Broadcasting (Apr - June 1960)

planned mainly for nighttime use as station ID’s with announcers voicing the station’s call letters. Water safety campaign Shocked by the fact that 6,700 people died last year in or around water, WAVY-TV Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Va., serving an area surrounded on three sides by water, has launched an all-out water safety campaign. The first step was to form a water safety committee. This group included WAVY-TV’s public service and publicity directors as well as civic organization leaders. In planning sessions it was decided to hold exhibitions of various types of water safety in public places at least once every two weeks from Memorial Day through Labor Day; to hold a weekly 30-minute public service program over WAVY-TV on how to prevent water accidents, and to arrange a continuing announcement schedule to be supplied to all local radio and tv stations and to provide stories for the local newspapers. WOW-TV's agency quiz As part of a presentation to advertising agencies in the East, WOW-TV Omaha held a “telequiz” for timebuyers. Agency executives during luncheon meetings held in New York and in Philadelphia marked their answers to a list of questions on the Omaha market’s industrial gains since 1950. The correct answers were contained in the presentation made by Fred Ebener. The station’s presentation included a film on WOW-TV and a slide recitation of the Omaha market. RAB's post card campaign “Say it with postcards” could well be the slogan for the massive direct mail campaign launched last week by Radio Advertising Bureau, New York. More than 160,000 individual messages may be sent in the nationwide barrage, RAB said. The picture postcard sales tools, a series of 16 eight and one-half by eleven cards called “16 new reasons for using radio,” comprise the 1960 edition of a campaign which RAB member stations have been using each year since 1956. RAB stations mail the cards to advertisers and agencies, relaying latest research on radio, information on the medium’s growth and its reach with specific consumer groups. “In essence, this is the industry’s ‘annual report’ to its grass roots clients,” commented Miles David, RAB vice president and director of promotion. Agency ‘credit cards’ Fuller & Smith & Ross, national advertising agency, has hopped on the bandwagon of a national craze and is issuing credit cards to clients or wouldbe clients. Presentation of this card entitles the bearer “to gracious treatment and wise counsel in the advertising and marketing of your products and services,” the card advises, and lists several satisfied clients. F&S&R also says the wallet-size card is “a veritable opensesame” to its “box socials.” A lesson in memory Books giving advice on how to achieve a better memory were distributed in New York last Thursday (May 12) by WRCA-AM-FM-TV. Attached to the gift book was a letter explaining that in 10 days the stations’ call letters would be changed to WNBC-AM-FMTV (May 22 at 12 noon), “and we’d like you to remember this on those welcome occasions when you refer to us.” The book, titled 10 Days to a Successful Memory, was written by Dr. Joyce Brothers, who also dispenses advice on problems other than memory lapses during two shows daily on the tv outlet. A political sales pitch A bi-partisan presentation designed to convince vote-seekers to invest more of their campaign funds in radio was released last week by Radio Advertising Bureau. Titled “Why Election Winners Vote ‘Yes’ for Radio,” the pocketsized presentation outlines the advantages of radio as a vote-getting medium. The study states: “You can count on radio to cover virtually every voter — more than 96% of all families. Radio can personalize your appeal to each voting bloc . . . The medium’s economy gives candidate with limited funds votewinning radio saturation.” The facts of radio’s “persuasive person-to-person appeal,” and its suburban reach are also stressed in the RAB presentation. ■ Drumbeats Pushing vegetables* Nicky the Clown, children’s personality of WSUNTV St. Petersburg, Fla., has brought sunshine and health into the life of local kiddies and has pleased the county's school lunch authorities to boot. On one day of his five-day-a-week show, Nicky displays a character or object made of healthful food items and then uses it in a story — for instance, a policeman with a red cabbage body, onion head, carrot legs and stringbean arms. These displays are featured at school lunch counters and the young viewers clamor for the foods used in the “creation.” The capture of Troy ■ To herald the opening of new studios in Troy, WPTR Albany Schenectady Troy, N.Y., arranged a two-hour parade featuring pretty girls in fancy cars, six marching bands, a dozen floats and more than 200 marchers from community organizations. Highlight of the parade was the arrival of the d.j. staff in a giant wooden horse similar to the one in which Greeks visited another Troy some years ago. The mayor was on hand to welcome the station personnel; dignitaries and the public attended WPTR’s open house reception. It is estimated that 2,500 Trojans witnessed the parade. Paid tune-in ■ New York timebuyers (April 26-28) could tune in to a local station (WNTA) to hear a morning comedy team, Frank Harden and Jackson Weaver, who are featured on WMAL Washington. The latter station bought the time on WNTA so that salesmen of WMAL’s national representative — H-R Representatives — could “sell” Harden and Weaver by carting around portable radios (tuned to WNTA) to agency offices. The comedy team is a new feature on WMAL. 114 (FANFARE) BROADCASTING, May 16, 1960