Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1961)

List of central billing service grows THE LATEST TO FORM: BROADCAST CLEARING HOUSE INC. A new central billing service — Broadcast Billing Co. — was formed in New York last week as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Rate & Data Service Inc. (Closed Circuit, Aug. 14). The anouncement of the new company, which proposes to simplify and expedite paper work in spot tv buying, came two weeks after the set-up of Broadcast Clearing House Inc., which has been formed for a similar purpose (Broadcasting, Aug. 7). An indication that the field of central billing in the buying and selling of broadcast time — previously a vacuum — is rapidly filling is the expected formation of still another service by former Remington-Rand systems experts and an existing company. Broadcast Billing Co. is headed by Albert W. Moss, SRDS vice president, as BBC's president; George W. Schiele, former sales vice president of Broadcast Advertisers Reports Inc., New York, who becomes sales vice president of the new firm; Richard I. Golden, previously supervisor of automated operations for the Triangle Stations, who becomes operations vice president, and SRDS President C. Laury Botthof, who also will represent SRDS' interest in the subsidiary as board chairman. Dry Run First ■ Letters introducing the service to stations and agencies are slated to be sent out this week, and presentations will be made. Before Jan. 1, 1962, the general "target" date for the start of the billing company's service, the firm expects to set up a "dry run" billing operation which is described as a "control period." The firm's birth was made official Aug. 14 in a meeting at SRDS in New York. The new company, with offices at 432 Park Ave. South, in New York, plans to open operations in Chicago, and later in San Francisco and Los Angeles as the business justifies their openings. At the outset, the paper jungle in tv will be the first area to come under servicing. Radio will be worked out at a later date. As explained last week, tv is the lasger volume of business with "most dollars at stake" and more applicable for control because of the fewer stations and major agencies involved compared to the thousands of radio stations and wide spread of agencies handling radio. The principals in the new Broadcast Billing Co. formally organized the firm on Aug. 14. At the session (I to r): George W. Schiele, vice president, sales; C. Laury Botthof, chairman of the board of the subsidiary and president of the parent SRDS, and Richard I. Golden, vice president, operations. 28 (BROADCAST ADVERTISING) Warning sponsor Sponsorship of Florida Defense Network test weather broadcasts was announced last week by Lee Ruwitch, president of the Florida Assn. of Broadcasters and general manager of WTVJ (TV) Miami. Mr. Ruwitch said he believed this was the first time broadcasts of a state defense network have ever been sponsored. Permission for such sponsorships was granted by the FCC last year, but too late for any commercial tie ins. The sponsor, D. W. Onan & Sons, manufactures electric generator sets for emergency use. The five-minute broadcasts will be heard daily during the hurricane season. It was noted that the company is preparing a rate structure that most likely will be based on volume. Background ■ Mr. Schiele, who was instrumental at BAR in developing a tv audit system now used by several major agencies, was associated with WPBN-TV Traverse City, Mich., and later served in a publicity capacity for the WFIL stations in Philadelphia. Mr. Golden, who joined WFIL-TV Philadelphia in 1953, developed a centralized traffic and billing system for 13 stations in the Triangle group (excluding one west coast operation — KFRE Fresno). The Broadcast Billing Co. system will use existing order and billing forms and will be patterned to some extent after that developed by Mr. Golden at Triangle. As seen by the principals of the new company the basic philosophy for a central billing service is founded on the problem that buyer and seller have no access to each other's orders. The task of matching one order against another has developed what Mr. Schiele calls "the war of paper work" (duplication, misunderstanding, etc). The system will permit a daily check of performance and order. How It Works ■ Though the type of service performed will vary from client to client, it's noted, for example, that client station invoices will be prepared and submitted to both cooperating and non-cooperating agencies, and that matching and verification of invoices for client agencies will be performed from both cooperating and non-cooperating stations. The data processing equipment will be fed all information pertinent to confirmed purchases of tv advertising with daily advance memoranda forwarded to stations as a control in preparing operations logs. Daily match lists will confirm successful performance of ordered BROADCASTING, AUGUST 21, 1961