Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

STATIONS NEW SUBLIMINAL ERA SLIPS IN WHILE AUDIENCE NOT LOOKING • WTWO (TV) has been experimenting for two months • WCCO, KLTI exploited radio variation on new method • FCC in dark; lawmakers fear political tricks Audiences haven't realized it (natch), but subliminal perception has been broadcast experimentally on television, Broadcasting learned last week, and audio variations on the new trick are being aired on radio. • WTWO (TV) Bangor, Me., has been sending invisible messages for two months, trying to learn if imperceptible perception can produce perceptible results. So far the reactions are subliminal. • Two radio stations, WCCO Minneapolis and KLTI Longview, Tex., have been broadcasting audio messages which, if not subliminal, are the next thing to it. WCCO has invented "Phantom Spots"; KLTI's are called "Radio Active Iso-Spots." • Meanwhile, the FCC is studying subliminal perception at the urging of congressmen. The congressmen fear that subliminal perception could be used as a dirty political trick to sneak a rival candidate's name into the nation's subconscious. SP OLD HAT TO WTWO AFTER TWO MONTHS USE WTWO has been experimenting on the air two months, guided by a psychologist. Murray Carpenter, president of WTWO, which is identified in Bangor as W-TWO (phonetically, W2 for ch. 2), said the tests are interesting if not yet highly productive. He wrote Chairman John C. Doerfer of the FCC last week, offering to supply his findings after a series of on-the-air subliminal tests. When he first contacted the psychologist, he learned that subliminal tinkering was old stuff in the trade. The psychologist suggested, "If you have a selling job to do, nothing will succeed as well as to step up and sell." Undisturbed by this observation and warnings that the engineering problems were insoluble, Mr. Carpenter toyed with closedcircuit tactics before going on the air. He decided the first approach should be simple, based on possible influence on the station's mail count since its film strip programs ask for audience comments in the lead-ins and lead-outs. On half of these programs, a subliminal message is superimposed on the tv screen below the threshold of perception. It occupies a cross-screen panel about onefourth the screen's depth, carrying this message: "WRITE W-TWO." The message occupies one frame on a 250-frame film loop, appearing about once every 11 seconds except during advertising. Last week the message was used MondayWednesday-Friday; this week it will be on Tuesday and Thursday. Mr. Carpenter reported he is unable to detect appearance of the subliminal message but said his engineer claimed he could catch it sometimes. "We want to see if a subliminal insert will give us a little extra push in our mail count," Mr. Carpenter said. "Has it?" he was asked. "There's no 'feel' yet," he answered. "We can't yet tell if it does anything." In any case, he is continuing the experiments because of all the dither around Madison Avenue, where he once was a Compton Adv. timebuyer. WCCO, KLTI AUDIO VERSION AIRED ON REGULAR BASIS Radio is not standing still while other media probe beneath a consumer's consciousness into subliminal perception. The aural medium hasn't been able to go all the way below the threshold of consciousness but is developing ways of sneaking messages in just over the line of the "limen," or threshold. And the new sound technique may have one important advantage over visual subliminal perception. It is being sold, whereas subliminal perception as a commercial television technique has been questioned by the NARTB Tv Code Board [Trade Assns., Nov. 18] and others [Government, Closed Circuit, Nov. 11]. Two stations have reported pioneering a new psychological development in radio messages in recent weeks. WCCO MinneapolisSt. Paul [Closed Circuit, Nov. 18] calls its new technique "Phantom Spots." KLTI Longview, Tex., has named its new commercials "Radio Active Iso-Spots." There are technical differences between the two plans: Phantom Spots are briefer; Radio Active Iso-Spots are being sold, while WCCO is using Phantom Spots only for program promotion and public service proj EVER seen a subliminal? No, and you never will, if it's really subliminal, but here is what one looks like in the projection room. This "WRITE WTWO" message is reproduced from a film loop, one frame out of 250, with the intelligence transmitted once every 11 seconds. It is basic to WTWO (TV) Bangor, Me., experiments designed to see if imperceptible messages will influence the station's mail count. ects. But basically the two stations are trying out the same new approach. Short announcements are slipped in over music or into continuity pauses, reportedly hitting the listener at the lowest level of response, at the absolute threshold, or bottom of the response scale, observers say. Listener reaction often is on a delayed basis. He registers what he has heard some seconds after the message is over. This is the pattern set by early experiments in the broadcast laboratory. WCCO's Phantom Spots are held to a five-syllable maximum, according to Larry Haeg, general manager of the station. The announcements are sneaked in over music and into pauses in regular programs, sometimes between lines of dialogue. Samples: "Hear Ike tonight," "Beat Michigan State," "Hear Open Mike," "Next news at ." Varied aural techniques, voice levels and delivery speeds are used. The KLTI Radio Active Iso-Spots employ brief phrases ("Buy your children's shoes at Waynes' Credit Shoes," "Longview Credit Clothiers . . . three minutes to open your credit." "The '58 Chevrolet ... on display . . . at Goodwin's") and are broadcast on a saturation basis through the day. They are superimposed over instrumental music which is reduced to the volume of background music to "cushion" the spot. Bob Geerdes, station manager of KLTI, explains the Iso-Spot name this way: "Just like an isotope [in medicine] gets in underneath and spotlights attention, so does the KLTI Iso-Spot." The technique has met gratifying client and listener reaction since it was introduced last month, says Mr. Geerdes. Iso-Spots are being aired periodically and "are not being run into the ground," he adds. The Phantom Spot experiment, still in the pre-commercial stage at WCCO, is being conducted in consultation with psychologists from the U. of Minnesota faculty. William Schwarz, program director of the station, and Gordon Mikkelson, director of program promotion and public relations — assigned by Mr. Haeg to the project — are working with Dr. E. W. Ziebarth, dean of the U. of Minnesota summer session and regular WCCO staff coordinator on world affairs, who is coordinating the study's academic side. Describing the Phantom Spot, or PS, technique, Mr. Haeg says, "We are building . . . on principles of repetition, to increase coverage and penetration; aided recall, as a stimulus to retentiveness, and variety of sound, to gain entry without annoyance." A typical response to a Phantom message is given by a member of WCCO's listener test panel, reporting on a spot broadcast over music. He says he "caught the full meaning of the spot at the end of the music, though it must have flashed in and out along about the tenth bar or so." No one has found the technique annoying, and no objections have been reported, Mr. Haeg states. Comparing PS and subliminal perception, a WCCO memorandum says, "Only Page 72 • November 25, 1957 Broadcasting