Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1962)

Four Star stockholders hear profit story BUT THEY SEEMED MORE INTERESTED IN POWELL X-RAYS The annual stockholders' meeting of Four Star Television was the kind of affair that could happen only in Hollywood. It was a meeting where stockholders expressed more interest in their president's x-rays (which showed Dick Powell's malignancy 85% cleared up) than over the outlook for increased net profits (15-20 cents a share better in the new fiscal year than in the one ended June 30). Staged Tuesday (Oct. 16) at Studio 9 on Republic's lot in North Hollywood with about 100 persons in attendance, the meeting opened with Mr. Powell's announcement that the score in the first half of the eighth inning of the final World's Series game was: "One to nothing. Yanks. Terrible, isn't it?" and closed with an invitation to remain seated to watch a screening of "Doomsday Boy," the Dick Powell Show that would be broadcast that evening on NBC-TV ("You can go home and watch something else tonight, or turn the set over to the kids"). It was a meeting where top executives referred to each other by their first names and the president told a stockholder who complained about a lack of corporate publicity in financial papers that "you don't read enough." Mr. Powell explained last year's increased profits with decreased gross revenues by saying "It's fees. We charge ourselves fees to make our own product." When this didn't seem to satisfy the shareholders, he continued: "The number of shows really doesn't matter. It's the kind of shows. My own show is one of the highest-priced in the business, and if we didn't make a profit on it, we'd be crazy." Along with all this folksiness, the usual business of the meeting got done. The nine directors were re-elected for another year. The executive vice president reported that Four Star was doing rather well with its programs this season with six shows totaling four hours a week on the tv networks, "a safe mix," two comedies and four dramas, four half-hours and two hours and "so far they all look pretty good and we expect two or three to do very well." With Robert Taylor coming back next year and Jackie Coogan and David Niven and Charles Boyer also on the 1963-64 agenda, things look good for next year, too, said Tom McDermott, executive vice president in charge of production. He reported the company has sold one series to a network ("but we can't talk about it because the i's aren't dotted on the contract yet") and has finished others for ABC-TV and CBS-TV ("that we made as a daytime show but they like it so much they're going to put it on at night"). George Elber, first vice president, reminded that the $1.20 per share earned by Four Star in the year ended June 30, up from $1.06 a share the year before, was the fifth straight year of increased net earnings. The outlook for the current fiscal year, he said, is that network programs will produce about the same revenue but that the firm's new syndication arm will raise the company's net profits to $1.35 or $1.40. Although Four Star Distribution Corp. was formed only in July, "really too late to do much for this season." and the sales force is not yet fully organized, syndication sales to date total nearly $750,000, Mr. Elber reported. With "the largest unused syndication library in the business," more than 1,100 halfhour films and more than 100 hours, the syndication outlook is splendid, he said. Mr. Elber also noted that BNP Records, a recording subsidiary named for the initials of Mssrs. Boyer, Niven Pittsburgh's WIIC promotes Spot availabilities: 68 (PROGRAMMING) BROADCASTING, October 22, 1962