Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

PROGRAMS & PROMOTIONS IT TAKES IN 'WAMPUM" A BILLION DOLLAR MARKET Anyone for a billion dollars? It can be had by alert advertisers who realize the tremendous effective buying power of northeastern Oklahoma. Your key to this treasure chest is . . . KVOO-TV. Tulsa County alone is a $500-million market, and Sales Management rates Tulsa both a better quality and a better productive market than either Boston or Baltimore! Yes, it's there for you . . . through Channel 2. When do you start? FOR CURRENT AVAILABILITIES CONTACT ANY OFFICE OF BLAIR TELEVISION ASSOCIATES Page 72 • December 23, 1957 Californians in Reno Get Taste of 'Play TV Spectator sports entered a new phase this month, as KOLO-TV Reno, Nev., showed droves of San Francisco football fans how to see a home game away from home, with the day's sport augmented at the gaming table. Under auspices of KOLO-TV, Reno casinos and the Reno Chamber of Commerce, 10-15,000 Bay Area citizens twice descended on a city where football on tv — like gambling— is wide. open. Through the twin miracles of television and Nevada promotion, San Franciscans, who otherwise would have been denied seeing their Forty-Niners play Dec. 8 and Dec. 22, saw the matches and enjoyed a frolic in babylon to boot. Reno literally gave them a free ride over the 500-mile round trip and feted guests expansively when they arrived. All that many of the junketeers paid for the excursion was the price of a poker chip or a pass at a onearmed bandit. The pilgrimages grew out of frustrations in two towns. In San Francisco thousands of fans were locked out at the gate, when Kezar Stadium quickly sold its 59,000 seats before the Dec. 8 game. The game was blacked out on tv screens because pro football rules flatly forbid telecasting home games within a 100-mile radius, whether the stadium is sold out or not. Miles away in Reno, programmers of KOLO-TV were frustrated because they had no chance to take the game off the air from KPIX (TV) San Francisco or KCRATV Sacramento, as was their custom. Two things KOLO-TV did have, though, were a cable connection to San Francisco and a casino client, the Horseshoe Club, imaginative enough to undertake the $800 connection bill, sponsor the show locally and subsidize a giant excursion from San Francisco. Once CBS ordered the game, KOLO-TV, the Horseshoe Club and eight San Francisco travel agencies took the ball and ran. The plan attracted national and local publicity, and 10,000 Forty-Niner fans lost no time reserving free bus rides and cut-rate "champagne air flights." As they arrived in two bus caravans and an armada of planes, excursionists got a brass-band welcome in Reno. Adjourning to the Horseshoe Club and its affiliated Wagon Wheel in nearby Lake Tahoe, they watched KOLO-TV-tuned receivers scattered over the club rooms. Their hours before and after the game were beguiled at gaming tables and slot machines. So impressed was the Reno Chamber of Commerce with the Dec. 8 event that the KOLO-TV telecast of the divisional championship playoff yesterday (Sunday) was turned into a citywide promotion, sponsored by all major clubs and hotels in town. Preparations were being made last week to add rail transportation to bus and air schedules to accommodate 15-16,000 San Francisco enthusiasts. It was beer, cigarettes and skittles all the way for the junketeers, as national sponsors of the game fell into the promotion spirit, passing out product samples along the way. CBS backers for both games were Marlboro cigarettes through Leo Burnett Co. and Falstaff Brewing Co. through Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample. Reno pulled out all stops yesterday, duplicating the Dec. 8 welcome on an even grander scale. After the ceremonies, wayfarers were entertained at a mammoth cocktail party, before serious sport got underway on the tv gridiron and gambling fronts. Among media covering the tv trips to Reno were San Francisco television stations which filmed the wandering fans. Today (Monday), tired-but-happy travelers could see themselves as they looked when they went to Reno to see the game in San Francisco. A TOWER is more than something to hang an antenna on, as demonstrated by WTOB-TV WinstonSalem, N. C, presently-dark uhf. WTOB-TV is keeping its hand in the community service field by turning its idle structure into a 700-ft. "Tower of Lights" to promote holiday shopping at Winston Salem's Thruway Shopping Center. It took 600 man-hours to rig the giant candle. Stations Spread Holiday Spirit In Special Christmas Promotions Stations all over the country are getting on the bandwagon and going all out for Christmas [Broadcasting, Dec. 16j. KSID Sidney, Neb., reports that it held The KSID Turkey Derby, which ended last Friday. The station put a large torn turkey in a cage on top of its mobile unit and toured around town visiting sponsors. Listeners were asked to judge the weight of the turkey and were informed that it weighed over 20 pounds. The first prize was $75, plus the live turkey; second prize, $15 and a dressed turkey, and third prize $10, plus a dressed turkey. In addition, the station conducted The Turkey Derby Show and gave away a turkey a day. Through the cooperation of WRNL Rich Broadcasting