Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

Why Daystar is banking on a return to escapism "Next year's top rated TV shows are going to be in the escapist adventure category, designed to provide pure entertainment with a rousing wallop and a pinch of spice," Leslie Stevens, president of Daystar Productions, predicted last week. "This is no reversion to senseless violence, but a retreat from true violence into harmless fiction. The 'show of the year' for the past several years has been a candid documentary shot full of human anguish. In the hospital shows we have anguished with a thousand heartwrenching crises. In the lawyer shows we have struggled with stress. In the graphic realism of 'modern' television we have seen a sock in the jaw result in what a sock in the jaw really results in — broken teeth, bleeding lips, contusions, shock, retching, vomiting, trembling and terror." Mr. Stevens contrasted this with the classic fights from "the hey-day of the movies. John Wayne and Ward Bond battled each other reel after reel. They crashed off balconies, smashed tables and chairs over each other, landed socks on the jaw and pile-drivers to the pit of the belly which, if handled realistically, would have resulted in instant death. Instead, out of this wild and wooly carnage, knee-deep in kindling-wood wreckage, the combatants emerged with a Band-Aid over the left eyebrow. "The fights of yesteryear were fun," the TV producer declared. "They were legendary. They were, in a word, fictional. The real revolution that's going on in television is the demand of the audience for fiction. The great plot is one with twists, turns and bafflements. The real hero is the invincible solver of problems." Anti-hero ■ In place of the "real hero," what TV has been giving us is the "anti-hero," Mr. Stevens commented. "He trips on the stairs and bleeds on the way to the hospital. He is not fictional. He's a part of ordinary life, visible in the streets all day long, drama without theatricality, content without form. We've had our fill of this. Now the pendulum is in full swing toward the needed relief of pure theatricality — total fiction." To prove his point that today's TV viewer is seeking escapist entertainment, Mr. Stevens might have cited Daystar's own Outer Limits, a science fiction series about as remote from realism as one could go and doing very nicely in its Monday evening hour on ABC-TV. Instead, he pointed to James Bond, Ian Fleming's indestructible secret agent, "who smashed box-office records in the far-out 'Dr. No.' " Mr. Stevens is backing his theory with action as well as words. Now in production is the pilot film for a Daystar series called John Stryker, destined for CBS-TV, which is financing the pilot. Richard Egan in the title role and Dee Hartford as his executive secretary are the only continuing characters in the series, affording ample opportunity for name guest stars from week to week. The cast of the pilot, for example, includes such names as Vivica Lindfors, Burgess Meredith and trumpet player Al Hirt. To which could be added another well-known name, that of its writer, Marion Hargrove. Walter Grauman is directing and Mr. Stevens is the producer. Another series which Daystar has in preparation for the 1964-65 season is The Invisibles, a spin-off of the current Outer Limits which Mr. Stevens describes as an exotic series dealing with a government intelligence agency exploring the fringes of crime. A third projected series is Lovers and Madmen, a title which almost certainly will be changed before it gets on the air. This deals with supernatural phenomena and "could be described as eerie, but is not at all what we usually think of as science fiction," Mr. Stevens said; "It's more of the ghost story sort of thing." Both The Invisibles and Lovers and Madmen are planned for ABC-TV. Like Outer Limits, these programs are joint ventures of United Artists-Television, Villa di Stefano Productions and Daystar. John Stryker is a UA-TV-Grauman-Daystar venture. TV Tours ■ Daystar has another project in the works, completely different from the foregoing. This is Hometown, USA, a series of TV tours of various American cities, large and small, each guided by a well-known person who calls the place his hometown. The project is still in the formative stage, with no person or city definitely set, but Mr. Stevens offered such hypothetical examples as President Eisenhower on Abilene, Tex., or President Truman on Independence, Mo., Mary Martin on Dallas, Louis Prima on New Orleans "and you can take it from there for yourself. We're tremendously excited about this one. We think it will have a strong nostalgic appeal for oldsters and a change for youngsters to see the origins of people they've heard about and read about, and great entertainment for everybody. We're doing this by ourselves, without any coproduction or financial ties with anyone else and we think it's going to be something that we and television can well be proud of." To help guide its program de the 33 zones, without co-channel or adjacent channel interference. In most cases, it stated, co-channel separation would be between 500 and 600 miles. The airplanes would provide coverage for a radius of about 200 miles (125,000 square miles), Westinghouse said. Two planes, each broadcasting on three channels, would operate in each zone. The Westinghouse proposal also compared its airborne suggestion with closed circuit TV systems. Using a proposal made for the state of Virginia, it estimated that the airborne system would involve operating costs of 77 cents per pupil per channel, compared to $4.61 for the same performance on a closed circuit basis. An alternative to packing aircraft with transmitter and program equipment (weight, about 14,500 pounds) for direct transmission to school receiving stations is also suggested by Westinghouse. Each of the 33 ETV zones would have one ground station equipped with all programing equipment. The composite program would be beamed via microwave to the flying transmitter which would receive, amplify and retransmit the programs on broadcast frequencies. CBS-TV plans to expand 'Repertoire Workshop' An expansion of CBS-TV's Repertoire Workshop, designed to provide an outlet for new talent in all areas of the performing arts, was announced last week by the network. Each of the five CBS-owned television stations will produce seven episodes, which will more than double the 16 shows produced last year. In addition to the CBS-owned stations, eight Eastern Educational Network television stations have contracted to show the programs. The EEN TV 44 (PROGRAMING) BROADCASTING, December 30. 196?