Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1963)

Burrud sees tv viewers returning with colored glasses The emergence of color television into the mass media class will be a boon to the producers of traveladventure films, according to Bill Burrud, a pioneer in that type of tv programming. It will be, that is, if they have had Mr. Burrud's foresight of making true-life documentaries in color. He now has some 2,000 half-hour films which, having been successfully exposed to viewers who saw them in black-and-white, are now ready for a new career in color. "Even if he has seen the film before in monochrome, the color-set owner is going to enjoy watching it over again," Mr. Burrud said last week. "There's no doubt that color adds to the enjoyment of watching a fictional drama or a musical show on tv and the value added by color is even greater for our type of show. Colorful native costumes, colorful foreign backgrounds give added reality and added impact to our kind of programs, which depict events that are called colorful even when they are merely described in words." And color will add to the profit of the producer of travel-adventure films as well as pleasure to their viewers, Mr. Burrud firmly believes. Not that they aren't profitable already. After 1 1 years in the field, Bill Burrud Productions now earns about $1 million a year. A large part of these earnings are plowed back into new products, the company owns all its own negatives outright and in more than a dozen years has always managed to handle its own financing without bank loans. Growing Up ■ Such business acumen, rare in any instance, is remarkable when displayed by one who is primarily an actor. Bill Burrud made his stage debut at the tender age of 9 and went on to become a child movie star. But late in 1948 he was no longer a child nor a star, just an out-of-work actor. The Los Angeles Times was getting its tv station (KTTV) ready for a Jan. 1, 1949, start of program service and Bill felt it was a chance to get into television. He'd been turned down for a staff job at the station so he tried an oblique approach, through the newspaper's outdoor editor, an old acquaintance. "Let's get together and make a program to tell people what they can see in Southern California on a weekend trip," Bill proposed. The editor called the publisher, who liked the idea and called the station manager, and Open Road was added to KTTV's schedule as a weekly halfhour which tied in with a Sunday newspaper column. Bill rushed to a camera store, plunked down practically his last dollar for a secondhand movie camera and said to the amazed salesman: "Show me how to operate this thing. I've got a tv show starting in five weeks." The what-to-see-near-at-hand program gradually expanded its scope as its embryo producers discovered that other people, some of them even professionals from the motion picture field, were making travel films that could be obtained for use on television. "We also found that people were interested in the out-ofdoors, in nature, in true life adventure. But they needed a dramatic frame. Even here, the play's the thing. Nature in the raw can be pointless as well as wild. Before long we began to follow the pattern of the picture magazines like Life and Look and to select and edit our pictures to tell stories about people, places and things." Spreading Out ■ The program developed to the point where other Los Angeles tv stations got interested in it and Bill Burrud moved his base of operations from KTTV to the highest bidder, KCOP, which was building a travel-adventure format. Today, he has four programs a week on KCOP: Holiday at 7-7:30 p.m. Monday; Wanderlust at 7:308 p.m. Tuesday; True Adventure at 7:30-8 p.m. Thursday and Vagabond, his original series, which has just returned for a new showing at 8:30-9 p.m. Tuesday. KCOP still his home station, pays Mr. Burrud better than $250,000 a year for his program services. Until 1956, when Vagabond went into syndication through Official Films, he did the narration live for his local Los Angeles broadcasts on KCOP and he still follows that practice for Wanderlust and Holiday. "I'm still an actor at heart," he says, "and I like to make personal appearances when I can." Today his True Adventure films are in 49 U. S. markets, plus West Germany, Australia and French Film sales... Sugarfoot (Warner Bros. Tv): Sold to WLWI (TV) Indianapolis and WLWD (TV) Dayton. Now in 24 markets. Surfside 6 (Warner Bros. Tv): Sold to WSIX-TV Nashville, Tenn., and WAST (TV) Albany, N. Y. Now in 33 markets. The Roaring 20' s (Warner Bros. Tv): Sold to KAKE-TV Wichita, Kan. Now in 19 markets. Lawman (Warner Bros. Tv): Sold to WTTG (TV) Washington, D. C, and WTVN (TV) Columbus, Ohio. Now in 1 1 markets. Ripcord (United Artists Tv) : Sold to Standard Oil of Indiana, through D'Arcy Adv., for WWTV (TV) Cadillac-Traverse City, Mich. New station sales are: WINK-TV Fort Myers, Fla.; WGAN-TV Portland, Me.; WSBT-TV South Bend, Ind.; KOMU-TV Columbia, Mo.; WLWD (TV) Dayton, Ohio; WSAZ-TV Charleston-Huntington, W. Va. Now in 1 50 markets. Steve Allen Show (WBC Program Sales) : Sold to KENS-TV San Antonio, Tex. Now in 27 markets. Maverick (Warner Bros. Tv): Sold to WAII-TV Atlanta; WLBW-TV Miami; KXLY-TV Spokane; KVII (TV) Amarillo, Tex., and KSHO-TV Las Vegas, Nev. Now in 34 markets. MCA files for overdue fees MCA Inc. anounced last week it has filed with the American Federation of Musicians in New York several arbitration complaints against former clients in the band and orchestra field. MCA claimed they failed to pay commissions for services rendered prior to the com pany's discontinuance of its talent agency business last July. The names of the former clients were not revealed. Several weeks ago, MCA filed a similar action against Dick Chamberlain, star of the Dr. Kildare series on NBC-TV. Ford fund etv grants: $16.3 million in 1962 Ford Foundation grants to educational television totaled $16,394,000 in 1962, according to the foundation's annual report for the period from Oct. 1, 1961 to Sept. 30, 1962. The largest etv grant, $8.7 million, was to the Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction, which completed its first full year of operation in June 1962. Its total support from the foundation has reached $14.7 million. Community etv grants totaled $7, 56 (PROGRAMMING) BROADCASTING, January 7, 1963