The Evening Star TV Station Affiliated with ABC-Television Page 78 • August 29, 1955 Broadcasting • Telecasting