Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1946)

PROOF 0' THE PUDDING Results based on sales, mails, surveys, long runs and the growth of the business itself. AIRFAX: Series is directed at the amateur gardener. The entire program centers around information on gardening problems with a good portion of the time spent m answering listener-sent questions pertaining to both food and flower gardening. Musical theme: Country Garden. For the third straight year, the series was awarded the National Victory Garden Institute Plaque award. Broadcast Schedule: Monday through Friday, 9:4510:00 P.M. Preceded By: News. Followed By: Music. Sponsor: Olympia Brewing Co. Station: KJR, Seattle, Wash. Power: 5,000 watts. Population: 452,637. SOLLY ON THE AIR "Tins is Solly on the COMMENT: For the advertiser who doesn't want to scatter his shot, a program of this type may reach a limited BcVGraqes audience but the impression it makes on that audience goes deep. air !" With this familiar one-line sentence, used to introduce each broadcast during his 16 years on the air, Cecil Solly, Northwest gardening expert, is heading for his 8,000th broadcast over KJR, Seattle, Wash. And for the past three years, the Olympia Brewing Co. has gone right along with him. Offered by Olympia Brewing as a public service, the quarter-hour show is heard each week-day, Monday through Friday, at 9:45 P.M. Listener response shows that Solly on the Air is public service in deed as well as name. Listener response has kept both postman and switchboard operator at a jog-trot. In three years, Solly has received 45,791 requests for garden booklets; read 18,249 letters from listeners; personally answered 16,143 telephone calls for garden information, and given 156 lectures to Northwest garden clubs. Gardening booklet lor 1945 featured instructions on harvesting, and canning tomatoes, also included selected recipes. Back cover plugged Olympia Brueasi, an Olympia Brewing Co. product. Previous booklet featured the cucumber. When Olympia Brewing took on sponsorship of the series, the show was no pig-in-a-poke. Since the first broadcast, November, 1929, Solly on the Air has been continuously sponsored, and each sponsor has held the program a! least two years. • 102 • Drug Products WESTERN JAMBOREE It all started innocently enough. Uncle Tom, the drawling emcee on Consolidated Royal Chemical Corporation's Western Jamboree, casually remarked on one program that if anyone wanted to see what he looked like, to write for a picture. What happened turned WCKY, Cincinnati, O., topsy-turvy! The first day's mail flooded in by the sacksful. What was counted and sorted: 7,251 letters and cards from nearly 3,000 cities, towns and villages in 33 states. In three days, results from that one announcement snow-balled to 13,388. The announcement was repeated several times more in the next lew programs, and the count idtimately grew to 38,193 with mail Irom 37 states and three foreign coinitries. AIRFAX: a transcribed hill-billy musical show, Western Jamboree features Tom Moore as emcee. Uncle Tom does the commercials in dialect, treats intimately the musicians on record and has an occasional give-away. Beamed at rural listeners, the series is aired Monday through Friday on a 45-minute schedule. Saturday offering is a 30-minute stint. Scattered spot announcements and the usual daily newspaper and trade publicity are the only promotion used for the show. Broadcast Schedule: Monday through Friday, 7:458:30 P.M.; Saturday, 8:00-8: JO P.M. Preceded By: Waltz Time. Followed By: Jack Foster News. Sponsor: Consolidated Royal Chemical Corp. Station: WCKY, Cincinnati, O. Power: 50,000 watts. Populationj 685,945. RADIO SHOWMANSHIP