Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1956)

PROGRAMS & PROMOTIONS 'TOUR-AIDE' BIG HELP TO ALL "TOUR-AIDE," a promotion conceived by KJAN Atlantic, Iowa, to conquer the summer slump, has helped the station achieve billings as big as last December's. The extensive but inexpensive Sunday plan grew out of a routine sales call on a small cafe owner. The client said he'd buy time on condition that KIAN persuade Sunday motorists to stop by his cafe. The idea was worked out by Robin A. Morrow, president of KIAN, taken to a sales meeting, with the result that KIAN now is sending tourists into cafes, dairy bars, motels and other businesses along Highway Six every Sunday. With all Sunday afternoon from 1:30 to 6 p.m. devoted" to Tour-Aide programming, KIAN set up refreshment booths at two ends of Highway Six, embracing nine Iowa communities. Billboards point the way to KIAN booths and tourists who stop are served free Cokes and ice cream by pretty Iowa girls. They also are given maps which point out Tour-Aide sponsor locations along the way and KIAN's location on the radio dial. Courteous and careful drivers are spotted from the booths, their licenses phoned to the disc jockey on duty and they are notified on the air to pick up prizes (10 gallons of gas, steak dinner, sun glasses) at the donor's place of business on Highway Six. With swimming pools, drive-ins and service stations airing the show over public address systems, Tour-Aide sets the Sunday afternoon mood on Highway Six. Sponsors, now numbering 56, buy into the show on a firm four-month basis. The fee covers one Sunday afternoon commercial, plus mentions throughout the show as prize locations are called. KIAN promotes the show daily on the air, furnishes maps and booth personnel, with local bottlers and dairies providing booth refreshments and sponsors giving prizes, all adding up to negligible extra cost for the station. TourAide has attracted mail from 11 states and several Chambers of Commerce. MORT ABRAHAMS TO SHOWCASE MORT ABRAHAMS, producer this past season of General Electric Theatre, Star Stage and other programs, has been signed by Showcase Productions Inc. as executive producer on NBC-TV's Producers' Showcase, effective this fall. Showcase Productions packages Showcase as well as the Goody earAlcoa Tv Playhouse. Mr. Abrahams said that he will launch "an intensive search" for original musical properties and other dramatic vehicles which "will recreate the brand of excitement viewers felt when the first spectaculars went on the air." DOGS HAVE DAY ON WTTW (TV) WTTW (TV) Chicago, non-commercial, educational station hasn't gone to the dogs but is asking them to come to the station. In preparation for a 12-week obedience training course on its Totem Pole children's program starting lune 26, WTTW is auditioning dogs of all "shapes, sizes and class distinctions" for possible appearances on the program. Six dogs will be selected each week to participate with their young training masters on the program, to be aired Tuesdays, 4:30-5 p.m., with Oscar Franzen, dog trainer. ABC-TV SPORT SHOW READY PREMIERE of Greatest Sport Thrills, series of filmed highlights of the past year's great U. S. athletic events, is set for this Thursday, 9:30-10 p.m. EDT on ABC-TV. NBC-TV OLYMPIC SHOW SET NBC-TV will cover the Olympic finals of the U. S. track and field team in Los Angeles lune 30, 5-7 p.m. EDT. Top three finishers in each event will represent the U. S. in the Olympic Games at Melbourne, Australia, in November. NO REST FOR WGR-TV STAFF WGR-TV Buffalo, N. Y., was able to provide viewers with speedy, on-the-spot coverage of a rockslide which wrecked part of the Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.'s Schoellkopf power station on lune 8, largely because producer-director Al Cooper was one of the eyewitnesses. Immediately after the rockslide began at 5 p.m. EDT, Mr. Cooper searched for — and found — a man who had a film camera and knew how to use it. The film was taken and was rushed to WGRTV's studios in time for the station's 6:30 p.m. news program. The station later provided additional film coverage from footage shot by its own staffers. PRINT CAMPAIGN BY WTOP WTOP Washington is running a series of five full-page public service ads in behalf of U. S. Armed Forces recruiting programs. Object: to "encourage public service-conscious companies to help balance the Armed Forces recruiting programs by the use of newspaper advertising because of the lack of public service advertising support by the large metropolitan newspapers on behalf of the Armed Forces." Each ad in the series, conceived as an extension of WTOP's public service air activity, carries a testimonial by a station personality who served in the branch of service being promoted. COLUMNIST LIKES WOKO SHOW RECOMMENDED for both "rounds" and "squares" by a disc-jockey -weary Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union columnist is the Player Piano Playhouse Saturday night show on WOKO Albany. Edgar S. Van Olinda, a columnist who misses the parlor instrument of yesteryear, happened to hear the show — conducted by player piano hobbyist Bee Burger — and devoted an entire column to it. WOKO's program department says this is the first time in recent years that a local show has rated so much newspaper space. WTTV (TV) GOES TO COLLEGE THE cameras of WTTV (TV) BloomingtonIndianapolis enabled an unprecedented number of Indianans to see graduates, post-grads and honorees of Purdue and Indiana Universities step up for their sheepskins this spring. Using its microwave remote facilities, WTTV was able lune 3 to televise a portion of the Purdue graduation ceremonies for the first time in university history. Indiana U. degrees were awarded before WTTV cameras lune 11. WTTV and the institutions made the decision to televise because growing numbers of graduates make it all but impossible for everyone to see the ceremonies. Sponsor of both telecasts was Eli Lilly & Co. WFMY-TV ACTS ON SURVEY "WE asked you . . . you told us . . . here it is . . .*" reads the cover of the latest agency mailer from WFMY-TV Greensboro, N. C. The asterisk refers readers to a B»T article, "What Do Agencies Want Stations to Tell Them" (Feb. 6) covering a survey by WFMY-TV. Based on agency response, the WFMY-TV market brochure now carries figures on population, families, effective buying income, retail sales broken down into six categories and gross farm income, all plus the station coverage map. Back cover of the market piece carries a subtitle, "the compendious* WFMY-TV story," with compendious* defined as "*a brief, clean-cut statement of essential facts." ONTARIO AMS SHARE NEWS NINE Ontario radio stations have started a co-operative taped news service in conjunction with Broadcast News Ltd., Toronto. Spot newscasts of interest to other stations are recorded by participating stations and sent on three regular daily transmissions to the other stations. No tape is sent to another station in the same city as the one originating the newscast. In the group on the "Tapex" circuit are CKOC and CHML Hamilton, CFPL London, CKVL Verdun, CIAD and CFCF Montreal, CFRA Ottawa, CKWS and CKLC Kingston. Broadcasting • Telecasting Page 118 • June 18, 1956