NAB reports (Jan-Dec 1941)

Under the general chairmanship of E. Y. Flanigan of WSPD, Chairman of the Sales Managers’ Executive Com¬ mittee, an agenda has been supplied to each division chairman listing a number of topics of the greatest con¬ cern to executives in charge of sales. Your presence is required not only for the contributions you can make to the discussions of these serious problems, but also for the good you can derive from them. AVIATION SCHOOLS GOOD PROSPECTS If you are not now getting your share of business from trade and mechanical schools that can prepare young men for jobs as aviation mechanics, we suggest that you lay the groundwork for some of this business as soon as possible. Through the cooperation of many radio stations, thou¬ sands of recruits were secured for the flying corps of the army and navy. Congress has appropriated money for the construction of thousands of planes. Now the chief need is for mechanics and ground crews. At present the navy is soliciting aviation machinists for their 10,000 ships already appropriated for, and requires that such recruits be “graduates of an aviation vocational or aviation trade school.” The need for machinists will soon be even greater, both by the army and navy, as well as by aviation manufactur¬ ing companies. One such company is already using radio to solicit workers, undoubtedly an outgrowth of the suc¬ cess radio stations have had in providing national defense agencies with 300,000 skilled workers through Civil Service up to March 1, 1941. Numerous aviation trade schools already exist, and most of them already use radio to secure students. How¬ ever, many other types of trade and mechanical schools, such as diesel engine, air-conditioning, radio and tele¬ vision, etc., could be converted into aviation training schools and swell their enrollments thereby. Radio sta¬ tions can suggest and cooperate in this effort, and thereby increase commercial revenue. SEARS-ROEBUCK BUYS BASEBALL A departure from usual advertising practice by a SearsRoebuck store is the sponsorship of baseball re-creations over KROY, Sacramento, Calif., for road games of the Sacramento team, and scores by innings of home games. RADIO CHECKING SERVICE Many stations may already be familiar with the newly organized “National Radio Checking Service, Inc.”, soli¬ citing business from radio advertisers and offering to check the performance of stations to show the advertiser whether he is getting the service he is buying or not. In a promotion piece soliciting shut-ins and others to do this checking, the company wrote: “VVe work for the advertisers and that is what we need you for — to see that the advertiser gets the service he has paid for. Ad¬ vertisers are interested only in the commercial part of their pro¬ grams. They want and insist that this must be right and just as ordered. Our job is to see that there are no mistakes made by the station or the announcer.” It is not within the province of NAB or its member stations, of course, to deny this company the right to solicit business from advertisers. But why there should be any need for such an outside agency, charging a sepa¬ rate fee to the advertiser, is what concerns broadcasters. This service is available to advertisers without extra charge from the broadcasters themselves, who keep official logs and furnish affidavits of performance, as required by the FCC. If there have been any abuses in commercial broad¬ casting such as to require advertisers to engage an outside checking service, the stations should act immediately to correct them. If errors are reported immediately by the station, and not charged for or make-goods scheduled, their interests will best be served in the long run. Other abuses, such as doubling-up or “backing” of spot an¬ nouncements unless sold on that basis, should also be corrected. Money that the advertiser spends for checking up on radio’s performance of its contract obviously cannot be spent for more time, and the very need for such a service (which we deny exists) would constitute a black eye for the broadcasting industry. Remember that checking copies of printed media are furnished and need no check¬ up at additional expense. SUCCESS STORIES NEEDED An important aim of the N.^B Department of Broad¬ cast Advertising is to serve as a national clearing house for success stories in all types of business, as well as for all other effective sales helps. The cooperation of every broadcaster is required, and this service in turn will be made freely available to any NAB member whenever requested. Therefore please send all available success stories now, and place this Department on your mailing list to receive all future success stories and other promotion mailings. PER-INQUIRY and FREE OFFERS The moral in the following exchange of correspondence is, we think, obvious. The matter concerns the Menden¬ hall Mfg. Co., makers of women's hosiery, previously reported in these columns. Every station manager, sales manager and credit manager should read it. April 18, 1941 — 353