Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1961)

trwho knows better than my salesmen how our spot schedule on WSUN pays off?" THIS IS HOW C. J. STOLL, MOBILE HOME DEALER IN ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA, AND PAST PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL MOBILE HOME DEALERS ASSOCIATION, FEELS ABOUT WSUN RADIO. "Whenever we prepare a budget for advertising my salesmen always remind me of the important results delivered to us by WSUN radio and insist that a good portion of our advertising dollars be spent on this station. I ask you, who knows better than my salesmen how our spot -schedule on WSUN pays off?" This is how most local advertisers feel about the Suncoast's greatest coverage radio station. It will pay off for you, too! Ttatings vary from survey to survey; the true yardstick is SALES! Dollar for dollar by any survey, your best Tampa St. Petersburg buy WSUN radio 62 Tampa -St. Petersburg Nafl. Rep: VENARD , RINTOUL & McCONNELL S.E. Rep: JAMES S. AYERS the broadcaster in seeking to deliver it." Down the Middle ■ NAB said it holds a middle position between those who regard the FCC as merely a traffic regulator and those who consider the FCC a spokesman for the public which "owns the airwaves." There are disturbing implications in the FCC terminology, "balanced programming," NAB said. As long as a licensee demonstrates responsibility and good faith, he is serving the public interest; the degree of specialization of his programming is a matter for the licensees' own judgment, NAB stated. Practitioners of free speech must be defended against subsequent punishment as well as against prior restraint, the trade organization emphasized. It is a hollow privilege to publish whatever one wishes if the penalty for incurring displeasure is death, the NAB remarked. When the FCC moves from encouragement and stimulation of programming in general to favoring or disfavoring particular programs or types, it is overstepping its authority and interfering with the responsibility of the licensee, the NAB said. Among the proposed requirements which met NAB's specific objections was one that broadcasters describe "outstanding or unusual" programs they have carried. This represents an unfair subjective evaluation, NAB said. The association also cautioned the FCC not to dictate commercial policy by suggesting that only a given number of commercials are acceptable. On logging NAB covered the virtual gamut of specific objections, stressing that the proposed form at present would place "unwarranted and unnecessary burdens" on broadcasters. Network Objections ■ ABC suggested that the FCC is coercing broadcasters in an abuse of its licensing power. Doctors lose none of their constitutional rights because they are licensed, ABC said, citing court precedent against prior restraint of free speech or punitive use of licensing power. ABC submitted citations of court decisions dealing with censorship. The network presented, in essence, a rebuttal to the legal memorandum backing the FCC's program proposals presented by Chairman Minow at the Northwestern U. seminar (Broadcasting, Aug. 7). ABC said the "changed role" of radio is to integrate varying information with music in a way which does not demand the listener's full attention. A station carrying much talk other than sports and news risks losing its audience— and competition is keen — ABC stated. Therefore, it is hard to attain "program balance" on radio, ABC said. When the FCC asks that promises of Star-secretary for a day Mrs. Newton (Jo) Minow, wife of the FCC chairman, has joined the hundreds of Washington citizens who have become "movie stars" for one-shot appearances in "Advise and Consent." However, unlike the legion of volunteers, Mrs. Minow performed at the personal request of Otto Preminger, producer of the movie about the U. S. Senate. Appearing only briefly, Mrs. Minow will be seen as the secretary of one of the movie's stars, Henry Fonda. She has donated her salary as an actress to Radio Free Europe. balanced radio programming be matched against performance, it is extracting a commitment from the licensee that borders on prior restraint, ABC charged. The network opposed the plan for a broadcaster to submit a selected week. It is a device which the FCC could use to show that by its own admission a station is deficient in certain categories. A large station could afford to analyze all its program days to select seven that make a good showing; a small station could not finance such research, ABC said. The more program categories listed on the FCC form, the closer the FCC comes to telling the licensee what he must carry, ABC argued, holding that most licensees fear commission wrath if they have no programming in certain categories. Heavy-Handed Guidelines ■ CBS charged that the FCC's proposed "guidelines" for programming would be comparable to a requirement by the government that publications receiving "subsidized mailing rates" devote so much space to fiction, news, humor, children's stories, drama, etc. Improvement is an evolutionary process that cannot be brought about by government fiat, CBS stated. CBS said the FCC must recognize the profit motive as a legitimate element in the broadcaster's overall programming judgment. Critics of programming (and minority interests) are unwilling to exercise the same selectivity among radio-tv programs that they do in choosing movies, books, records and friends, the network said. CBS objected to the detail with which questions on the program form examine programming. This amounts to "government prediliction by particularization," or simply that it is dangerous to answer "no" to the question "Do 56 (GOVERNMENT) BROADCASTING, October 9, 1961