Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1957)

fashions and all the allied industries that are a part of our business. I think that this situation reveals a rather serious problem. I am certainly not going to suggest that these programs should appeal to you. But I think you might be interested in a story I heard the other day. A few years ago George Crothers of our public affairs department, was asked to address the English faculties of the New York City colleges. He concluded his talk with the flat statement that he considered the writing in the daytime serials, just as literate as the writing in the women's magazines. Having exploded what he felt was going to be a bombshell, he sat down. At this point, the professor who was head of the English department at Hunter College, got up to speak. This gentleman had spent six or seven recent weeks in a hospital. He said that he had listened a great deal to the radio and that he had heard a great many of these daytime serials. He concluded: "I want to say I completely agree with Mr. Crothers' evaluation of the quality of the writing in the daytime serials." Even if you don't agree with this evaluation, I do say that some knowledge of these programs and some understanding of what goes on with them is important in your work. Now you aren't and, no matter what you were doing, you probably wouldn't be in the "middle majority." You have the wrong make-up for it. You are more secure in your relationships to other people and to the community. You are less concerned with sharp distinctions of black-and-white. You recognize the need to feel individuality and you are not prone to fall into accepted patterns of conformity. Even if you weren't working women, you probably wouldn't be interested in the daytime serials, certainly not to the degree that most daytime drama listeners are. If you were housewives, you would do your housework in the shortest and most efficient way and you would seek out activities such as Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters and other groups with whom you felt a closer relationship than you do to the daytime serials. But no matter how unlike the "middle majority" woman you are — in business, you are her spokesman. You are assumed to understand her and to be able to interpret her. So we ask you to tell us — what's on her mind? And the plain fact is that it is very difficult for you to know — because whatever it is, it's not on your mind. Use A Window Instead of A Mirror All this suggests what seems to me to be a very reasonable solution. If you can't interpret the "middle majority" woman on the basis of your experience, you must find a way to interpret her on the basis of study. What I am suggesting that you do is not easy: stop looking in the mirror and start looking out the window. In trying to understand the "middle majority" woman, you cannot go by intuition. I'm suggesting that you seize every possible opportunity for getting into the "middle majority" woman's native habitat and mingling with her. You'll find her in supermarkets, churches, and maternity wards — at bargain sales, graduations and weddings — in low-priced cars, resorts, and dresses — with children and parents who live with her — reading popular magazines and comic strips, listening to daytime dramas on radio and going to American rather than foreign movies. Talk to her. Watch her. See what bucks her up and what gets her down. Find out what are the deadlines she has to meet. And especially, listen to her. See and understand how the other half lives. I think you will find that, by a better understanding of this other frame of reference, you will vastly increase your usefulness in your own. Closing the Gap The closer you get to understanding the problems and motivations of the great "middle majority" whom you are supposed to interpret to your associates, the more effective you will be in your work. The sooner you stop playing by ear and start taking lessons, the sooner you will increase your usefulness in your business activities. And since the daytime serial is such a broad and open avenue to 65% of the U. S. market, one simple way of getting closer to this market is to cultivate a greater understanding — and familiarity with — this particular form of entertainment. Spring has sprung in Providence, R. I. • afternoon audience grows 324% • morning audience grows 297% WICE is now either first or second in audience in 16 daytime quarter hours. . . . in jusr 6 months of Elliot programming Source: C. E. Hooper, Jan.-Mareh 1957 1 L The ELLIOT STATIONS 1 P; \ It great independents • good neighbors ] * TIM ELLIOT, President ^ Akron. Ohio WCUE / WICE Providence, R. I. National Representatives The John E. Pearson Co. Fellows Tells Women to Work To Broaden Roles in Radio-Tv NARTB President Harold E. Fellows feels women in broadcasting should work actively to improve their opportunities in radio and television. His suggestions were contained in an address prepared to keynote the Friday morning business session of the sixth annual convention of American Women in Radio & Television held in St. Louis last Thursday to Sunday. Louis Hausman, vice president, advertising, CBS Radio, also addressed the convention (see text above). "There is an inclination to stratify women in broadcasting in a manner that does not necessarily acknowledge the full measure of their talents," he said. Acknowledging that some women have filled top executive positions among agencies and advertisers in selling broadcast time and in a few broadcast management positions, Mr. Fellows said more often they have been limited to roles as "air-time housekeepers." But "one cannot hold women themselves responsible for this condition any more than — and perhaps less than — the management of the industry itself." Women employed in broadcasting might evaluate the overall program structure of a station and consequently sense new roles they could play in today's radio and television, Mr. Fellows said. He suggested further that they make such evaluations available to program departments and station management on a continuing basis to help bring about "better program balance to the product of the industry." Page 82 • April 29, 1957 Broadcasting • Telecasting