Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1959)

programs between educational stations takes place tomorrow (Aug. 11) when KQED (TV) San Francisco broadcasts a 90-minute pops concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra taped by WGBH-TV Boston, which in exchange is receiving two half-hour lectures on Sanity and Survival by Dr. Jerome Frank from KQED. Coincidentally, the live concert of the Boston Pops Orchestra scheduled for tomorrow evening in the San Francisco Civic Center where the orchestra has been appearing this summer, was cancelled when conductor Arthur Fiedler, was called back to Boston. Dr. Frank, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, is spending a year in Palo Alto, Calif., at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, a Ford Foundation project. • The Mutual Broadcasting System next Monday (Aug. 17) begins a weekday presentation of financial and business news. Veteran MBS newsman Frank Singiser has been named financial and business editor and will be featured in the new series. Scheduled for 5:45-5:55 p.m., the program is to include stock market activities in principal U.S. cities plus major Canadian exchanges, bond and financing activities, developments in domestic and imported commodities, analyses by market and interviews with newsmakers in the field. • CBS-TV will carry the first annual Blue Bonnet Bowl to be played in Houston, Tex., on Saturday, Dec. 19. The new bowl game, which is to feature top-ranking independent college football teams, begins at 3:30 p.m. EST. It will constitute the second half of a CBS-TV bowl double-header that day, being preceded by the Holiday Bowl from St. Petersburg, Fla. CBSTV has signed a five-year pact for the Blue Bonnet Bowl. • Cinema-Vue Corp., N.Y., named eastern sales representative for the new Crosby-Brown Productions, Hollywood, is marketing two taped series from C-B. Each consisting of 52 half hours, they are Adventure Tomorrow, a science documentary, and The People's Court of Small Claims, staged versions of cases, with emphasis on human interest. • The Israeli Office of Information, N.Y., reports it has transcriptions and films available for radio and tv stations. A weekly radio series offered is Vistas of Israel. Further details are available from the Israeli office at 11 E. 70th St., New York, NY. • Rox Productions has been organized by James R. Beardsley, new to tv, to produce a series based on the life story of Marion Miller, honored on Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life as one of the most decorated women in U.S. history. Mr. Beardsley will be executive producer with Lew Landders as producer-director. A pilot has been filmed at Ziv Studios in Hollywood, where Rox Productions has its headquarters. William Schwartz of Ziv is production manager and Gill Mandelik is assistant director. William Joerme is financial director of Rox with attorney Gordon Youngman in charge of its legal affairs. Norman Greer is publicist for the series. HPL's protection fe This week will be like almost any other for the nine stations in today's Housewives' Protective League lineup. Among them they'll program 12 hours a day and by the end of the week they'll have grossed another $60,000. The only thing that will set the week apart is that it marks the 25th year HPL stations have been at it. The CBS-owned feature (it bought HPL from founder Fletcher Wiley in 1947) calls itself "the program that sponsors the product" — a sort of "Good Housekeeping Seal" of radio. Since Aug. 14, 1934, it has specialized in (1) a reputation for standing behind the products it advertises and (2) exclusive personalities whose job it is to win the confidence of the housewife and, preferably, the whole town. To do it, they work harder off the air than on, setting up merchandising arrangements with local suppliers (mostly of grocery items), making personal appearances, attending service clubs, participating in community activities and in general trying to become local institu Founder Wiley Housewives' original protector >: $600,000 weekly tions. Their on-air material is strictly to the housewife, delivered in a casual fashion that deliberately belies the research and planning which goes into preparing it. Seven researchers in New York develop most of the copy, but it's up to the local personality to weave it in his own material and fit it to his style. The programs are almost all talk, itself a unique factor in a competitive situation which is largely music. It's often hard to tell when the "editorial matter" leaves off and the commercial begins, a point considered a plus by HPL advertisers. Even their names are HPL-issued. They turn them in should they leave the program (a rare occurence). Only one has won the right to adopt his on-air name for himself: Galen Drake, who was the New York "director-broadcaster" for longer than anyone can remember, became so identified with that name that he was allowed to take it with him when he moved to WOR New York several months ago. (Fletcher Wiley was the original Galen Drake). This name tradition grew out of the days when all HPL personalities were faceless to their public. As recently as 1955 Paul Gibson in Chicago would not allow his picture to be taken. But that taboo has now been dropped along with others which prohibited jingles, ET's and cigarette, beer and wine commercials. Today's HPL personalities and their stations: Morgan Baker, WEEI Boston; Allen Gray, WCBS New York; John Trent, WCAU Philadelphia; Mark Evans, WTOP Washington; Paul Gibson, WBBM Chicago; Grant Williams, KMOX St. Louis; Craig Harrison, KCBS San Francisco; Philip Norman, KNX Los Angeles, and Lee Adams, WGAR Cleveland. All but WGAR are represented by CBS Radio Spot Sales; WGAR is handled by Henry I. Christal Co. Ed Wood, who has headed HPL since CBS took it over 12 years ago, has seen over $38 million in billings. BROADCASTING, August 10, 1959 79