Radio daily (Oct-Dec 1949)

4 RADIO DAILY Wednesday. December 7, 1949 LOS ANCELES By ALLEN KUSHNER JIMMY WAKELY is substantiating his title of America's No. 1 folk singer by attracting record-breaking audiences to the Hotel Thunderbird, Las Vegas. Wakely is scoring with a number of old tunes and has recorded for Capitol and also sung on personal appearance tours, featuring "Slipping Around," "Lucky Old Sun" and "Cool, Clear Water." The Las Vegas press unanimously raved over Wakely's performance. Bob Hawk, the CBS quizman, takes off for Hawaii from San Francisco via S.S. Lurline on Dec. 22, returns to Los Angeles Jan. 3, putting him at sea for both Christmas and New Year's. His mother will accompany him. The trip necessitates couple of extra recording sessions to get the Lemac show ahead. Gene Autry is an all-Columbia man. He does his Western radio show on Columbia, films for Columbia Pictures, records for Columbia Records. Will Ragan, editor on the "AlkaSeltzer Newspaper of the Air," who teaches a journalism class at Los Angeles City College, invited 30 members of this class to the Don Lee studios the other evening to have look at Glenn Hardy newscast. Jack Meakin, orchestra leader of "The Great Gildersleeve" radio program on NBC, will emcee a weekly TV half-hour variety show on KTVV. Thomas To Be Starred On American Album Show Thomas L. Thomas, famed baritone of the radio and concert field, joins "The American Album of Familiar Music" as a starred vocalist beginning with the broadcast of Dec. 18. The program, produced by Frank Hummert, is heard Sundays at 9:3010 p.m. over NBC. The other regulars on the program are Donald Dame, tenor; Margaret Daum, soprano; Virginia MacWatters, coloratura soprano (singing for Jean Dickenson, who just gave birth to a baby girl at Doctors Hospital, New York) ; Bertrand Hirsch, violinist; Arden and Arden, duo-pianists; The Buckingham Choir and Gustave Haenschen's orchestra. NO HEAD? Some managers are just two-fisted salesmen with no head. My specialty is the product: a large, receptive audience that any salesman can sell. I am an ammunition expert: programs, news, promotion. My kind of station is well run, well liked, well listened to, well heeded. I stake my youth, education, executive experience, and part earnings on the profits. For story and references, write Box 290, RADIO DAILY, 1501 Broadway, New York City. Man About Manhattan. . . • • • AROUND IOWim: Both the FCC and the Dep't of Justice deny that investigation of the radio nets under anti-trust regulations is going on. . . . Film star Gene Baymond and Bernard Scnubert are putting their ABC radio show, "Ihe Amazing Mr. Malone," on iilm and will offer it as a combo AM-TV presentation. . . . Amos 'n' Andy having one tough tune trying to locate a good video perlormer to p. ay "Kinglish." . . . Ken Roberts is the latest air personality to turn disc jockey. His platter session starts next week on WMGM. . . . Columbia Pictures negotiating with Kathi Norris for a script writer's contract. . . . Mickey Alpert doing a great job on the "Martin Kane, Private Eye" show. (A lormer top bandsman, he's now casting director for Kudner agency). . . . With the male contingent of the Washington correspondents off to the Gridiron Dinner this Sat., ' Meet tne Press" will carry an ail-femme show, with Mrs. India Edwards as the guest-victim. . . . Dolly Dawn packing them in nitely at the Caie Society Downtown in the Village. . . . John Tillman lectures today at N. Y. U. on television production. . . . An uptown plastic surgeon has been getting so much television actors' business that he had to engage three assistants and is working and operating every day in the week. ft ft ft W • • • Sometimes we understimate the power of radio and its personalities. In this particular instance, it took a church social at Pleasantville, N. Y., to mirror the medium's effectiveness. Last weelc. sucn personalities as Jack Sterling, ot WCBS; Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald and Walter Kiernan, oi WJZ; John Gambling and Bruce Elliot, of WOR and Norman Brokenshire, of WNBC, projected in their respective styles a simple announcement about a benefit card party at Holy Innocents Church. The results: despite heavy snowfall and hazards of driving, the party Friday nite netted more than $1,000. ft ft ft ft • • • Still think that television is getting ready to kayo radio? Then listen to Jack Gould, of the N. Y. Times, who dashed oif some mighty interesting facts and figures in his Sunday pillar. Even by the very iigures to which they cuways attach so much importance, says Jack, the broadcasters are much too hasty in writing off radio. If since the war the number of TV sets has increased 3 million-odd, the number of homes equipped with radio has risen since 1940 by 10 million. In the first ten months of this year, there were some 1.700,000 video sets manufactured. By comparison, there were more than 5,650,000 radio sets made. Yet to all intents and purposes the broadcasting industry is acting as though it had decided to disenfranchise the 39. 000,000 in favor of the 3,000,000. Gould, however, sounded a note of warning to the networks. While TV won't kayo radio, latter is doing its own spectacular job of committing hari-kari. The current season very well may be the most uninspired in its history. Less than a dozen of the 115 sponsored evening shows on the four major nets are fresh attractions being heard for the first time this fall — and not one can lay any Teal claim to originality. ft ft ft ft • • • A dissenting vote to Gould's confidence in radio's survival, however, comes from one of his conferers, the HeraldTrib's hatchet man, John Crosby. Monday nite he took time off from a busy schedule to lecture at N. Y. U.'s Radio Club on television's effect on radio. His long range outlook: Video will eventually dominate with radio relegated to certain types of programs. So far as we personally are concerned, there's nothing wrong with radio that good programs can't cure. ft ft ft ft SOUTHWEST DUE to the quick thinking of Brown A. Clopton, chief engineer of KLYN, CBS outlet for Amarillo, Texas, the notorious Rader twins and James Farris are back behind the bars and have learned a lesson: "Never hold up a radio station unless you want the whole town to know about it." The Rader twins and Farris had escaped from the County jail in Amarillo and had been the objects of an intensive search by the police department, sheriff department and the Texas Rangers. They entered the transmitter building of KLYN, tore out all the telephone lines so that Clopton could not call the police, stole his automobile and headed for town. In a matter of minutes Clopton broke into the network show, Borden's "County Fair," and said that he had been robbed, his car stolen and gave information as to which way the car was headed. The dramatic search for the trio began shortly after Clopton's message was flashed over KLYN and the Rader twins and James Farris were captured in downtown Amarillo shortly thereafter. Soon after the broadcast of Clopton's plea, the studios, police station and the sheriff's office was Hooded with hundreds of telephone calls wanting to relay the message. KLYN Personnel: Bill Mac, newscaster, recently joined the staff of Radio Station KLYN, CBS outlet, Amarillo, Texas. Before joining the staff of KLYN, he was associated with Station KEVA, Shamrock, Texas. Dallas: Latest radio craze to sweep this part of the country is "Musical Bingo," recently launched by Liberty Broadcasting System, as a "winter replacement" for the highHoopered major league baseball games. Gordon McLendon, prexy of the Liberty net thinks he has found the answer to his problem of sustaining his high audience ratings in this new feature he has developed in a two-hour afternoon show available on a co-op basis to the entire Liberty Chain. Popularity of the program is adding new stations almost daily and has forced Western Union to install special wires in the originating studios of KLIF in Dallas, to handle the daily average of over 700 telegrams of listeners who think they have "bingoed." 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