Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Syndicated Film Opens New Field in TV By Carl M. Stanton Vice President in charge of Film Division, National Broadcasting Company M,: _ILLI0NS of American television viewers served by scores of independent broadcasting stations are gaining benefits in the form of high quality program fare through the phenomenal growth of a fairly new adjunct to the television industry — the syndication of films repeating highly successful network programs or made especially for sale to local stations and sponsors. Film syndication is the business of the NBC Film Division, which completed on March 3 its first full year as one of NBC's three major operating divisions. The record for the first year is a measure of the rapid, though carefully controlled, rise of syndication as a vital element in programming throughout the country. In recent months, such nationally known program series as "Victory at Sea," "Badge 714" (formerly "Drag- net") and "The Visitor" (formerly "The Doctor") — carried originally on the National Broadcasting Company network — have been ringing up new audience totals as syndicated film features in markets ranging in size from Panama City, Fla., to New York City. Together with other programs filmed specifically for syndication, such as "Hopalong Cassidy," "Inner Sanctum" and "Dangerous Assignment," these features have attracted a constantly growing number of local advertisers and broadcasters as a simple, inexpensive and high quality approach to building and holding local audiences. On March 3, 1953, when the Film Division was set up as a self-contained operation, only two programs were being syndicated, while the Division's film exchanges in New York and Hollywood were servicing 76 stations with these programs, network film shows and film record- ings of "live" television programs. One year later, the Division's inventory included fourteen properties, including one package of 26 feature films not previously shown on television, while the ex- changes were servicing 256 stations with 2,000 prints a week. In addition, the Division's film library in New York, containing the largest collection of stock footage photographed especially for television, had multiplied its activities in servicing stations, agencies and producers throughout the country from the more than 20,000,000 feet of completely cross-indexed film in its vaults. This total, incidentally, has been increasing by a quarter of a million feet each month. The author, right, inspects a film camera with Roberl B. Sarnoff, Executive Vice-President of NBC, center, and Himan Brov^n, head of Galahad Productions. The Film Division in recent months has been em- phasizing the value of re-running good TV film series as a means of showing locally — and at local cost — programs of the highest quality. The campaign was based from the start on the claim that such programs reach a larger audience than did the original showing. Research data that has just become available has more than substantiated the claim: the rating figures show that these syndicated programs not only reach a larger audience than the original program, but that the pro- gram continues to grow in popularity and can boost a station's rating for a given time period anywhere from 10 to 25 per cent. The first year has given the Film Division solid con- fidence in the future as competition grows through the increase of film programs on the market. In spite of the astonishing record of growth in 1953, 1954 bears the earmarks of an even more important year for the syndicated film business as new stations come on the air, looking to syndicators for much of their local program- ming, as local advertisers continue their trend toward syndicated films as an inexpensive, popular vehicle, and as national sponsors make ever greater use of these films to supplement their basic network television coverage. RAD/O AGE 23