Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1955)

ALL YOU NEED'S A BEEPER PHONE AND YOU'RE A LOCAL 'MONITOR.' HOW FOUR STATIONS DO IT IF IMITATION is as sincerely flattering as the old saw has it, then those in charge of putting on Monitor for NBC Radio must certainly be flattered at the local variations of this 40-hour continuous weekend program that are springing up throughout the land. Their gratification, however, may be tinged with annoyance at the way these local Monitor-type operations are garnering listeners and advertisers in their communities. One local variation on the Monitor theme is Denver at Night, launched Sept. 12 as a seven-hour weekday evening operation by KLZ, which broadcasts the program from 5 p.m. to midnight. Monday through Friday. Described by a Denver newspaperman as "a nomadic microphone reporting the pulse of a big city," Denver at Night covers the city — and the suburbs and the surrounding area — via "beeper" telephone for human interest stories behind the news of the day. This local personal news service is not all there is to Denver at Night. The seven-hour daily airtime span also gives its listeners music, news, sports and three short CBS Radio Network programs. But the roving microphone, the "beeper" phone calls and the stories relayed back from the special Denver at Night radio telephone-equipped station wagon, which goes places which the telephone does not reach, make the program what it is. For example, take the program's opening night. On that initial seven-hour stint, producer-pilot Charles Roberts and his crew: © Talked with the new Miss America (a Denver girl) and her parents by long distance telephone from the new Queen of Beauty's suite in Atlantic City. © Eavesdropped while a group of Denver orphans said their goodnight prayers. © Visited at a gas pump with the gas station attendant about a growing gas-price war in Denver. © Aired direct reports on late conditions from the Denver police and fire departments. © Chatted with a weather forecaster at the U. S. weather bureau. © Talked with the radio-television editors of Denver's two daily newspapers, the men telling KLZ's audience about current con AT TOP: KLZ personality Tom Carlisle does a Denver at Night interview at the bank of beeper telephones in the station control room. ditions in London, where they are touring. © Aired a conversation with the night watchman at Denver's newest skyscraper, the Mile High Center Building. ® Talked informally with the president of Time Inc., Roy Larsen, from the KLZ studios . . . then, after a lively musical selection, switched to a grocery store for a chat with a housewife doing her evening shopping. • Heard a member of the Denver Bears baseball team tell about the heart-breaking loss of the final playoff game to the Minneapolis Millers. In addition, KLZ proudly reports, the DaN crew "scooped both local newspapers three of the first five nights — properly forecasting that two of the three scoops would be the next day's front page headlines." Originated by KLZ Manager Phil Hoffman, Denver at Night readily admits that it has taken the Monitor approach and given it a local angle suited to the Denver audience. Included in the seven-hour nightly broadcast are 75 minutes of Party Line, a KLZ program whose m.c, Starr Yelland, makes his telephone-mike available to all comers. "This show's success, commercial as well as listener, was the labor pains which actually led to the birth of Denver at Night," KLZ states. The new series caught on commercially even before it went on the air, the station says. "KLZ salesmen inked contracts for a 45-minute segment, five nights a week, the day of the opener; grabbed off a flock of spot participations the day after the first airing. One entire night was sponsored after the first weak's run and encouraging reaction from advertisers and agencies indicate the remainder of the five days will go fast." In Watsonville, Calif., KHUB's Operation Hometown is doing the same job for the audience of this 250 w station that NBC's Monitor does for the network listeners, according to Vic Rugh, KHUB's station manager. "Operation Hometown embraces everything," he says. "If Johnny Smith has a birthday party, KHUB calls him up, records him from the 'beeper' phone and wishes him the best of the day. When an accident happens, the staff member most available covers the event and reports in with the news. "It's not just a programming gimmick," Mr. Rugh declares. "We may be strictly cornball but we feel that as a part of the community we should enter into everything. Naturally, it helps business because folks are afraid not to listen for fear they'll miss something." WTTM Trenton, N. L, which calls its Monitor-type programming Impulse, has gone all the way with the new style operation, scheduling it daily from 6:30 a.m. until midnight, comprising all of the station's broadcast day except those periods committed to NBC. "We have tossed aside arbitrary time periods," Fred L. Bernstein, general manager of WTTM, said, "and will let the material determine how much time will be devoted to it on the air. The content will determine the form instead of the form determining the content." Using remote pick-ups and telephone wires to get local news to its listeners first, WTTM during the first week of Impulse visited the office of New Jersey Gov. Robert B. Meyner; covered the capture of a murderer (scoring a four-hour beat on all competing media) ; was on the spot to report the results of the Delaware Valley United Fund; interviewed Miss Pennsylvania; talked to many citizens about flood relief and the peacetime uses of atomic energy; covered opening day at New Jersey State Teachers College; broadcast daily reports from the county agent, live weather reports from the U. S. Weather Bureau and several-times-daily stock market reports from the local office of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, among other features. Music, news headlines, ball scores, weather bulletins and on-the-street interviews are interspersed with the Impulse specials. Another New Jersey station, WCTC New Brunswick, on Oct. 1 inaugurated Weekend, which the station described as "a running show of news, sports, weather, human interest features, on-the-spot news reports and dance band pick-ups, with recorded music tying the segments together." Like the original Monitor, Weekend is a SaturdaySunday proposition, running from 6:30 Saturday morning to 6:30 Sunday evening. Staffer Ray Wilson has been relieved of all other duties to cruise Central Jersey nine hours a day to tape human interest features and an additional "beeper" phone has been installed at headquarters. Page 44 » October 3, 1955 Broadcasting • Telecasting