Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

more in Dallas. We're creating a new tune-in. We've compiled a list of 250 top Dallas citizens in all walks of Dallas business and social life and we're expanding this list rapidly. We've subdivided this list into top oil leaders, top banking and industrial leaders, top society women, top business men, top educators, etc. Now, we use this list to get their names and voices on the air just as often as possible. There's hardly a story that clatters over our United Press or INS wires that can't be made a local story. For instance, when President Eisenhower vetoed the gas bill, we quickly got beeper telephone comments from three prominent Dallas and Fort Worth oil men — H. L. Hunt, Jake Hamon and Al Hill. When we get a story involving Harry Truman, we are apt to call two or three local party officials for comment. When a youth murders his parents in New Jersey, we get statements from local officials familiar with the juvenile delinquency problem. We're getting those local names, hundreds of them each week, on the air. My friends listen to the radio now — they're afraid not to. They're afraid the next story is going to be about them. So, in addition to our really superb local coverage, we localize all the national and regional stories. This to me is what radio should have been doing all these years. We've got several other gimmicks that we use to add space to our news program. One of them is Jimmie Fidler, who supplies us with six 15-minute programs per week at a very modest cost. We take these programs and strip them into 30-second excerpts which we use on our newscasts every other hour. Jimmie gets the Hollywood news, states it succinctly, and he is always in good taste. We have found these Fidler excerpts are very effective for us. We hire a helicopter on an hourly basis to report traffic conditions and also to carry us to the scene of events beyond the range of our mobile units. We make use of the long distance telephone to get many stories. For instance, when Georgi Malenkov resigned, we promptly put through a call to Moscow and had no trouble at all getting an interview with American Ambassador Chip Bohlen. About all he would say was hello, he wouldn't even tell us the weather, but we had the interview, anyway. In May, on the day of its anniversary, we plan to devote some 10 broadcasts in one day to a news re-creation of the Battle of Chancellorsville, the high tide of the Southern Confederacy. A FOUR-DAY BEAT We turn up with some pretty amazing scoops. KLIF broke and then many times gave details on the biggest business news story in the history of North Texas four days before any Dallas newspaper could even get a line about it. We got a tip that Bill Zeckendorf, Angus Wynne and several other prominent Dallasites were getting ready to build a $300 million development between Dallas and Fort Worth which would close the gap between those two cities. The newspapers probably went crazy trying to figure out where our information was coming from. We specialize in quotations of stocks of local interest — Republic Bank stock, Texas Instruments, and so forth. We have a minute, morning and afternoon, devoted to late oil news. All of which brings me to the subject of editorials. We have editorialized off and on for some time but never to the extent that Dan Kops carries it at WAVZ [New Haven, Conn.]. Dan's article in B»T [Sept. 19, 1955] on why radio should editorialize was one of the finest and most logical pieces I've ever read. We agree with it completely, although we feel that perhaps Dan doesn't go far enough. For one thing, I believe that he runs his editorials twice a day. We run our editorials eight times a day — after the 7, 8 and 9 a.m., 12 noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. Thus, you can see that we saturate the air pretty well. We don't run the same editorial every time; as a rule, we'll have two or three differently-worded versions to keep from boring the listener. We don't run editorials unless we have something to editorial ize about. That's the trouble with most newspaper editorials. They've got to fill up the editorial page every day and as a result it is generally pretty sloshy going on that page. Our editorials are for the most part limited to a minute. That's about how long it takes you to read a newspaper editorial. KLIF editorials are potentially the most powerful single weapon in our city for molding public opinion. The editorial page of any newspaper is bound to be about the least read in the whole paper. The average guy just doesn't bother with it. But on KLIF that same average guy has to hear the editorials. He knows that they are just going to last for a minute between records, and he won't turn off the station for just that short annoyance. So on KLIF, John Q. Public, the average guy — the guy that the paper never reaches with its editorials — is caught right in the firing line. And the first thing you know, John, who is a pretty bright guy, although maybe a little lethargic, gets real interested in this issue that he has heard on KLIF. ADVANTAGE OF EQUAL TIME It is my considered belief that radio stations can be far more powerful editorially than newspapers. True, we have to give free and equal time for rebuttal but, while I think this should be permissive rather than compulsory, this rule works to some extent to the advantage of radio. When you don't give equal time for rebuttal, you subject yourself to the criticism that has long weakened newspapers — the charge of prejudice. And besides that, when somebody answers you, there's a legitimate public service dispute going and your listening audience skyrockets. We will editorialize each and every time we have some issue worth bringing to the public's attention. The main thing you should remember in editorializing is: be sure you are right. When you take an editorial position that is in any way selfish, the public somehow knows it, and your situation is as dangerous as a Neiman-Marcus charge account. By now, I hope that I have given you the impression that reporting the news is a pleasure for us. We are responsible reporters, but we have fun; we make mistakes, in good faith, but so do the newspapers. Far more important than our personal pleasure, though, is the fact that the news functions for us as a sort of promotion. Some stations choose sports as the vehicle by which they lend immediacy and sparkle to their operation. In our case, news accomplishes that purpose for us. And the news is free. We are not troubled by demands for excessive rights fees, special promotional announcements, ticket-selling campaigns, and the many other exorbitant demands of the professional sports promoter. This exciting, vivid news coverage is salable. So salable, as a matter of fact, that on Friday past when our mobile units were breaking in constantly to report the progress of an approaching tornado, one of the Dallas advertising agencies called up and wanted to know if we would sell him the tornado. We did not sensationalize news of the tornado but did it as a public service. We had so many mobile reports that on one occasion one of our mobile units actually interrupted another. And there are no rights fees to a tornado. I believe I said earlier that even the smallest station here today can follow our aggressive news policy. That statement presumes that everyone can afford, either by adding to or cutting expenses, one experienced, fulltime news man. Experience has taught us that you just can't depend on disc jockeys to carry out any sort of effective news program — it just isn't their cup of tea. In a small town, you'll be surprised how one man can cover much of the available news. I know, because years ago we did it in Palestine, Tex., with one man, the same Edd Routt who is our managing editor today. If that one man does the job right, and works enough hours at it, I can guarantee you that before long you'll be able to afford two men, and then more. But at first you may have to spend a little money to make a lot of money. And you'll be licked right at the start if your man or men are clock-watchers. ,ji.>,w.v,.:,:.:v:.:v;,::,:::;:;,. ■ ■ ■ -i'xY^'x^-^viv Broadcasting • Telecasting March 19, 1956 • Page 81