Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1962)

OUR RESPECTS to Frank Joseph Shakespeare Jr., vice president, CBS-TV Experience and youth are by no means incompatible Frank J. Shakespeare Jr. has moved upstairs at the CBS-TV Network. He is one of a selected cadre of executive youth on whom CBS management obviously is pinning high hopes. Mr. Shakespeare has moved quickly. In a few weeks, he'll be marking his 37th birthday three months after his appointment as vice-presidential assistant to James T. Aubrey Jr., CBS-TV's president. Here's a revealing "snap-shot" of Mr. Shakespeare supplied by a friend of his: He remembers Frank as the alert junior executive who would enter CBS's Madison Avenue headquarters in New York with newspaper in hand, reading a tv column even as he entered the elevator and was whisked upward to his office floor. By the time he stepped off the elevator, he was in deep discussion with a colleague and was carefully reviewing what the columnist had written that morning. He's Quick ■ By Mr. Shakespeare's own description, the new post is a challenge which has to be met. But those who've worked closely with him in the past realize it will not be long before Frank knows his new job well — he's quick that way. Even as a college student, Frank Shakespeare Jr. was a little in front of the average pace. Taking an accelerated course at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., he finished the customary four-year program in three, and graduated with the class of '45. After receiving his B.S. degree in business administration, he joined the Navy and spent a few months in the Pacific as deck officer of the carrier USS Petrof Bay. By late 1949, when at the age of 24 he joined WOR New York as assistant to the sales manager, Frank Shakespeare could cite experience in diversified and interesting fields. He sold insurance for the Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. in Washington from the fall of 1946 to May of the next year. Following this, he chalked up a few extra months with the Navy, cruising off the European shore during the summer of 1947. Following a return to civilan life in the fall of that year, he joined Procter & Gamble in New York where he was in the sales department, selling bulk soap for industrial use. Two years later, he left P&G to help WOR's selling punch. Spot Seasoning ■ In 1950, Mr. Shakespeare joined CBS. spending three years gaining experience in spot sales. In May of 1954, he became general sales manager of WCBS-TV New York. He was then 29. In May of 1957, Mr. Shakespeare began what was to become an experience of particular value to him in his management career: he moved from New York to Milwaukee to assume the direction of a new uhf operation owned by CBS. At WXIX (TV) Milwaukee, Mr. Shakespeare received invaluable station experience that could be added to his sales and management exposure at the New York seat of the network. Mr. Shakespeare found the WXIX interlude entirely different administratively and operationally from Madison Avenue, since the station was the only uhf in a market served by three vhf stations. In December 1958, Mr. Shakespeare was moved back to New York as general manager of WCBS-TV (four months before CBS closed WXIX). Six months later, he was elected vice president of the CBS Television Stations Division. Billings & Editorials ■ WCBS-TV, which is known to have a very substantial billing lead over any other New York tv outlet and which is thus the top billing station in the world, embarked on an editorializing policy while Mr. Shakespeare was at its helm. The decision had been made by CBS that all five of its owned and operated stations would engage in editorializing in March 1960. From this corporate decision, a lot of Mr. Shakespeare's professional ideas have sprung. He not only learned how to deliver on-air editorials effectively himself, but also became a very strong advocate of editorializing by all tv stations. And, realizing that good editorial policy must have as its base interest in the community, he acquired a "touch" Frank Joseph Shakespeare Jr. A bear-trap of a brain in handling basic urban issues. One associate recalls that Mr. Shakespeare at first had a broadcast voice problem. But, typical of him, he conquered it by means of thorough study and experience. As to his "touch" with community issues, Mr. Shakespeare, who reads the newspapers avidly and with a professional eye, demonstrated his quickly. Said one close acquaintance: "Frank has a bear-trap of a brain." Mr. Shakespeare is involved in community affairs — a carryover from his years as a station head. He's a member of the board of directors of Whitby School, a new school in Greenwich, Conn., and a member of the board of governors of Milbrook, the Connecticut community in which he lives. Hobby ■ Mr. Shakespeare has little time to devote to hobbies. His out-ofoffice study is pinned to history: he's a buff of English history from 1890-1915. This was a time when England's power was "absolute — at its zenith" in Queen Victoria's reign, a period of "social pyramiding," as Mr. Shakespeare calls it, when only a few families ruled England. Frank Joseph Shakespeare Jr.'s early statistics: born on April 9, 1925, in New York City; family moved to Plandome, Long Island; he graduated from Holy Cross College. He married the former Deborah Anne Spaeth in October 1954. They have two children: Mark, 5, and Andrea, 3. They live in Greenwich, Conn. In May 1960 he was named "Young Man of the Year" by the Young Men's Board of Trade of New York. He was one of four young men cited for distinction in their fields of endeavor. Views On Tv ■ Mr. Shakespeare finds television representing an intriguing "interlace" of interests. First, he says, it can be fortuitous, its people "stimulating." In the newly created post he now holds at CBS-TV, Mr. Shakespeare will find these areas continuing to interplay in the future. As yet, Mr. Shakespeare's precise role hasn't been defined, except that in practice he's assisting Mr. Aubrey in the complexities of network management and operation. A colleague of his fetches this image of Frank Shakespeare, the working executive: "He'll go to work behind a closed door, kick something around with a member of his department until he comes to a decision. "A member of Frank's department can be assured that he's on his own. His staff is made up of friends, not just workers.' That's what contributes to 95% of his success." BROADCASTING, March 5, 1962 109