Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1957)

NETWORKS NBC-TV Daytime Sales $10 Million for Week SALES totaling about $10 million in gross billings for daytime across-the-board programs were completed by NBC-TV in the week ending April 15, it was announced last week by William R. (Billy) Goodheart ! Jr., NBC vice president for television network sales. The new orders bring the net ! work's daytime billings to approximately $24 million over the past two months, he said. Included in the $10 million purchases were General Foods Corp.'s first daytime buy on NBC-TV since June 1954. The company ordered a total of 104 quarterhour segments on the network's The Price \ Is Right (11-11:30 a.m.), Truth or Consequences (11:30 a.m. -12 noon), It Could Be You (12:30-1 p.m.) and Comedy Time (5-5:30 p.m.). Agency is Young & Rubicam, New York. Chesebrough-Pond's Inc.. New York, through J. Walter Thompson Co., New York, bought a schedule of 1 56 quarter-hour segments in The Price Is Right, It Could Be You, NBC Matinee Theatre (3-4 p.m.) and Comedy Time; Procter & Gamble Co., through Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, 78 quarter-hour segments of It Could Be You, and Alberto-Culver Co. of Hollywood (hair preparations), Chicago, through Geoffrey Wade Adv., Chicago, 104 quarter-hour periods in The Price Is Right, Truth or Consequences, It Could Be You and Queen for a Day (4-4:45 p.m.). Miles Labs., Elkhart, Ind., through Geoffrey Wade Adv., Chicago, has bought 78 quarter-hour segments in The Price Is Right, ' Truth or Consequences, It Could Be You and Comedy Time, and has renewed its sponsorship of quarter-hour portions of The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show (2:30-3 p.m.) and Queen For a Day; S.O.S. Co., Chicago, through McCann-Erickson, New York, has renewed its 52 quarter-hour segments in Tic Tac Dough (12 noon-12:30 p.m. EST) and Queen for a Day. 85-Minute, 3-Weekly 'Nightline' Starts on NBC Radio April 30 NBC Radio will present a new 85-minute evening series, Nightline, featuring music, news and variety with some segments broadcast from foreign lands, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8:30-9 p.m. and 9:05-10 p.m., effective April 30, according to Jerry Danzig, vice president, NBC Radio network programs. Walter O'Keefe will be the program's host. Nightline will be based at NBC's radio central in New York and will present remotes from night clubs, interviews with celebrities, general human interest features and on-the-spot news coverage. "We plan to exploit radio's great flexibility in our efforts to remind the public that there are certain things only radio can do instantaneously and better than any other show business medium," said Mr. Danzig. Mr. O'Keefe, a veteran of over 30 years of radio, tv and stage experience, has emceed such shows as Lucky Strike Dance Broadcasting • Telecasting Hour, Town Hall, Battle of the Sexes and Double or Nothing. Nightline is being developed by Albert L. Capstaff, director of NBC's Monitor and special projects, and Norman Livingston, director of network programs. Producer will be Benn Squires. Due to the new series' arrival in this time period there have been several shifts in programming. Conversation will be moved to Monday 10:05-10:30 p.m. EDT starting April 29. X Minus One will be temporarily canceled but will return to the air when the current Bob Hope series goes off for the summer and will be scheduled approximately once a month, pre-empting Nightline on those occasions. Biographies in Sound will be presented approximately once a month. United Nations Report will move May 1 to Wednesday 10:15-10:30 p.m. EDT, and the Sloan Foundation's Westward Look will move May 2 to Thursday 10:0510:30 p.m. EST. Sleep No More will be canceled. GM Buys Into 7 CBS Shows; Four Other Sponsors Signed NEW BUSINESS on CBS Radio was reported last week by John Karol, vice president in charge of sales for the radio network, with General Motors Corp. (Frigidaire Div. ), Dayton, Ohio, buying into five daytime dramatic serials and two Saturday programs for its "spring color promotion" May 18-25. During that period, Frigidaire will spon EXECUTIVES of CBS and the Morris Plan Co. of California (thrift and loan services) gather to conclude arrangements of the second year of Masters of Melody over CBS Radio California Network under Morris Plan sponsorship. They are (seated 1 to r) Henry Untermeyer, general manager of KCBS San Francisco where the broadcasts originate; Ralph Larson, president of Morris Plan Co.; (standing 1 to r) Richard Schutte, account executive, CBS Radio Spot Sales, and Hugh Levers, account executive of Harrington-Richards Advertising Agency, representing the sponsor. The Masters of Melody orchestra, directed by Albert White, is heard daily at 7:05-7:30 p.m. PST on a seven station lineup. sor segments of the Robert Q. Lewis Show and Galen Drake Show, plus five sevenminute units of Right to Happiness, Young Dr. Malone, Road of Life, Nora Drake, and Helen Trent. Kudner Agency services the account. Other advertisers who have signed CBS Radio are Lanvin Parfums Inc. for Stock Market Report (Mon.-Fri., 6:10-6:15 p.m. EST); General Foods Corp. (Postum Div.) for 1 1 segments per week of various programs; Chesebrough-Ponds Inc. for the Mon.-Wed.-Fri. portion of the five-minute Sports Time program starting June 17 and Bauer & Black (surgical dressings) for a weekly 15-minute segment of Arthur Godfrey Time starting July 4. NBC-TV Holding Horses, Sarnoff Tells Critics SIX-GUNS and lariats will not dominate NBC-TV's fall program schedule and neither has the network "abdicated" creative functions to outside packagers and producers. This flat denial was issued Friday by NBC President Robert W. Sarnoff to answer what he called "considerable corridor and conference-room discussion" at the NARTB convention in Chicago the week before. Mr. Sarnoff, admitting that "there is no question that the western show is in vogue," observed that at the maximum, adult westerns will represent less than 15% of NBC-TV's nighttime schedule in the fall. To answer the "talk" on abdication of creative functions — he noted that "here NBC got primary mention" — Mr. Sarnoff pointed to a stepup in program development: 50% more NBC productions in the pilot stage than a year ago at this time and about a third of shows now scheduled by the network for the fall NBC-produced, with the remainder coming from a "great variety of outside sources." Mr. Sarnoff's comments were contained in his second "Letter to the Radio-Tv Editor," an activity initiated only recently [B*T, April 8]. They followed by about nine days a highly-publicized attack on tv network programming by Sylvester L. Weaver, former NBC board chairman [B«T, April 15]. Mr. Weaver, in announcing his proposed "Program Service," had lashed out against the tv network's planned programs for the fall. He characterized network thinking for example, as "carbon copy and stereotyped" and warned that in a scramble for ratings and heavy audiences, the networks next fall would drop news, spectaculars and other "event-type programming," cut down on live drama and "go to westerns, kid shows, trivia, crime shows and the like." Looking at all three networks, Mr. Sarnoff credited ABC-TV with having built "consistent audience strength" this season with westerns, CBS-TV with having found "substantial flavor" with them and of NBCTV — "We came in late with Wells Fargo but it has more than doubled the audience of the previous show in its . . . period. He said, however, that of 29 programs April 22, 1957 • Page 95