Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

PROGRAMS & PROMOTIONS continued KNX-CRPN, BEKINS MARK 20 YEARS FIRST 20 YEARS of sponsorship by Bekins Van & Storage Co. on KNX Los Angeles and 16 years on CBS Radio Pacific Network are marked by the principals, who apparently have no intention of interrupting a good thing. L to r: Al Brooks, vice president and consultant, C. J. LaRoche Advertising Agency; Fred Ruegg, general manager of KNX and CRPN; Milo W. Bekins Sr., board chairman of the sponsoring firm, and Daniel P. Bryant, Bekins president. In November 1937, Bekins Van & Storage Co. started a schedule of three announcements a week on KNX Los Angeles. Last month, Bekins celebrated the completion of 20 years of continuous sponsorship on KNX and of more than 16 years on the CBS Radio Pacific Network. In the interim, Bekins' radio expenditures have grown from something less than $10,000 to something more than -$100,000 annually, or about 20% of the current Bekins advertising budget. It was in the fall of 1941 that Al Brooks, head of Brooks Advertising Agency, Los Angeles, which handled the Bekins account, suggested that with the growing audience for news, Bekins might sponsor a newscast to augment its announcement schedule. In October 1941, Bill Henry, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, began a Monday-Wednesday-Friday newscast on KNX and the Columbia California Network. Early in 1942, Harry Flannery took over the Bekins newscasts; he was succeeded in 1945 by Wallace Sterling, now president of Stanford U., and in 1946 Charles Collingwood started his two-year stint for Bekins. Meanwhile, Bekins had launched Hollywood Music Hall on an ABC West Coast hookup, later moving it to NBC and, in 1948, to KNX and CRPN. The half-hour Sunday musical series was live until 1952, when it became a recorded program, but it retained its original guest star policy and the format which has made it in the past three years the highest rated musical program on the West Coast. In 1952, Bekins decided to resume its Gourmets Only on Lunch Concert With greater food manufacturer importance being attached to "gourmet items" — for example, General Foods Corp. has inaugurated a new line of imported delicacies from around the world bearing the GF imprint — WQXR New York has limited the semi-classical music Luncheon Concert (Monday-Friday) to strictly gourmet food processors and importers. Retitled Gourmet newscasts in addition to Hollywood Music Hall and started Frank Goss on a threea-week early evening schedule that was shortly increased to six-a-week. That's how it stands today. On Nov. 20, when Fred Ruegg, general manager of KNX and CRPN, entertained executives of the Bekins organization and of C. J. LaRoche Advertising Agency (which acquired the Bekins account through a merger with the Brooks firm) at a luncheon commemorating the 20th anniversary of Bekins' association with the station and network, Milo W. Bekins Sr., board chairman, said his company had not stayed with KNX-CRPN for "sentimental reasons" but because "through periodic testing and surveying of the market we've found that KNX and CRPN represent one of the most effective and productive expenditures of all the media on Bekins' advertising schedule." Mr. Brooks, now a vice president and consultant of the LaRoche agency, said one of the reasons he'd recommended that Bekins stay with KNX-CBS was that they'd "always extended the fullest cooperation, merchandising and promotional effort in support of the various programs Bekins has sponsored on CBS the past 20 years." Corner (11:45 a.m.12 noon), it will be sponsored (participations) on behalf of such products as Caviar (Purepak Foods Inc.), Instant Vichyssoise and Sauce Hollandaise (Maison lulian Inc.), Imported Soups (Cresca Co.-Knorr-Swiss). Heretofore, the 15-minute program was sold as a separate segment. The station also has other "exclusive advertiser only" programs such as Town & Country Dining for restaurants. WJZ Presents 200 'Toys for Tots' Wonderland of Toys — a toy spectacular — was presented by WJZ Baltimore in cooperation with Baltimore Products Co. (toy wholesaler), in connection with its "Toys for Tots" campaign. The toys were presented in a fantasy setting and the three children that assisted Jack Wells, the show's host, played with as many of the 200 toys as they could in the one-hour-long program. Five pre-teen girls, each dressed in a costume matching that of the doll she held, were presented in a children's fashion show and a contingent of U. S. Marines collected the toys for distribution to Baltimore's underprivileged children. Rep Sends Aural! Greetings Broadcast Time Sales, New York representative firm which presents the station it represents "in person" to advertisers by tape playbacks, is playing turn-about by sending "talking Christmas cards" to its stations. The greetings were recorded from a conference call connecting sales managers of BTS' offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. After the telephone call, Christmas carols were dubbed in. United Press Facsimile Newspictures | | and United Press Movietone Newsfilm cLb Build Ratings Page 74 • December 23, 1957 Broadcasting