Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

The National Daily Newspaper of Commercial Radio Television VOL. 49, NO. 35 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1949 TEN CENTS FILM INDUSTRY BUYS MORE RADIO TIME High Court Hears NAB In Station-Tax Dispute Washington Bureau of RADIO DAILY Washington— NAB told the Supreme Court yesterday that previous decisions by the high court are overturned by the controversial Little Rock, Ark., municipal tax on radio stations and time salesmen. Previous Supreme Court and other judicial rulings have held radio stations to be immune to privilege and occupation taxes levied by cities and states, said NAB, as it filed a brief as amicus curiae in support of a petition for rehearing of an Arkansas case dismissed by the (Continued on Page 6) Pontiac Will Sponsor Notre Dame-S. C. Game The Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors will sponsor the broadcast of the Notre DameSouthern California football game over CBS on Saturday. CBS Sports Director Red Barber and Van Patrick of WJR, Detroit, will handle the play-by-play description. Southern California, the last team to come close to beating the Irish when they tied last year, will meet Notre Dame at South Bend. Community Buys Time As Public Service Show Rochester, N. Y. — The nearby Town of Hilton, an enterprising farming community, has purchased a radio program starring one of its own citizens, to do a Chamber of Commerce type of show. This is believed to be the first time any small upstate community has taken to the air in this fashion to promote (Continued on Page 3) Successful Appeal Detroit — Maybury Sanatorium in Northville, Michigan has received 43 radios following a request by Bob Maxwell of WWI. Disc jockey Maxwell read a letter on the air from a patient asking for a set and the deluge was on. He finally had to ask his audience to curtail their generosity as no more radios could be handled at tho time. Potent Medium Huntington. W. Va. — Business was off at Brumfield's Market until Jake Brumfield, the owner, bought a Friday night high school football game on WPLH-FM and advertised sausage. 25c a pound. Result: A sellout of three tons by Saturday noon, plus all other meat in the market. 15-Million Car Sets Forecast By Jan. 1 Four out of every five new automobiles rolling off the nation's assembly lines are equipped with radios, according to the NBC research division. They estimate that 15-million autos will be carrying sets by January 1, 1950. This figure is nearly double that of the last pre-war year of 1941 when approximately eight-million vehicles were radio-equipped. In 1943, a high of more than nine-million auto radios was reached and then the total fell steadily until on January 1, 1946, (Continued on Page 3) Scott Heading Sales Of NBC Radio Division In line with NBC's recent divorcement of audio and video operations, Harry G. Kopf, vice-president in charge of Radio Sales, yesterday announced the appointment of Walter Scott as NBC's Eastern sales director for Sound Broadcasting. The position is a new one. Mr. Kopf also announced the ap(Continued on Page 3) Major Producing Companies Giving Radio Larger Spot Campaigns In Key Cities For New Feature Films AFM Supports CBC In Brief On Radio Montreal — The American Federation of Musicians has charged independent Canadian radio station operators with being "primarily interested in a profitable operation and not too greatly, if at all, concerned with the development or employment of Canadian artists." The A.F.M. made the charge in a brief submitted to the Royal Commission on National Development in (Continued on Page 3) Crisler Gives Views On Radio Hearing Washington Bureau of RADIO DAILY Washington — R. C. Crisler, executive vice-president of Transit Radio said yesterday that the unusual interest and the widespread publicity centering around the recent hearings before the Washington (Continued on Page 2) Taylor Renewed By G. M. For Quarter Hour On ABC General Motors will continue to present Henry J. Taylor on ABC for another year. The weekly quarter-hour of news and comments will be heard fifteen minutes earlier (Continued on Page 2) New 441-Line Color-Video Now In Work, Says DuMont Washington Bureau of RADIO DAILY Washington — Calling for greater color fidelity, Dr. Allen B. DuMont said yesterday that his laboratories are working on a new color system with 441-line definition. He said it will be some time before it can come out of the experimental stage, but that it offers greater color fidelity than either the RCA or CBS color systems. CBS vice-president Adrian Mur phy announced at the end of the two-day comparative tests yesterday that the RCA demonstration had proved "the instability of the RCA system. It was impossible to tell what the color of the original subject matter was by watching the RCA screen. To get the true color you had to look at the CBS picture." He said CBS color is far superior to black and white, and that "you don't (Continued on Page 7) Radio will get a larger slice of the movie producers' advertising dollar this winter through spot campaigns set up in key center cities for the regional premiere of new feature films, Radio Daily learned through a survey the past few days. While none of the major companies would (Continued on Page 5) CBS Time Sales Up Both In Radio And TV Claiming an increase of $5,000,000 in radio and TV billings through new time sales the past month, CBS yesterday reported the sale of the Ken Murray's Blackouts TV show to Anheuser-Busch Corporation of St. Louis. During the past month CBS has sold four hours of radio network time including two evening half( Continued on Page 6) Lunch Hour Listener Wins Jackpot On WMCA WMCA, New York, felt yesterday that the station had gotten a concrete idea of the out-of-home listening audience potential when one Tom Kelly, who was listening to the program on his lunch hour on an office radio, won $800 worth of prizes from the "Tune-O" show. The pro(Continued on Page 3) Anniversary Broadcast of the 2.000th episode of the Yiddish-language soap opera. "My Mother and I" on WEVD. New York, on Friday will mark the eighth anniversary since the program started as a language feature on the New York station. Program, produced by Sholom Rubinstein, will be heard at 12:10 p.m.. and will be followed by a luncheon.