Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1956)

PRESIDENT HOLDS FIRST LIVE NEWS CONFERENCE THE news media were given hardly 30 minutes notice of President Eisenhower's Wednesday news conference from the St. Francis Hotel where he would make journalism history by giving the first "live" press conference on both radio and tv. President Eisenhower earlier set the precedent of putting White House presidential news conferences on radio and tv by delayed recording and film following clearance by the White House staff. The historic conference was held in the Italian Room of the St. Francis Hotel, where White House news secretaries James Hagerty and Murray Synder had set up shop. Newsmen were admitted by the regular White House credentials which they normally used in Washington. Some 200 newsmen jammed the room where radio and tv equipment had been hastily installed. Both CBS and NBC had tv equipment in the hotel left over from coverage of a Young Republican meeting the previous night. Although a few newsmen reported difficulties in gaining access to the conference, especially some network technicians without credentials, both Robert Kintner, president of ABC, and Frank Stanton, president of CBS, told B«T they had no difficulties. CBS' convention news headquarters reported it got word of the conference 22 minutes before air time (11:45 a.m. PDT) and was told the President would go on the air "live" for the first time. CBS news producer Paul Levitan immediately rushed to the Italian Room to supervise technical arrangements in a race against the clock. He ordered the CBS television camera in the hotel rushed to the room and warmed up. Meanwhile, CBS-TV network operations, although it could not order the full Westinghouse coverage network at that off-convention time, began to assemble an available network of more than 100 stations. Charles von Fremd was on hand to report for CBS-TV with Larry Lesueur for CBS Radio. Edward R. Murrow reported on both. CBS-TV carried the conference for 20 minutes, with the first 17 devoted to the President's announcement of his meeting with Harold Stassen and the reporters' questions-and-answers. CBS commentators summed up the event during the final three minutes. CBS Radio said the conference gave opportunity to prove the speed with which radio gets the news to the public. Then it lined up a network of 200 outlets within the bare quarterhour notice which it received. It was 11:25 a.m. when executive radio producer Robert Skedgall was informed of the President's conference. By 11:31 a.m. he was on the longdistance phone with network operations in New York to arrange clearance. He received the goahead two minutes later. Mr. Skedgall admitted, "we were slightly lucky, too. It just happened we had a line and an engineer on hand to tape-record the conference for use later in the day. But we decided at the last moment to bring the show on live." In the rush, newsman Lesueur was not informed of the live broadcast until 15 seconds before air time. He was told to say, "Instead of the regularly scheduled program, we are bringing you, live, the press conference from President Eisenhower's headquarters in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. This is part of the Westinghouse convention news coverage program." Mr. Skedgall pointed out that the rapid co ordination could not have been possible without the special direct telephone lines the network set up at every important spot in the convention city. "We just picked up the phone, dialed, and our people were on the line within seconds," he said. NBC-TV claimed it broke all speed records getting Ray Scherer talking to the national tv audience from the Italian Room before the President appeared for his first on-the-air conference. The network's two mobile units were still at the hotel Wednesday morning since NBC had been set up there Tuesday night for pickup of Mr. Eisenhower's arrival and the Young Republican meeting. Tv cameras were functioning in the Italian Room within 20 minutes of the initial notice to Mr. Scherer, NBC's regular White House correspondent in Washington. The coverage was fed to 111 tv affiliates and the audio portion of the tv show was tape recorded for immediate playback on the NBC Radio network as soon as the conference ended. Network officials told B*T that preparedness for the unexpected presidential conference was helped by the fact the network was being lined up for a special noon "caucus" of the NBC commentators who were to visit about the U. S. electronically with various newspaper editors. This special show went on as scheduled, but began at 12:10 p.m. instead upon conclusion of the Italian Room pickup. The caucus ran until 1 p.m., well primed for an active discussion since the participants had monitored the HORSEPLAY A GOOD example of the gimmicks dreamed up by broadcasters to liven up the convention dullness occurred Thursday morning in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel where NBC-TV and CBS-TV were originating their respective two hour morning shows from four to six a.m. Pacific Time. A man who looked like Harry Truman strolled unannounced into Republican Party headquarters there, throwing the place into confusion since it had been announced the ex-President was in town. The man turned out to be Irving Fisher. Broadway actor who portrayed Mr. Truman in "Call Me Madam" and who was flown to the coast by NBC as a gag for its Today show originating in the lobby. The confusion began when somebody yelled "here he comes" and Mr. Fisher, who closely resembles Mr. Truman, stepped off the elevator wearing the Truman grin and without saying a word walked past Today m.c. Dave Garroway and the NBC camera on tour of the hotel for his morning walk. NBC reported he was spotted by a CBS newsman on the adjacent CBS-TV Good Morning With Will Rogers Jr. program, that the CBS man "became almost apoplectic as he made hurried inquiries, thinking the opposition NBC network had scored the biggest exclusive beat of the GOP convention." The network said one delegate returning from an all night out "almost fell flat on his face as he lurched out of a taxi and spotting who he thought was Harry Truman coming out of the Republican headquarters." Mr. Fisher was accompained by Randall lessee, WDAF-TV news editor and NBC's Kansas City correspondent who normally covers the exPresident on his walks, lending greater credence to Today's prank. President's session from their respective origination points. NBC commentators participating in the President's conference commentary m addition to Mr. Scherer included Chet Huntley, David Brinklex, Bil1 Henry and H. V. Kaltenborn. ABC and Mutual both had bad luck with the unexpected conference. ABC had seven commentators and two cameras on the scene very soon after the word was out, but when the conference began both radio and tv lines failed to function. Since ABC and CBS had a standing exchange agreement to protect one another in such an event, ABC picked up both radio and tv feeds from CBS. But then ABC-TVs feed to its own affiliates broke down because of a faulty AT&T patch, network officials told B*T, and the result was that the tv portion didn't get out of San Francisco. N# difficulty was reported on the radio patch. Mutual already had a permanent convention line in the St. Francis but only to the assistant manager's desk in the lobby and it was unable on such short notice to get an extension into the Italian Room. It then arranged to patch into NBC's tv audio with the links running between KFRC, its local key station, and NBC's KNBC there, but was left without program when NBC failed to simulcast and feed the audio to KNBC. Mutual later obtained a Republican headquarters tape of the conference from Murray Snyder's office and put it on at 3:30 P. M. Pacific Time. One Mutual spokesman, however, explained to B«T that even if the last-minute patches had worked, the full network could not have accepted the conference at that time because it was split into two baseball networks which then were in operation and could not be interrupted and re-patched in sufficient time. PRODIGIOUS AIRLIFT REGARDED AS ROUTINE EVERYBODY in San Francisco took pretty much for granted the fact that the big airlift of priority tv people and equipment from Chicago was a success. They expected it to be and they hardly gave second thought to the complex engineering detail of rigging, patching and testing involved in setting up shop on the West Coast within hours from the Midwest site. After all, broadcasters have a talent for being mobile, they noted. Since CBS was assigned responsibility for the television pool at San Francisco (NBC handled in Chicago), the airlift project within CBS fell to Albert Bryant, director of office services and a logistics veteran of four earlier convention years. Six months ago he chartered three United Airlines planes for the priority switch, two passenger planes and a cargo plane. Since the latter could carry 30,000 pounds of equipment, each of the three major tv networks was allocated 10,000 pounds and asked to submit a priority list of its key personnel who must make the immediate jump from the Chicago amphitheatre to the San Francisco Cow Palace. He even had special "tickets" printed for the pool's private "airline." Mr. Bryant promised all the networks that their people and equipment would be in the air six hours after the final gavel at Chicago. He kept that schedule but worked around the clock two days consecutively to do it. The Democratic convention closed at 1 1 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17, and loading of planes began at the Chicago Airport within an hour. At 3:30 a.m. Saturday during the loading, it was learned there was 42,000 pounds of gear to go, not just 30,000. "I was faced with the decision of leaving part of it behind for later delivery," Mr. Bryant Broadcasting • Telecasting August 27, 1956 • Page 31