Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1957)

WHAT ANA QUESTIONS • Agency 1 5% on outside-packaged shows: Is it a legitimate charge? • Network 52-week buys: Are all advertisers getting the same break? • Barter deals in tv: They work for some, but are they good for all? HOW REVLON THINKS • Split billings: Products get better service if they're not in one agency • House agencies: Attractive, but often suffer from lack of creativity • Programming: There's a dearth of originality in television today i s i I i I Have you had any problems in product protection? Yes. I notice that CBS has taken some steps to amend its protection policy *. . . I think it was a necessary steo they had to take. With acaiiisitions and new product developments bv major corporations in America, it became increasingly difficult to buv a program. We have had two instances within the past few months to point this ud. When we bought the Walter Winchell File program on Wednesday nieht. we couldn't advertise a number of our products because of the adjacency to Mennen, who put out babv products, hand preoarations and a men's product — a line of men's products. The same thing happened to us on Sunday night on the $^4,000 ChnHent^e. We had Bristol-Myers on one side and Helene Curtis on the other. BristolMyers makes deodorants, hand lotions and a men's hair oreoaration. On the other side, you have Helene Curtis with a hair spray, shampoo, a deodorant. We make products in all of these fields so that we were blocked on both sides. T think frankly the new CBS policy is a good thing for the industry. Tt was reaching a point where corporations such as Procter & Gamble were making it impossible for Lever Bros, and Colente to live sid? bv s'de with them. And there just had to be a breaking point on it. I admire the leadership of CBS in stepping forward and saying this has to be done. It should have been done a long time aso. Certainly in magazines and newspapers you get no more than facing page protection. Do you think the 15 minutes that they put between leading products is adequate? The answer to that lies in what the word "adequate" means. You could just as well raise the question whether an hour separation is "adequate." The great concern advertisers have is possible neutralization of their advertising message. I'm sure that consumer remembrance goes far beyond 15 minutes but it also goes far beyond an hour or two hours, so that if they see a commercial one hour previously and then another commercial by a competitive product an hour later — there could perhaps be a neutralizing effect. I think the 15-minute rule is a necessity. I don't think they had any choice but to do it that way. They had been working for the most part with a half-hour separation, as witness our situation on Sunday night. I think they were forced into a 15-minute rule. From the advertiser's standpoint, what are the biggest problems in using television? This is the first time I've heard an advertiser go this long without complaining about costs. Well, of course, it's only because you didn't ask me. And yet, in answering your question, costs would not be the primary problem. *EDrroR's note: ifnder a revised product protection policy, CBS-TV plans to MAINTAIN SEPARATION OF AT LEAST 15 MINUTES IN NETWORK PLACEMENT OF COMMERClSLs FOR COMPETING PRODUCTS. NETWORK ALSO WILL PREVENT COMPETITIVE PRODUCT CONFLICT WITHIN PROGRAMS (EXCHANGE COMMERCIALS ARE NOT NECESSARILY ENTITLED TO PROTECTION, AND THEIR POSITION MAY BE SHIFTED IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN SEPARATION OF COMPETITIVE PRODUCTS). The primary problem would be that of finding the right program and the right time period. Because if you find the right program and the right time period, the cost could be a very justifiable expenditure— as witness the $64,000 Question. However, take a situation where a program is in a prime time period and yet faces two strong, competitive programs; even though it may be a very good program, it can have its strength dissipated by the fact that the audience goes into a three-way split in that time period. And yet the cost of the lime is the same as, let's say, on another night of the week, and the cost of the program is the same as if that program were placed on another night of the week. So I place those two problems first. I would place finding the right time period first, program second. Because even some poor programs have done well where they haven't had serious competition. Do you think rates should be based on delivered audience then? Well, I would hope that someday we would arrive at that. As you know, there was talk some time back of Nielsen providing a service which would be tied to delivered audience, and many tv advertisers hoped it could be achieved — just as they pay for circulation in a magazine or a newspaper. But that's one of the gambles of television today. You could also call it the survival of the fittest. So you go out and try to find the best program and you negotiate as best you can for the best time period. And if you go into a time period that subsequently suffers as the result of competition, you move to another time period. Twenty-One is a very good example of that. If it had stayed Wednesday night at 10:30, it would have remained a mediocre program. At 9 o'clock on Monday it had the opportunity through greater sets-in-use, additional stations, and lack of competition. It has become a great program. is there anything you want to add on any subject? I've always been a great believer in pioneering, in advancing new frontiers in advertising. And I'm a little dismayed, frankly, at the programming in television today. While I didn't always agree with Pat Weaver's concepts, I think he did provide some fresh thinking, some fresh programming, and some excitement in television. It's just too easy to be a "me too" in television. Someone gets a good rating on a Western and then immediately you go out and buy a Western. I think, too, there's a great dearth of originality. I've been watching, for example, a new program called A Date with the Angels, the Betty White show. In some respects it's a luke-warm / Love Lucy program, and yet watching it, it's so apparent that the show needs creative ingenuity. Because with that, it could come alive. The casting is good, the basic plot is good and yet in aping a successful program of the past, they haven't come up with a successful show in the present. So I think, going back to Mr. Weaver, that he had the right idea. That is, strike out in some new directions, develop creative thinking. I think that has to be the saving of television. Because if it continues in a rut of mediocrity, you're going to face the same situation as you had this summer. With nothing but "repeats" all over the dial, neonle were tuning out. I think television had one of the sharpest drop-offs in listening this season we've had in many years. Broadcasting • Telecasting September 30, 1957 • Page 115