Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

BIG PROVIDENCE ^ 10 Attracts 'em . . . Holds 'em spellbound . . . with B-A-L-A-N-C-E-D TV ENTERTAINMENT What Sponsor Could Ask For More! WEED TELEVISION NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE our respects to PHILIP MERRYMAN THANKSGIVING DAY took on a new significance in 1927 when the proclamation that makes the event official was read over an NBC hookup by President Calvin Coolidge. Presiding at two truckloads of dials and amplifiers in the Lincoln Room of the White House that evening was Philip Merryman, a young engineer at WRC Washington. After it was over, the President left the room, returning a few minutes later to comment, "What do you mean, putting it on at 7:30 instead of 8?" "My instructions have been 7:30 all along, Mr. President," the technician answered. "Grace was going to listen in her quarters at 8. You ought to learn to run your thing better than that," the Chief Executive sputtered in his Yankee manner. Philip Merryman, now part owner and president of WICC-AM-TV Bridgeport, Conn., already knew a lot about the thing he was running. He had shipped out of Portland, Ore., on a government wooden freighter in 1918, serving as Sparks for three years. While working on an Astoria, Ore., tugboat used for harbor and river pilots, he was asked by the morning Astorian to build a broadcast station . . . and did. The competitive evening Budget had to have one, it decided, so young Merryman built another. As the only licensed operator in Astoria, he had to bicycle between the two stations to keep the 360 meter equipment on the air. After hours he used the transmitter to talk to engineers around the country and built up some fast friends at WSB Atlanta and other stations until the authorities put a stop to his cross-country radio-telephony. Back in Portland, where his family had moved a few years before, he went to high school and delivered telegrams between classes. A letter from his uncle in Mississippi induced him to investigate the South. He forgot about radio while drumming in a band that played around Jackson and at the same time continuing his high school education. Drumming was so much fun that he decided to make it a career and moved to Chicago, a mecca for jazz musicians. This idea flopped in a hurry when President James C. Petrillo, of the music union, asked a transfer fee of $500 or so, which was about $500 beyond the young man's means. Next stop was the RCA office in Chicago, where he landed a job as radio operator on a lake boat plying between Milwaukee and Muskegon. After a year on this run, the ship owner yielded to the glamorous rumors about all the money people were making in Florida, and decided to head southward. Despite the 1925-26 boom, the shipping business on nearby runs didn't work out, and soon the boat was headed northward. At New York, young Merryman dropped off and went to work under engineering pioneer O. B. Hanson at NBC. His next stop was Washington as a member of the NBC-WRC technical staff. That was in 1927. He finished his high school education at Emerson Institute, and went on to George Washington U., where he met Frances Thomas, a Michigan girl. They were married and now have three children. Philip Jr. is widely known as an authority on electronic calculating machines; Michael is starting a radio career and Heather is a freshman in college. In 1937, Mr. Merryman was transferred to NBC New York, moving into station relations and then planning and development. He left the network in 1947 after developing the first NBC tv network plan which was reputed to be the basis of the present network. After consultant activity in New Orleans, he returned to New York to go into the consulting business on his own. He became interested in a Bridgeport property, WLIZ, in early 1950 and bought a onethird interest with a five-year management contract. After getting a permit to increase from day to fulltime operation, he ran into a series of local zoning hearings. Convinced the city didn't want his tower, he joined a group in purchase of WICC and WLIZ was retired. When the new owners assumed operation of WICC in January 1952, they had a tv equity that consisted of a returned ch. 1 application filed many years before. A uhf application was filed and WICC-TV put out its first program in March 1953. At WLIZ Mr. Merryman had concentrated on local programming, a format he continued at WICC with the slogan "The most listened-to station in the richest retail market in the U. S." He became a popular air personality, commenting on local, state, national and worldwide news. To get material for his nightly The World Today, he regularly interviews state legislators and makes frequent Washington trips to tape Congressmen and Senators on issues of the day. The 52-year-old executive (born Dec. 13, 1903) is a founder and first president of the Committee for Hometown Television, a group of uhf and vhf stations which recently started a nationwide campaign "to save local community self-expression on tv." Operating a tv station in a market blanketed by high-power New York stations, he is quite aware of the need for community programming and has carried on the fight in Washington. Community activities include board membership of the Connecticut Symphony, Red Cross and Heart Assn. He is active in the Rotary Club. Hobbies include golf, fishing, and a recently acquired devotion to sailboats. Page 24 • January 23, 1956 Broadcasting • Telecasting