Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1941)

8 Motion Picture Daily Monday, January 6, 1941 Off the Antenna NEW studios for General Electric's Schenectady television station are expected to be ready by mid-summer, it was learned yesterday. The new studios will be in the Edison Club Hall, which is part of a building owned by G. E. At present the station is re-telecasting programs originating from NBC's New York City station, but programs for the up state audience will be sent out when the studios are ready. C. D. Wagoner, G.E. publicity director, who was in New York yesterday, reported that a second FM station will be opened on Helderberg Mountain within the next six weeks by Capitol Broadcasting Co., and there is a possibility of a third before long. G.E. has both its FM and television transmitters in the Helderbergs. • • • Purely Personal: The engagement of Hannah Lasarow to Will Bali'in, program director for the DuMont television station W2XWV, has been announced. . . . Bernard J. Prockter has resigned as CBS Sales service manager to accept a position as account executive with the Biow Co. . . . Edwin C. Hill, CBS commentator, will leave Saturday for a four-week stay in Miami and will continue his nightly broadcasts from there. . . . Harold Kaye has been named program manager for WITH, a Baltimore station scheduled to open in the middle of this month. . . . Robert Baker, assistant to John Hciney, WJSV, W ashington, sales promotion director, will bo married Saturday to Helen Reindollar. • • • Experiments are being conducted for the use of film rather than records for transcriptions on frequency modulation stations. Elimination of the needle noise is regarded as a marked advantage. In addition, it has been found possible to put a two-hour program on 200 feet. This is in marked contrast to the bulky records needed for a 15-minute show, should cut down on storage charges and make speedy delivery feasible by air mail. • • • Mutual's first meeting of program directors of affiliated stations will get under way tomorrow at the Hotel Ambassador. The meeting will last all day Tuesday and Wednesday and may go over to Thursday. Adolph Opfinger, Mutual's program director, will preside over the sessions with Fred Weber, general manager, opening the meeting. Those expected to attend include Clifton Daniel, WCAE, Pittsburgh ; John Gordon, CKLW, WindsorDetroit ; Van C. Newkirk, Don Lee network ; Herbert Rice, WGR, Buffalo ; Russell Richmond, WHK, Cleveland ; F. Schreiber. WGN, Chicago ; Julius F. Seebach, WOR ; Brad Simpson, WKRC, Cincinnati ; George Steffy, Colonial network, and Madeline Ensign, WOL, Washington. • • • Program News: Another full hour show which will be reduced to 30 minutes is John Anthony's "Goodwill Hour" which will be cut on Jan. 19. Jronized Yeast is the sponsor, over NBC-Red. . . . Tho "Quiz Kids,'' who arrived in town to do a short, entertained children of radio editors at a party at the Beaux Arts Hotel Saturday. . . . "Bishop and the Gargoyle," written by Frank Wilson and currently heard over NBC-Blue on Tuesdays will shift to Saturdays at 8 :30 P.M. this zveek. . . . Lyn Murray, who composes the original music for "Campbell Playhouse" over CBS, will receive air credit over the air for his work in the future. • • • KVOR, CBS affiliate in Colorado Springs, Col., has changed its status to that of a bonus outlet for sponsors using KLZ, Denver. Gov't Music Trial Delayed Until Spring (Continued from page 1) throughout the country to appear before the jury, send them home, and then bring them back for trial or pay their expenses while they are awaiting trial. Seven Wisconsin stations have signed with Ascap for 1941, according to Robert A. Hess, Ascap counsel here. They are: WHAM, Marinette; WDSM, Superior; WSAU, Wausau ; WIBU, Poynette; WOMT, Manitowoc; KFIZ, Fond du Lac; WHBL, Sheboygan, and WEMP, Milwaukee. Duchin and Kaye Off CBS Sustaining Eddy Duchin and Sammy Kaye, topflight orchestra leaders, have retired from sustaining programs on CBS, effective last Saturday, as a protest against the network's insistence that they share financial responsibility with the network for possible accidental copyright infringement of Ascap music. Kaye left over the weekend for a tour of one-night stands and will open Friday at the Strand on Broadway with a program of allAscap music, he said. Ascap's Own Show Ascap is going on the air with its own weekly show to be known as 'Ascap on Parade,'' presenting hit songs not available to non-Ascap stations, Gene Buck, president, announced over the weekend. No date was set for the start. The program will go over the stations which have renewed Ascap agreements, Buck said. Billy Rose will produce the shows, Oscar Hammerstein will write them and Deems Taylor will be commentator. In addition to current hit songs, which Ascap plans to select in a nationwide survey, the show will feature each week well known personalities "from the songwriting and interpretive fields," Buck announced. The first guest star will be Irving Berlin. BMI Sheet Sales Up Meanwhile, BMI stated that sheet sales of its music increased to 50,000 during the past week, as compared with 39,000 the week before. Officials declared that the rise in sheet music sales was encouraging because it is felt that the popularity of music is best determined by actual sales. A total of 683 stations are now members of BMI, it was said. At Ascap headquarters it was stated that 213 stations had signed new five-year contracts. Ascap Signs Three on Coast Los Angeles, Jan. 5. — Stations KRKD, KIEV and KFVD have renewed their Ascap contracts, it was announced by Ascap over the weekend. KFWB, the Warner station, is the only other local outlet with an Ascap franchise. Revise Williams Play "Battle of Angels," new play by Tennessee Williams, starring Miriam Hopkins, will close Saturday in Boston for revision, delaying its Washington and New York openings. Dismiss WOR Suit N. Y. Supreme Court Justice Edward R. Koch Friday dismissed the $100,000 libel suit of Suzanne Stevenson against Bamberger Broadcasting Service (WOR), Arthur Hale, and Trans-Radio Press. Defendants were charged with depicting the plaintiff as a World War spy in "Confidentially Yours," broadcast over WOR. Chaplin on Inaugural Washington, Jan. 5. — Charlie Chaplin will be on the program of the third inaugural concert in honor of President Roosevelt here Jan. 19. He will give the final speech from "The Great Dictator." The National Symphony Orchestra and others will be on the program which will be given a day before the President's inauguration. $50,663,000 Record NBC Gross in 1940 With gross billings on both NBC networks in December amounting to $4,909,873, the NBC total for the year 1940 reached $50,663,000 for a record. The Red web grossed $3,786,901 for December, a rise of 11.4 per cent over the same month in the previous year, for a 12-month total of $39,955,322, up 9.2 per cent over 1939. The Blue network had billings of $1,122,972 during December, an increase of 27.7 per cent, with $10,707,678 for the year, a rise of 23.9 per cent. The cumulative total of $50,663,000 for both networks for 1940 represented an increase of 14.7 per cent over the gross billings of $45,244,354 during 1939. Scripts Questioned By F. T. C. Decline Washington, Jan. 5. — Through the cooperation of the networks, commercial radio stations and transcription producers, commercial continuities questioned by the Radio and Periodical Division of the Federal Trade Commission during the fiscal year 1940 dropped more than one-fourth from the preceding year, it has been reported. Out of 684,911 commercial broadcast continuities, the commission's annual report disclosed, only 22,556 were marked for further study as containing representations that might be false or misleading. In 1939, 29.143 continuities were marked out of 643,796 surveyed. The nearly 685,000 continuities read comprised 1 ,518,237 pages of typewritten script, 436,700 pages from networks and 961,861 pages from individual stations, it was explained. The networks submit all advertising announcements weekly, electrical transcription producers submit the commercial portions of their recordings monthly, and the individual stations are called upon for their scripts on an average of four times a year. Hearing Today on Suit Against WPEN Philadelphia, Jan. 5. — Arguments will be heard tomorrow in the Federal district court on the suit filed b3' the National Association of Performing Artists against WPEN to restrain the use of phonograph records by the station. Herbert A. Speiser, N.A. P. A. attorney, seeks to have the suit returned by the Federal Court to the jurisdiction of the local Common Pleas Court where it was filed originally. The question of joining sponsors of the recorded shows as defendants has also been raised by Philip Werner, WPEN attorney. But the Holdup Men Escaped St. Louis, Jan. 5. LES KAUFMAN, publicity director of Fanchon & Marco, was telephoning a feature story on the Fox Theatre Christmas night to Al Weisman, St. Louis Globe-Democrat reporter and Motion Picture Daily representative, who was covering police headquarters, when the police radio blared : "Attention all cars ; holdup at the Fox Theatre." Kaufman, who was seated in his second-floor office at the time, was unaware of the robbery until Weisman interrupted him to tell him of it. He immediately ran down to the lower floor, obtained the details and phoned them back to Weisman, who had the facts about the same time the police reached the house.