Broadcasting (Apr - June 1960)

Advertising minds at work ■ Six broadcast experts at major advertising agencies took a bearish look at television public service shows during the first Media Managers Conference called by NBC Spot Sales. The six (seated, 1 to r) : Arthur Pardoll, associate media director of Foote, Cone & Belding; Donald Leonard, media director of Fuller & Smith & Ross; Newman McEvoy, senior vice president of Cunningham & Walsh; Sam Vitt, vice president and associate media director of Doherty, Clifford, Steers & Shenfield; Robert Liddell, head timebuyer of Compton Adv., and David Wasko, vice president and media coordinator of Geyer, Morey, Madden & Ballard. NBC Spot Sales personnel participating in the conference included (standing, 1 to r) Bill Fromm, manager of new business and promotion, and Richard H. Close, vice president in charge of the division. brings information and issues to the people that they can get their teeth into, not generalizations.” Mr. McEvoy seconded this position, adding: “Personal interests of the people in Bangor are quite different from those in Tulsa. Station management, then, is in the best position to be arbiters of what should be disseminated through their medium. This is quite different from the other concept that somebody is going to come up with program formulae based on what is ‘good for the public.’ The latter is unsound. This direction . . . makes a great deal of sense from the standpoint of the poor station manager who somehow or other has to equate a batch of directives from Washington (and they're not too well defined) and more significant directives from the stockholders, and probably even more significant and articulate directives from the viewing or listening public. He’s got to be sure he pays attention to them.” Mr. Leonard added the observation that such local service “will strengthen any commercial program that we’re interested in locally in that market. It has to help the program. It has to be beneficial to the advertiser.” Although emphasizing the local angle, Mr. Liddell said stations need not exclude the national. He cited KINGTV Seattle’s coverage of a trial of a teamster union official in Washington, D.C., and said “it wasn’t cheap, but it didn’t break them. And it certainly contributed to their stature in the market.” Mr. Leonard admitted this was so, but said “every station isn’t a KING-TV” and iterated the view that stations should forget national or international events unless they have local reflections. A Point of View ■ The agency men went on to conclude that stations must have a point of view in addition to just covering local events. Mr. Liddell said that too much coverage loses impact for want of a point of view. This led the group into a discussion of editorializing, which brought out Mr. Leonard’s position that “I don’t see why a station should offer equal time when it takes an editorial stand.” Mr. Vitt agreed in a sense, although he suggested that “letters to the editor” ought to be accepted. Mr. Liddell concurred with that, except for “crackpots.” There was disagreement about how often stations should editorialize. Mr. Leonard felt they should be on a regular schedule so that viewers could count on them, while Mr. Liddell felt they should be only when the station had something important to say. The group seemed to agree that once a week was not too often to expect a station to have something worthwhile to say, and that on that basis a station might schedule editorials regularly. But Mr. McEvoy cautioned that he’d agree only “as long as you don t put this program on at 9 o’clock.” The feeling was that preempting popular programming would hurt rather than advance public service offerings. The Doerfer Plan ■ The agency men exhibited surprising hostility to the socalled “Doerfer Plan,” whereby networks agreed to program at least an hour of public service in prime time every week, with a half-hour turned back to their affiliates for local public service shows every third week. Mr. McEvoy said the plan was in response to minority pressure, and added “it’s knuckling under.” Mr. Leonard agreed, saying, “I think this network agreement is a very unfor BROADCASTING, June 13, 196C 47