Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1960)

OUR RESPECTS TO . . . Elton Hoerl Rule "Television is beyond doubt the most receive the surrender of the Japanese exciting profession any one could be forces on Korea. "The Japanese were exposed to," Elton Rule, general man well armed," he recalled, "and no one ager of KABC-TV Los Angeles, stated knew whether they were going to fight last week. "I can't imagine any happier or surrender, so the Army sent in three lot than to go on working in tv from infantry battalions just in case." now on and I certainly hope that's what Native Son ■ A third-generation Cali lies ahead for me.'' fornian, Elton Hoerl Rule was born Whatever the future may hold, the June 13, 1917, in Stockton (where his fact sheets show that Mr. Rule has been maternal grandfather, Joseph F. Hoerl, in "West Coast television for quite a long will celebrate his 102nd birthday this time. He was a time salesman (" 'ac fall). After grammar school, Elton count executive' was the way my busi moved to Sacramento, where he went to ness card put it" ) at KLAC Los Ange high school and to Sacramento College, les at the time tv station was added to going to class mornings and working aft the 'operation, so he began selling tv ernoons in a local clothing store. He time as well. Then the management sep had majored in journalism and had arated radio and tv and Mr. Rule moved planned on an editorial career until the full time to KLAC -TV (now KCOP). post of business manager of the college Ten Years of Tv ■ That was in 1950 weekly newspaper and yearbook indiand for the past decade he has been cated that selling might be more remunselling tv station time in Los Angeles, erative than writing. In 1952. he left KLAC-TV to join After his graduation from the junior KECA-TV (now KABC-TV), ABC college in 1938, Elton had expected to owned Los Angeles tv station, as assist go on with his journalistic studies at the ant sales manager. Since then his title U. of California. But a summer job at has shortened with each move up the KROY soon convinced him that broadexecutive ladder: to general sales man casting, not newspaperdom, was his ager in 1953 and, on Sept. 1, 1960, to world and that working at a radio stageneral manager. ("I hope I've come to tion was more educational and enjoythe end of that line," he commented, able than going back to school could "as the only other word that could be possibly be. so there he stayed until dropped would be "manager' and I've March 3, 1941. no wish to go back into uniform, even Home Again ■ Back from the Pacific as a general.") Mr. Rule has good reason for feeling he's had his fill of soldiering. In 1940 he was working as a salesman-announcer for KROY Sacramento, Calif. One of his duties was covering California legislative happenings (Sacramento is the state capital) and one of his contacts was Gen. Middlestaedt, then state adjutant general. "I was persuaded to sign up for some Army extension courses and on March 3, 1941. when the National Guard became part of the Army, I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army. It seemed like a good idea to do my year's service then and get it over with, so in I went," Mr. Rule said wryly. Five years and 1 1 days later. Major Rule received his honorable discharge. In between he'd been a platoon leader, a battalion adjutant, a company commander who took a machine gun company into Kwajalein and Leyte in the Philippines, and after an Okinawa bat tlefield promotion to major, a battalion KABC-TV's Rule commander in charge of one-third of the city of Seoul, where he helped The title kept getting shorter war theatre, young Rule returned to Sacramento and to radio as a salesman for KFBK. He left to become sales manager for Goodyear Wingfoot Homes, portable dwellings used chiefly by construction companies and government agencies to provide temporary housing for groups of men on locations remote from cities. "It was a good job," he said, "but it wasn't in broadcasting and it didn't take long for me to realize that's where I belonged." So he said goodbye to Goodyear and went south to Los Angeles where he went to work for KLAC. In 1942, he married Betty Louise Bender, a Detroit girl. They and their three children — Cindy 13, Christie 5, and Jimmy 4 — live in Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley, a half-hour's drive from his office in East Hollywood. His hobbies are tennis and swimming and "just enjoying the youngsters whenever I get a chance, chiefly weekends, as the nature of this business gets me out of the house too early and home too late to spend much time with them during the week." Tv Grows Up ■ Despite the demanding "nature of the business," Mr. Rule is completely enthusiastic about tv as it is today and as he expects it to be in the years ahead. "Television is just coming of age," he declared. "By the calendar, tv is just entering its teens but the dollar figures show that it's already achieved adult stature in the tremendously competitive race for the advertising dollar. The FCC report for 1959, just issued, shows the total tv revenue for the year as more than a billion dollars for the second consecutive year. And 1960 promises to be even better. "Look at the way money and creative effort is being spent for programming. This season, television has the most exciting programming ever offered to the public at any price, at any place and at any time in history. "Finally, look at the new technical developments. Video tape, which has already revolutionized tv production practices, is only an elementary step. Pictures of dogs traveling in a satellite in outer space transmitted back to earth via tv are also only rudimentary signs of what lies ahead for television in science and inter-continental communications as well as in entertainment. The old timers, who got into radio in its infancy, may sigh for the good old days of broadcasting, but to the second generation broadcasters, the best is still to come." Mr. Rule is a director of the Hollywood Ad Club and of the Los Angeles County Welfare Board, and a member of the Los Angeles Ad Club, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Broadcast Pioneers. BROADCASTING, September 19, 1960 119