Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

ADVERTISERS & AGENCIES FLOOD OF ADVERSE COMMENT HITS RADIO-TV COMMERCIALS 6 FTC commissioner predicts congressional investigation © McConnaughey tells broadcasters to clean house # Brooklyn D. A. puts 24-hour watch on 'bait' advertising » Congressman laces broadcasters for loud commercials RADIO and television took it on the chin last week as a host of orators, writers and just plain commentators peppered the industry. The object of the tumult and the shouting? Overcommercialization. Advertising abuses some called it; false and fraudulent commercials, other taunted. Even the decibels of advertising spots came in for a scolding. And, tv commercials came in for blame (or praise, depending on how you look at it) in two new quarters: Dental cavities and, allegedly, as driving people back to the movies. It was just one month after the first attacks on the purported overcommercialization of radio and tv [B*T, Feb. 27, 6] that the second round gong sounded. Last week, radio and tv took a battering from the following: • Federal Trade Commissioner Lowell Mason. Mr. Mason, in a righteous, highly-articulate speech predicted that the FTC would be called upon by Congress to investigate the whole area of radio and tv advertising "abuses." This will entail monitoring, he said. • FCC Chairman George C. McConnaughey. Mr. McConnaughey warned, as he has warned before, that broadcasters must clean their own house or Congress will legislate FCC jurisdiction over commercials and advertising time ratios. • Kings County (N. Y.) District Attorney Edward S. Silver. Mr. Silver disclosed that he had set up a battery of radio and tv receivers to monitor round the clock advertising on the air for "bait and switch" copy. Offenders will be prosecuted, he said. • Rep. Craig Hosmer (R-Calif.). Mr. Hosmer complained to the FCC about "loud commercials." • Jerry Wald, Columbia Pictures vice president. Mr. Wald believes that overcommercialization, and "uninspired entertainment" are sending people back to cinema playhouses. • Dr. William W. Demeritt Jr., Chapel Hill, N. C, dentist. Dr. Demeritt blamed the attractiveness of tv commercials in behalf of sugarladen soft drinks and confections for the mounting incidence of youngster's dental cavities. • On the horizon is a slashing attack of "crime and violence" on tv scheduled for the April issues of the Reader's Digest and Parents' Magazine and a series on radio-tv's advertising "abuses" by Edward J. Mowery, New York Herald Tribune special writer. The latest assault on broadcasting opened early in February when Sens. Warren G. Magnuson (D-Wash.) and A. S. Mike Monroney (D-Okla.) quizzed FCC Chairman McConnaughey on what Sen. Magnuson called "false and fraudulent" advertising [B*T, Feb. 6]. It continued two weeks later with admonitions raised by FCC Comrs. McConnaughey and Robert E. Lee [B«T, Feb. 27]. Even before that the battle was joined by Rep. John W. Heselton (R-Mass.), who has sponsored a bill (HR 5741) to give the FCC power to require program-commercial time ratios. Combat has appeared within the FCC: A dozen or more radio stations have had their license renewals held up while the FCC looks into what is alleged to be their program "imbalance." Comrs. Lee and John C. Doerfer have dissented individually in license renewals in two cases, also involving purported program "imbalance." The latest incursions were kicked off by FTC Comr. Mason. Addressing the Harvard Marketing Club in Cambridge last Monday, Mr. Mason reviled what he called the "pitchman in the parlor" type of radio-tv advertising. In an interview with Mr. Mowery, Mr. Mason was quoted as stating he would recommend a $1 million expenditure for a "comprehensive" federal monitoring system to "clean it up." This was followed by a reported admission by Mr. McConnaughey that a "very definite" possibility exists that Congress will amend the Communications Act to require the FCC to regulate radio and tv programming. Mr. McConnaughey, however, was quoted as saying he feared the worst unless the industry cleans up these abuses committed by a minority of broadcasters. Mr. Mowery told B«T that he was working on a series on fraudulent advertising on the air and that he was struck by the "vulnerability" of radio and tv to these charges. He said he was also impressed by the "accent" of the criticisms on the small operators who apparently were doing most of the "abusing." Mr. Mason told B«T last Thursday he had received responses from all over the country to his Cambridge talk. All were commendatory, he said. The subject is a "hot one" right now, he said, and the alleged abuses "need attention." He said there is a groundswell of public protest and that the subject is very much in the consumers' mind. Mr. Mason said he got the idea for the subject of his speech while reading about the Senate Commerce Committee's interest. He also said he was the FTC's liaison member with the Better Business Bureau and that he had asked that organization for examples of advertising abuses to leaven his speech. "A word is like a blank check," Mr. Mason said. "It doesn't mean a thing until you endorse it within the context of a sentence." He said he may expand on the "unfair acts and practices" theme in two speeches he is scheduled to make. He speaks at Temple U., Philadelphia, April 21, and at the U. of Richmond, Va., May 8. In referring to his concern with advertising, Mr. Mason declared that the broadcaster has a responsibility for what goes over the air. The FTC, it was determined, keeps no score on complaints involving the different media. In 1955, it received about 2,500 complaints from the public or from business competitors. Cited were advertisements — and many of them involved all media. The FTC has outstanding, a spokesman said, 4,000 orders to cease and desist, 8,000 stipulations, and 2,000 trade practice rules. It maintains a corps of attorneys to check compliance with these orders and they check all media. If any one medium can be picked out as the most offensive in advertising abuses, another source declared, it is pulp magazines. Late in 1954 and in the first half of 1955, bait and switch advertising on the air was attacked by many agencies. These included the Better Business Bureau, a New York grand jury and the Assn. of National Advertisers, among others. RADIO-TV HUCKSTERISM SET FOR CRACKDOWN— MASON PREDICTION that the Federal Trade Commission will be called on to investigate radio-tv advertising and promotion was made last week by senior FTC Commissioner Lowell Mason in a speech to the Harvard Marketing Club in Cambridge, Mass. In a pungent discussion of advertising abuses on the air — replete with "horrible" examples culled from Better Business Bureau sources — Mr. Mason said that the next session of Congress would direct the FTC to "make an exhaustive survey of that phase of the radio and television industry bearing exclusively on the advertising and promotional techniques used by broadcasters. "And I predict this will be an investigation in depth. By that I mean not just a survey of monitored broadcasts. This would give only the effects and not the causes." No doubt the basic cause is economic, Mr. Mason deduced. He called attention to what he called the "postwar inflation" of am stations — from 956 in 1945 to 2,935 in 1955. Fm moved from 50 to 540 and tv from zero to 465. "Gone are the days," he said, "when stations were so few ^^JlW they could sit back Rl ''sSSlik and ponder the social We Hk T benefits to be derived «1 ■Bk Jh %ll8 f,orn tne advertiser f^HHkjnw m$m who stood, checkgH|HHB^K|l book in hand. The ™S boys with the hard sell look pretty good with their offer to pay on a PI, or per inquiry, basis. It's a far cry from the way the papers and periodicals sell their space. Can you imagine any well-established daily selling a page and taking its compensation on a PI basis?" Some stations are careful about the products they handle, Mr. Mason said, "but the natural predisposition is to countenance the promotion that brings in the inquiries, even if it has the capacity and tendency to deceive the public. "I am inclined to believe the urge to accept this kind of sales talk is less when time and facilities are sold on a straight or card rate basis." He questioned the use of commentators in delivering commercials. "What is the impact on commerce," he asked, "when a commentator implies impartiality and an expertness in his endorsement of a product, when neither is true?" The answer, Mr. Mason believes, will be some method of automatic sanctions. One method, Mr. Mason said, may be the denial of the use of the air to advertisers who have been ordered to cease and desist by the FTC. Referring to advertising abuses on the air as COMR. MASON Page 28 March 19, 1956 Broadcasting Telecasting