Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1960)

FANFARE Talent hunt Pet Milk Co. and its agency, Gardner Adv. Co., are joining hands once again with Keystone Broadcasting System and WSM Nashville on behalf of the third annual Grand Ole Opry talent contest. Plans call for national promotion of the country-and-western music competition on over 200 KBS stations May 23-June 3. Client, agency, transcription network and station principals recently met to map preliminary details. Each Keystone outlet will hold local auditions, submitting a tape of its winner to a judge's panel which will choose six finalists. They will win an all-expense-paid trip to Nashville for the finals in June, as will the managers of the six winning stations and their wives. The national talent winner will receive a contract to appear on six Grand Ole Opry shows. The public also will be eligible this year to compete for the excursion and other prizes — a new feature of the annual contest. RAB's straw hats Don't dodge the summer sun, advised Radio Advertising Bureau last week. Get out in that sun and "profit by the huge unique opportunities of summer selling." Two weeks ago it was sun tan lotion and last week it was Mexican straw hats which RAB sent to ad agencies in the second of a series of items used to remind advertisers of summer's "hottest medium." Advertisers need not fear reduced advertising effectiveness in summer, RAB adds in an accompanying note. "Radio — at low winter rates — gives them more than in mid-winter, while other media do the reverse," RAB says while tossing their straw hats in the air. Big band hop WRCV Philadelphia in cooperation with that city's recreation department is presenting a free big band dance at Convention Hall on March 10. According to station officials, the dance is planned to introduce teenagers to ballroom dancing and only couples under 21 will be admitted. The hall's balcony is reserved for adults who wish to see Buddy Morrow's band in action. 'Community Pride' contest A $1,000 award to any town of a thousand or more population within the listening area of WBT Charlotte, N.C., has been announced. Called "Community Pride," the contest asks listeners to vote for their favorite town. Votes will be mathematically con 32 Planning session • Discussing plans for Pet Milk's third annual Grand Ole Opry talent contest are (1 to r) Robert Cooper, general manager, WSM Nashville; Edwin R. Peterson, senior vice president, Keystone Broadcasting System Inc.; Robert Piggott, advertising verted into points so that all towns will be competing on the same basis, regardless of size. The town receiving the most points during the year will be the winner and receive the prize money. The money, WBT said, will be given to the town's "governing body for use in civic improvements." The winning town will also be given an engraved cup for public exhibition. 'Syrup soppers' unite Twelve thousand "syrup soppers" trooped into the Montgomery, Ala. Coliseum Feb. 1 to join WHHY Montgomery disc jockey John Hale and sop syrup onto 35,000 hot buttered biscuits. This was the inaugural "Syrup Soppers' Convention," officially blessed by Alabama Governor John Patterson who proclaimed a "Syrup Soppers' Day" in his state. The convention got its start because of a remark made by Mr. Hale on his early-morning show. He casually mentioned that he was hungry for some hot buttered biscuits and "some syrup to sop with." The station switchboard was flooded with calls from sympathetic syrup soppers, and the station issued over 22,000 membership cards to the convention. Mr. Hale claims that the correct way to sop is to poke a hole in the biscuit with the finger and fill the cavity with sweet syrup. A dissident school feels that "finger poking" is something of a frivolous pastime and prefer to be called "lasses lappers." In any event, 12,000 ardent fans from both schools director, Pet Milk Co.; Ray Morris, product advertising manager, Pet Milk Co.; Wells Hobler, account supervisor, Gardner Adv. Co.; Roy Porter, account executive, and Ralph E. Hartnagel, both Gardner; Earl Hotze, account executive, Gardner; Ralph Zipfel, Pet Milk. joined Mr. Hale at the convention and gobbled up, besides the 35,000 biscuits, over 1,500 gallons of syrup and 500 pounds of margarine. WIL's 38th anniversary A festive February was spent by WIL St. Louis, in celebration of its 38th anniversary. WIL went on the air Feb. 9, 1922. The anniversary festivities featured a special two-day parade by a caravan of WIL mobile units covering a 100 mile route; a $10,000 cash jackpot with prizes ranging from $39 to $390 dollars; a special show staged in Kiel Auditorium starring Frankie Avalon and other recording artists; and newscasts which featured headline happenings of 1922. Tire industry pitch The advantages of using spot television to advertise automobile tires are underscored in a new presentation prepared by Edward Petry & Co., station representative, and being released to agencies and advertisers this week. The presentation is the first of several that Petry is creating to accentuate the values of spot tv for advertisers. The current study notes that tire companies have used network tv but adds that "the many important values of spot television, the selective approach in the medium, have never been thoroughly tested." The flexibility of spot tv, whereby an advertiser can select varying times, varying length of commercials on the stations they prefer in the markets they BROADCASTING, February 29, 1960