Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1947)

lips ot the basic newspaper advertisement are used in the windows of all 73 Carroll stores, with distribution handled by Carroll's from its Hamilton head office. (4) Stuffers For package stuffing the two-column Spectator ad was used as the basis for 25,000 stuffers, 5 x 81/2 on newsprint. Stuffers were distributed in representative quantities to the 7vS Carroll stores. AIRFAX: First Broadcast: May 5, 1947. Broadcast Schedule: M-W-F, 8:30-8:45 a.m. Preceded By: Northways Good Morning Program. Followed By: Toast and Marmalade (Cont'd sustaining). Sponsor: Carroll's Ltd. Station: CKOC, Hamilton, Ont. Power: 5,000 watts. COMMENT: For the regional chain store, radio is the only advertising mediiun with mass circulation as large as its total market. It's significant that in the case of this sponsor, it's necessary to use space in five areas, but the entire merchandising area is reached by one radio outlet. Public Utilities QUIZZING THE WIVES Good will contacts are being made with scores of women's social, civic and church organizations for the Boston Consolidated Gas Company through its sponsorship of Qiiizzing the Wives, aired each week-day morning, Monday through Friday, over WNAC, Boston, Mass. In two years of broadcasting, over 500 women's organizations in Boston Gas territory have appeared on the show. So j)opular is the program among women's groups that club appearances on the show are booked months in advance, in spite of the fact that each group must contain 50 or more members to be eligible for participation. A Hooper smvey of radio listenership in Boston showed the Boston (ias program leading all other programs in luimber of listeners in the 10:00 to 10:15 a.m. period. With four women to a team, there is a cash iiuentive lor individual and group panic ipation in the (jui/ show. Questions are drawn from a miniatmc CP Gas Range, and when a (juestion is answered correctly its money value is paid to the individual participant. If the contestant fails to correctly answer her question, the money is placed in a jack-pot, with the jack-pot going to the highest scoring club each week. The jack-pot award varies from $40 to $62. For individual consolation prizes, Boston Gas awards top-ofstove toasters. Commercials on gas, gas appliances, New Freedom Gas Kitchens, etc., are woven into the program by quizmaster Lester Smith in dialogue with an announcer, and each day a corsage is presented to one of the contestants for reading a brief commercial. A company Home Service representative is on hand at each broadcast, and immediately after the show she conducts a question-and-answer period for the benefit of the studio audience in connection with cookery problems. Qiiizzing the Wives is at times staged as a dramatic part of the company's large newspaper cooking schools and at other community meetings. News releases announcing each local club's appearance on the broadcast appear regularly in local newspapers. The series, which first went on the air in January 1945, is vigorously merchandised through car cards, outdoor posters, service truck panel signs and window displays in Boston Gas Company neighborliood offices. AIRFAX: Program was created and is produced under the direction of Jeanne Ambutcr of Alley & Richards, Inc., advertising agency handling the account. First Broadcast: January, 1945. Broadcast Schtdule: Monday through Friday, 10:0010:15 a.m. Sponsor: Boston Consolidated Gas Company. Station: WNAC, Boston, Mass. Power: 5,000 watts. Population: 1,924,642, Agency: Alley dC Richards, Inc. COMMENT: In radio, the program is the (iKulation getter. Here's a format designed to reach a widespread, diversified audien(e, and lor that reason is particularly well adapted to an advertiser whose service re(|uires coverage of all incomet gioups and all types of listeners. (For a detailed analysis of how public utilities ihroughoiit the (ountry use l)roadcast; promotions, see Radio Showmanship,! /■'r I)} Italy, I') 17, p. 67. j • 320 • RADIO SHOWMANSHIP