Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

our respects to JOHN BARTON POOR BY THE TIME he was 16, Jack Poor had lived in six cities in four states. In the Coast Guard during World War II, he served at posts from New York to New Guinea. And in the rapidly expanding geography of the Tom O'Neil radio, television and motion picture interests, Jack Poor also may be said to be going places. He has, in fact, already gone places. Today, just edging into his 40's, he is executive vice president and a member of the board of Mutual, the far-flung radio network which only a few years ago was the principal landmark on the O'Neil landscape. He also is a vice president of the boardless General Teleradio, the parent corporation set up in 1952 to encompass the expanding O'Neil interests, which by that time included Mutual, owned television and radio stations, and a film syndication unit. Moreover, he also is a member of the eightman board of RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc., the new overall parent formed after Mr. O'Neil's $25 million acquisition of RKO Radio Pictures last July. A quiet, modest man, Jack Poor is inclined to play down his role in the diverse operations of RKO Teleradio Pictures and in the increasingly complex maneuvering by which the O'Neil interests have reached their present considerable estate. Mr. Poor says that Mutual and the other facets of General Teleradio, which form the broadcasting-telecasting division of RKO Teleradio Pictures Inc., are his principal concern and take most of his time. He says he had nothing to do with the $15.2 million deal in which C&C Super Corp. acquired primary rights to the RKO backlog. It is a fact, however, that with Tom O'Neil he was one of the two principal negotiators for General Teleradio in the negotiations by which RKO Radio Pictures was acquired in the first place. The road by which Mr. Poor reached his present posts seemed, at first, to be almost a meandering one, like his childhood. John Barton Poor was born in Philadelphia Aug. 29, 1915, the son of S. S. and Elsie P. Poor, and lived there for approximately two years. Then began a series of moves for which he can offer no particular explanation beyond the guess that it was reflective of "a migratory America." From Philadelphia the family moved to Cleveland for three years, on to Akron for two, back eastward to Brooklyn for four, over to Great Neck, Long Island, for five, then to Andover, Me. In these perambulations, young Jack Poor had no chance to become provincial. His educational stops included Brooklyn and Great Neck elementary schools. Friends Academy on Long Island, Andover High School, Western Reserve Academy at Hudson, Ohio, Wesleyan U., where he graduated with an A.B. degree in 1938 and Harvard U. Law School, where he received his LL.B degree in 1941, graduating cum laude. Graduating from law school just before U. S. entry into World War II, he joined the legal department of Army Ordnance. Then, in May 1942, he let himself be talked into joining the Coast Guard by a young fellow who was running a Coast Guard intelligence unit. The young fellow's name was Tom O'Neil, then an ensign, whose brother John had been a college mate of Jack Poor's at Harvard. By the following December he had made bosun's mate and decided to enter the Coast Guard Academy, emerging in April 1943 as an ensign. He was assigned to Merchant Marine hearing units, participating in the maritime equivalents of court trials, and in this capacity served at stations in New York. Los Angeles, Brisbane, and New Guinea. He was released from service in December 1945 with the rank of lieutenant and joined the Boston law firm of Nutter, McClennen & Fish, where he served from January 1946 to September 1949. Then, with a friend from college days, he formed the Boston law firm of Dalton & Poor. Meanwhile, he had represented the O'Neils' Yankee Network in New England since 1947. gradually spending more and more time on its affairs, and in August 1952 he joined the O'Neil organization fulltime, moving to New York as general counsel of General Teleradio. At this point his professional road began to straighten out. In 1953 he became a vice president as well as general counsel of General Teleradio, and a year ago. in January 1955, he was named executive vice president of Mutual and a member of its board. He retained his vice presidency of General Teleradio, became a vice president of RKO Radio Pictures when that company was bought, and last month when RKO Teleradio Pictures was formed, added a vice presidency of the parent corporation to his portfolio. Mr. Poor was married April 17, 1943, to Betty Rome of Brooklyn, "whose father is head of the New York subways advertising department, a competitor of ours." They have five children — Nancy, 12; John Jr., 9; Penny, 7; Pam, 5; and Lisbeth, 2 — and a sixth is expected at their Garden City home in the next month or so. Not a great hobbyist, Mr. Poor used to play golf but has given it up; also has a farm in Maine but hasn't been there in two years. His principal recreation, he says, is reading. He is a member of the American Bar Assn., the Boston Bar Assn. and the American Juridicature Assn. the MOUNTAIN to MAHOMET Some broadcasters cry in their martinis for the good old days when thousands flocked to see radio. Others get off their swivel chairs and take radio to the people. Over one million visitors see as well as hear Stu Wilson, veteran disc jockey and special events director of KBIG Catalina, broadcast from the September Los Angeles County Fair, world's largest, at Pomona. Daily they shake his hand, hear his music and verbal vignettes, then walk away with KBIG pictures and literature. Focus of KBIG promotion is its Volkswagen mobile broadcasting studio. Every day of the year a KBIG disc jockey broadcasts from the Volks, somewhere in the eightcounty territory served by The Catalina Station. Southern California millions have met such KBIG personalities as Wilson, Carl Bailey, Larry Berrill ... at county fairs of San Diego, Riverside, Orange, Hemet Farmers Fair, Holtville Carrot Festival, San Bernardino Orange Show, Los Angeles Sportsmen's Show, Hobby Show, Do-lt-Yourself Show ... on populous beaches . . . Long Beach, Corona del Mar, Santa Monica . . . in window and parking lots of a market, restaurant, furniture store. They say radio has become a personal companion in kitchen, bedroom and car. KBIG mikemen go further: they're taking themselves to the people, making the station-listener relationship a personal thing. JOHN POOLE BROADCASTING CO. 6540 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood 28, California Telephone: Hollywood 3-3205 Nat. Rep. Robert Meeker & Assoc. Inc. Broadcasting • Telecasting January 16, 1956 • Page 19