Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

NATIONAL REP.: WEED TELEVISION Go peddle pencils, Smidley. Ya must be blind the way you continually overlook Cascade It's as plain as the nose on your face that here's a basic buy in the West. Look, Cascade is exclusive television for a huge, four-state area with billions of dollars in new industry, millions of acres in new farms — thousands of new families. The wideeyed boys are grabbing it, Smid, and you just can't see it? CASCADE BROADCASTING COMPANY PACIFIC NORTHWEST: MOORE & ASSOCIATES The Sound of Quality In a quality market of 14 counties where 598,800 people spent $1,016,738,000 — a per capita average of 1,885.00. ($204 above the national average. ) Salesmanagement's "Survey of Buying ,Cl Power — 1957" For over 35 years the Quint-Cities' senior station (Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa — Rock Island, Moline and East Moline, Illinois) Col. B. J. Palmer, President Ernest C. Sanders, Manager Mark Wodlinger, Sales Mgr. woe RADIO Peters, Griffin, Woodward, Inc. Tri-City Broadcasting Co., Davenport, Iowa Exclusive National Representatives IN REVIEW ASSIGNMENT: SOUTHEAST ASIA Admittedly without "message" or political purpose, this NBC-TV color film nevertheless left the viewer in a near state of frustration after its 90-minute travelog hop over the western horizon. There one saw teeming millions bubbling over one another in their sheer attempt to exist in the population pot of southeast Asia. To help them, even if one knew how, would appear impossible, but awareness of the situation must precede the desire, and the NBCTV effort did further this awareness. Perhaps the most heartening information communicated by the panorama of the mixture of cultures there is the awakening of the people themselves and their growing selfreliance. James A. Michener, Pulitzer prize-winning author who was the on-screen narrator, should stick to writing. While genial, his guidance and interrogation of selected officials of Indonesia, Malaya, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma was too "touristy" and not sufficiently reportorial. NBC's off-screen James Robinson, however, tied the pieces together somewhat by his commentary. Production cost: $125,000 Broadcast Sunday, Dec. 22 on NBC-TV, 2:30-4 p.m. in color and black-and-white. On-camera guide and narrator: James A. Michener. Producer-Director: Robert D. Graff; associate producers: Beatrice Cunningham, Milton Fruchtman, W. Suschitzky and Kenneth Reeves; scriptwriter: Sheldon Stark; film editor: Sidney Mayers; unit manager: John Herman; presented by NBC special projects — Henry Salomon, director. BOOKS BROADCASTING IN AUSTRALIA, by Ian K. Mackay. Cambridge University Press., 32 East 57th St., New York 22. 216 pp. $5. The rigorous conditions laid down for Australia's first commercial radio 33 years ago would make today's huckster shudder. Only three five-minute periods were permitted on the A-class (commercial) outlets. Each "advertising session" was preceded by a formal announcement advising listeners that the session would commence and terminate at such-and-such a time. At the conclusion, a further announcement advised that the regular program would be resumed. As could be expected, writes Mr. Mackay in his Broadcasting in Australia, the system had the negative result of incurring listener displeasure. The author also recounts many similar experiences in Australia as that country sought successfully to set up a system of partnership in service by government and private broadcasting interests. The book analyzes radio under the BBC in Britain, the American system and finally the reasons why Australia had to choose its dual system. The precise manner in which Mr. Mackay discusses (with helpful tables) the healthy growth of Australian broadcasting makes this book excellent for both the student and the general reader. Page 12 • December 30, 1957 Broadcasting