NBC transmitter (Jan 1943-Sept 1944)

NOVEMBER 1943 13 KSTP's Farm Promotions Get Big Audience in Minnesota Success of Oklahoma's Farm and Home Week Is Big KVOO Promotional Triumph • MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.-With Minnesota the fifth most prosperous farm state in the country ami rural income continuing its rapid rise beyond last year’s record heights, KSTP (Minneapolis-St. Paul) is continuing to go after the state’s country audience in aggressive fashion. The station recently placed a 13-week newspaper campaign in 341 Minnesota country weeklies, utilizing a “personal ” want-ad type of copy. Decision to use this type of exploitation in the country papers was arrived at after recent readership surveys showed that want-ads in the rural sheets have a readership in excess of 80 per cent. In addition, KSTP is continuing to use full-page ads monthly in The Land o’ Lakes News, together with large-space ads in The Farmer. Harry Aspleaf, KSTP’s farm service director, has a column, “On the Minnesota Farm Front,” running in more than 70 papers in the state, with appropriate station credit given. The KSTP publicity department also has a column, “Around Radio Row,” running in 65 papers. Topping off the campaign are the continued personal appearances of KSTP’s popular “Sunset Valley Barn Dance" program at various Minnesota towns. • TULSA, OKLA.— A new trend in utilizing the facilities of radio to extend the benefits of farm education to the Southwest has brought acclaim to the radio farm department of KVOO, Tulsa affiliate of NBC and Oklahoma’s only 50,000 watt station. Faced by the possibility of suspension because of gasoline rationing and inadequate transportation services, the annual Farm and Home Week of the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mining College at Stillwater, Oklahoma, appealed to KVOO for assistance. Through the direction of Sam Schneider, KVOO farm director, the annual education week for the farm folk became an outstanding success— the first actual Farm and Home Week of the Air. A survey by Dr. Oliver S. Willham, faculty chairman of the A. and M. College committee, establishes the fact that more than 100,000 persons heard the programs. Twenty-five programs were scheduled and Schneider and his assistants spent the entire week on the college campus directing the production of the series of broadcasts —four daily— that were carried into the rural homes throughout the state. The Farm Week of the Air was an other step in KVOO’s extended industrialized food production campaign which, through cooperation with a special state radio farm council, enlisted more than 30, ()()() farmers in the move that placarded their farms with pledges to join in “all out” food production as an aid to the war effort. These 30,000 farms, bearing the insignia of membership in the movement, are concentrated in 19 counties in Northeastern Oklahoma. The radio innovation in bringing the farm educational series direct to the farmers from the college campus and classrooms had the close cooperation of school officials and the entire personnel of state farm and home agents in various counties. From all sections of Oklahoma, the A. and M. College has received words of praise for the radio farm week and the school has been urged to make the plan a permanent practice in extending the educational facilities of the college to rural communities. The big achievements of the plan were the contacts bringing KVOO close to farm listeners and the marked extension of farm suggestions direct to the people. LEFT PHOTO: With more than 100 W LW -If SAI ( Cincinnati ) employees patriotically maintaining victory gardens last Summer as their part in increasing the nation's food supply, what was more natural than staging a harvest festival in one of the studios? Grand prize went to Announcer-Newscaster Cecil Hale (right). Others in the picture are Engineer Don Neil (left), originator of the harvest festival idea, and Ralph Moody (center), WLW-WSAI producer, who is holding a prize-winning cabbage. CENTER PHOTO: George Greaves, KPO (San Francisco) chief engineer, and Nancy Heywood. receptionist, look on while NBC’s Western division victory garden consultant, Norvell Gillespie, gleefully gathers in some of the backyard produce submitted by KPO employees in their recent vegetable garden show. Greaves and Gillespie were judges for the show. RIGHT PHOTO: Some radio engineers may get their fill of ‘“corn” during the hours they spend on the job, but Al Burgess, WSYR (Syracuse, N. Y.), is an exception. After working hours, Al spends considerable time cultivating, in an experimental way, one of the finest gardens in Syracuse. The results of his experiments have been aired by Burgess on WSYR every weekday afternoon.