Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1960)

PROGRAMMING WGA STRIKE: STILL TALKING Change of plans The Disc Jockey Assn. has cancelled its Los Angeles convention, which was to have been held March 4-6 in the movie capitol, with deejays participating in filming "The Big Platter Parade" at 20th Century-Fox studios. Instead, DJA now plans to hold a membership business meeting April 9-10 in Minneapolis, at a site still to be picked. Whether or not Writers Guild of America would add the tv film divisions of the networks to the strike list which already includes the Alliance of Television Film Producers and the Assn. of Motion Picture Producers had not been decided as of late Thursday (Feb. 4). Talks between union and network negotiators continued through the week without any sign of a breakthrough that might effect an agreement. Hopes of agreement led to an extension of the Jan. 30 deadline for an extra week. Negotiations also continued between the guild and ATFP against whose members the writers have been on strike since Jan. 16. Chief cause of the breakdown are WGA demands that its members be given extra pay when a tv series on which they worked is sold abroad and that they be paid residual fees for re-runs beyond the sixth broadcast, which is now the cutoff point. There were no meetings with the major motion picture producers making up the AMPP membership, whom WGA also struck Jan. 16. Progress, however, was reported by WGA in its efforts to secure agreements with independent movie makers. With the signing by Burt Lancaster of an agreement covering the companies he owns either wholly or in part, WGA now states that more than half of the 56 independents it struck last November have removed themselves from the strike list by agreeing to the principle that the writers have an interest in the theatrical motion pictures they wrote for and are entitled to share in any revenues the producers may derive from the sale of such pictures to television. The adamant refusal of the major studios to accept this principle is the main cause of the breakdown in negotiations between WGA and AMPP. SAG Fog • The matter of extra pay for tv use of theatrical films is also the chief barrier to a new agreement between AMPP and the Screen Actors Guild. Negotiations are continuing and SAG members are continuing to perform before the cameras of the major studios. Their former agreements expired Jan. 31. SAG is now polling its membership in a mail referendum which asks the actors to authorize the board to call a strike against the majors at any time. SAG contracts with the tv film producers run through March, so these companies (and the tv film divisions of the motion picture studios) are not immediately concerned with the actors' demands. Television taped programs in the Screen Actors Guild-American Federa tion of Television & Radio Artists' fight over jurisdiction on actors working in them have been moved out of the foreground, so far as SAG's upgoing negotiations with producers of filmed programs for television are concerned. SAG has proposed and AFTRA has accepted a plan that SAG will not attempt to negotiate terms and contracts for employment of actors on tape programs without ample advance notice to AFTRA. AFTRA, on its part, agrees not to inject its claims of jurisdiction over all performances on tape and the SAG negotiations of new television film contracts. Earlier, AFTRA had announced plans to send a notice of its asserted jurisdiction over tape to television film producers on Jan. 31 to comply with legal requirements that such notice be given 60 days in advance of termination of the present agreement, March 31. SAG on Monday (Feb. 1) offered to withdraw its demands for a share in the revenue from the sale of theatrical films to television if producers would promise to keep these films off tv. The SAG proposal was part of a retort to a statement issued the day before (Jan. 31) by AMPP on behalf of the major motion picture studios, which called the SAG demands "unreasonable and unrealistic. ... It is no more reasonable for an actor to ask for a second payment for exhibition on tv than it is for him to expect an additional payment when his picture is reissued or is shown in motion picture theatres a second time." The AMPP statement, issued by Charles S. Boren, executive vice president, pointed out that in addition to SAG, "similar demands have been made by the writers. Other guilds and unions have taken steps to make similar demands if the actors and writers are granted any additional payment on post1948 films or films made in the future exhibited on television." NTA's 'Play of Week' bought by KCOP(TV) A "breakthrough" in the sale of National Telefilm Assoc.'s The Play of the Week series was announced last week by Oliver A. Unger, NTA president, who revealed the series has been sold to KCOP(TV) Los Angeles, for immediate showing on that station. The two-hour series, which was launched on the company's owned tv station, WNTA-TV New York, last October, was bought by KCOP(TV) at a price said to be keyed to the price of a class "A" feature film. It is estimated that each two-hour episode over KCOP (TV) will cost from $6,000-7,500, although Mr. Unger declined to reveal the actual price. 20 Markets in Sight • Mr. Unger said last Thursday (Feb. 3) that negotiations are being held with many stations and he firmly believes "at least 20 markets will be signed within the next two weeks." The series is carried on WNTATV seven days a week, but in Los Angeles and in other markets, The Play of the Week will be sold for a one-run play of each drama. Thirty-nine episodes, produced on tape, will be offered to stations. Series, which recently won a Sylvania Award, was in jeopardy of cancellation, but several weeks ago the Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) bought the program over WNTA-TV (Broadcasting, Jan. 18). It is reported that the advertiser, through its agency, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, New York, is trying to clear time to place the series in two or three other major markets. Edison Foundation makes annual awards Awards to radio, tv, films and books were presented Jan. 27 before 500 guests at the fifth annual mass media awards dinner sponsored by the Thomas Alva Edison Foundations, New York. Honors in the fields of television and radio went to: Our American Heritage (NBC-TV) as "the television program best portraying America"; Meet Mr. Lincoln (NBC-TV), special citation; The New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts with Leonard Bernstein (CBSTV) as best children's tv program; Conguest (CBS-TV) as best science tv program for youth; Gateways to the Mind (NBC-TV), special citation; KQED (TV) San Francisco, "most outstanding educational tv station," and KDKA-TV Pittsburgh as "the tv station that best served youth." Winners in the radio category were: Canadian Broadcasting Corp., special citation for Science Review, and WBZ Boston, as "the radio station that best served youth." 80 BROADCASTING, February 8, 1960