NBC Transmitter (Jan 1943-Sept 1944)

SEPTEMBER 1943 5 15 YEARS ON THE GRIDIRON That's Goal Achieved By WTMJ's Pigskin Ace— Russ Winnie "Radio Reporter" Publicity Script Gets Big Response • NEW YORK.— A new NBC service to affiliated stations throughout the country was inaugurated on August 2 when t he NBC press department issued the first in a series of specially prepared scripts, titled “Your Radio Reporter." The new series is a weekly, ready-touse “chatter" script on radio news, gossip and personalities designed to he broadcast by the local stations. Its purpose, as outlined by the press department, is to utilize the medium of radio for publicity purposes and at the same time fill a definite need for a show of this type. The script, which keeps the emphasis on “listenability,” is designed so that local stations may adapt it to their own needs. Preliminary queries to affiliated stations had brought an encouraging response, with 78 stations replying immediately that they would like to receive and use the projected script service. The script is offered free to all NBC stations and may be sponsored locally. The script is prepared from material submitted by all members of the press department. The contributions are aligned and rewritten into a breezy continuity aimed at keeping listeners informed on the network’s program highlights. Stations who have not yet indicated their desire to receive the script service, are urged to do so at once, since in the interests of economy, only those stations that specifically request the service, will receive it. Indications are that several stations already have interested local sponsors in the show. Keeping Them in Stitches • MILWAUKEE. WIS. — Private Walter Sekiya. a Hawaiian, on leave from Camp Shelby, Mississippi, learned how effective radio can be when “Heinie” of WTMJ fame increased his purchasing power via a single air plug. The soldier had $50 with which he was trying to buy a sewing machine for his outfit— but in vain. He aired his troubles on the WTMJ noonday program; “Heinie” issued a mike plea for aid. Result: Several women called the station offering machines and Private Sekiya purchased one— and for only $40 at that! • MILWAUKEE, WIS.-Fifteen years of football broadcasting for the same sponsor, over the same station ! Such is the record that will be compiled at the close of the 1943 football season. December 5, when Russ Winnie, sports announcer and assistant manager of WTMJ. concludes his broadcast of the Green Bay Packer game in Philadelphia. Sponsored by the Wadhams Division of the SoconyVacuum Oil Company, this is one of the longest series of commercial football broadcasts in radio. Again this year, Winnie will describe all games on the schedule of the University of Wisconsin and the Green Bay Packers. Taking over football back in 1928, Winnie’s ability to impart the color and excitement on the playing field, without sacrificing accuracy in reporting “who tackled who,” gained the immediate interest of Midwestern football fans; convinced them that listening to a football game could be almost as thrilling as sitting on the 50-yard line. Ask Russ which game is the toughest to broadcast each year and he’ll tell you without hesitation, “The Marquette-Wisconsin game.” An alumnus of the University of Wisconsin, he does everything in his power to keep from jumping through the window of his broadcast coop when Wisconsin scores or a Badger runner breaks away. He is impartial as far as it is humanly possible, hut honest enthusiasm and sincere loyalty to a football team can throw the most conscientious broadcaster at times, and that’s why a hectic interstate rivalry like the Marquette-Wisconsin game is such a delicate broadcast to handle. “On every play,” explains Winnie wryly, “thousands of Wisconsin and Marquette loyalists either feel like proposing a toast in my honor ... or, jumping down my throat. I suppose the only person who could be expected to understand the situation perfectly is the fellow in blue who officiates a ball game between the dear old ‘Bums’ of Brooklyn and the New York Giants, at Ebbets Field. During his 14 years of football broadcasting there have been lean years, of course, as far as titles are concerned, but the Green Bay Packers have always won their share of championships, and Wisconsin, while not so fortunate in the Big Ten, has always provided thrills. An incident in Green Bay several years ago gives an insight on Winnie’s popularity with the fans which, at the time, astounded every witness to the affair. It was the close of a super-colossal season for the Packers. They had returned to the little Wisconsin city to celebrate royally a World Professional Football Championship. The banquet hall was packed, the new champions facing over 3,000 rabid enthusiasts from a long table on the stage. The players and coaches were introduced, one by one, each receiving a deafening ovation and cheers that must have reached the Atlantic seaboard. Then, almost as an afterthought, the toastmaster remarked, “And now. I think it would be proper to introduce a man who has been almost as much a part of the Packers this season as though he had been on the playing field. He has the appreciation of all of you, I am sure, and 1 know you’d like to have him stand up and take a bow7. Russ Winnie, will you stand up. please?" What followed approached pandemonium. You would have thought every person in the big hall had just been presented with a lifetime pass to all Green Bay Packer football games. “It was so unexpected,” recalls Winnie, “I couldn t believe it. I just stood there, the lump in my throat getting bigger and bigger. When the racket subsided 1 said something . . . what it was, I’ll never know.” A minute portion of a huge radio audience had demonstrated their appreciation of Winnie and radio in a way that makes it easily understandable why Russ is at the “same old stand,” now7 in his fifteenth consecutive year of broadcasting Green Bay Packer and University of Wisconsin football games. RUSS WINNIE