Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

TRADE ASSNS. AWRT GROUP IMPANELS PANELISTS • Network panel show producers air views on what makes news • 'Producers showcase' questioned by 1 00 members of AWRT unit Riddle: What sort of broadcast producer can afford to ignore the element of sponsorship? Answer: The producer of a Sunday afternoon panel show, whose product pays off for a network in terms of public service and newspaper publicity. Producers of the Sunday probes became the probed Tuesday night as the Washington chapter of American Women in Radio & Television staged a "producers showcase" meeting. They were questioned by a panel of nearly 100 AWRT members and guests drawn from ranks and management of networks, stations, Washington officialdom and reporters who are panel show veterans. The meeting was the first time the battlers for Monday headlines have appeared in a common forum. They closed ranks to present a solid front on some questions and split on others. Each had a five-minute say about his own show before the questionanswer session, moderated by Beryl Hines, associate producer of CBS-TV's Face the Nation and president of the Washington chapter of AWRT. Producers in the "showcase" were Theodore Granik, Youth Wants to Know, NBCTV; Ruth Geri Hagy, College News Conference, ABC-TV; Ted Ayers, Face the Nation, CBS-TV, and John Secondari, Open Hearing, ABC-TV. Veteran panelists who framed some of the questions included William Hines of the Washington Evening Star, Max Freedman of the Manchester (England) Guardian, Dan O'Connor of the Detroit Times and others. The experts agreed on a few things. Science— a hot topic ever since Sputnik I — will continue to dominate their show agendas for some time to come. Sponsors — scarce on Sunday afternoon shows from time immemorial— will continue that way. They also agreed that 30 minutes is a good length for the public-affairs panel program. They split on other subjects, as they were needled on such questions as the use of women on show panels, how to make missile talk intelligible to the old lady in Dubuque and their feelings on how the White House handled news of the President's three major illnesses (the break on the chief executive's cerebral occlusion came some hours before the Tuesday meeting, affecting attendance and discussion). Some of their opinions: On sponsorship — Mr. Granik: "Controversy is a difficult thing to sell. Sponsors hesitate to identify with either side .... And there's the Sunday element. Some don't feel the time has a large audience potential. . . . Some times when the show is sponsored, we don't have so great a freedom of choice as when we are unsponsored." Mrs. Hagy: "I think these public affairs programs should not be sponsored. Tv should make enough money from entertainment to support honest journalism." On science — Mr. Ayers: "We've been on a science jag for six weeks, and I can't see any hope of getting off it." On subject matter — Mr. Ayers: "Pick a topic." Mrs. Hagy: "Sometimes you can make it hotter. . . . We use our intuition . . . try to think ahead and outguess the competition." On purpose of the programs — Mr. Granik: "To amplify the news." Mrs. Hagy: "We are trying to make history in addition to covering news. . . . Our program's responsibility to .its audience is the same that a newspaper has to its home town — to influence the solution of problems." Mr. Secondari: "I don't worry about headlines. The purpose of televising public affairs is to present news." On technical talk in broadcasts — Mr. Ayers: "I don't worry much about this." Mr. Secondari: "The greatest success always comes to works that are intellectually honest and adhere to the level demanded by the idea involved. People will reach up to grasp an idea." Mrs. Hagy: "You can't always devote so much time to exposition of an idea as to getting a new angle on the news. There is a conflict." On women — Mr. Granik: "I'm trying to start a new show, Women Want to Know." Mrs. Hagy: "We don't want to be segregated. We want to be accepted strictly on our merits." Earlier she said she had found being a woman no handicap in television. On technique — Mr. Secondari: "If you want an answer from someone, you've got to give him a chance to talk." On flexibility to meet late news breaks and crises raised by unreliable guests — Producers agreed that developments on the president's illness didn't yet warrant scrapping earlier plans and substituting topics and guests related to the White House situation, as sometimes must be done. Mr. Granik told about getting a senator out of bed at the Sheraton Park and downstairs to NBC's hotel studios to appear when a guest reneged. Another time he improvised a mock convention by students on Youth Wants to Know, when the candidate scheduled to appear couldn't get off the floor at the national party convention. On timeliness — Mrs. Hagy: "My grandson never watches College News Conference but looks at children's shows. When he asked me what we were doing now, I told him we were dealing with outer space. 'Oh, we did that 10 years ago,' he commented." Southern California Fms Start Airing TeleVerter Announcements A majority of the commercial fm-only stations in Southern California have started broadcasting "industry service" spots for TeleVerter as an audience building project sponsored by the new Fm Broadcasters of Southern California [Trade Assns., Nov. 18], Jack Kiefer, KMLA (FM) Los Angeles, chairman, said Thursday. Stations individually will not be paid for the announcements for the device (which permits fm reception through a tv set), but the association will receive $1 for each unit sold in the area from the distributor, Scope Distributors Inc. The association will spend the money so received to promote fm listening. The association has received letters from Page 76 December 2, 1957 NETWORK PANELISTS bury the hatchet at a meeting of American Women in Radio and Television: left to right, seated: Theodore Granik, NBC-TV Youth Wants to Know; Ruth Geri Hagy, ABC-TV College News Conference; John Secondari, ABC-TV Open Hearing; standing: Mrs. Beryl Hines, CBS-TV, president of Washington Chapter, AWRT; Steve McCormick of Youth Wants to Know and Mary Lois Dramm, WRC-AM-FM-TV Washington, hospitality chairman. Absent from photo: Ted Ayers, CBS-TV, Face the Nation. Broadcasting