Radio stars (Oct 1938)

RADIO STARS THE HOUSEWIFE BE PLEASED! {Continued from page 29) Sponsors have found out that it is the script show which they can count on. Day after day these serials go on, each one of them developing its own story, its own characterizations, each one of them extolling in the commercials the value of the product it is advertising. There are no subtleties in these commercials. They come right out and admit that the soap or food or cosmetic they are rooting for is the only soap or food or cosmetic the listener should use. Most of them let it be understood that the heroine of that particular show is an addict of its product. For the sponsors have discovered that the listeners to these shows identify themselves with the characters in them. For the most part, the stories the serials tell are "escape fiction," stories that carry their listeners out of the humdrum. Once, this kind of fiction used to be about heiresses and too, too beautiful and glamorous girls, about exciting incidents that could never happen to the average person. But today writers have developed a new kind of escape for their readers and listeners. The depression brought people too close to reality to have them easily fooled by anything too fantastic or even too optimistic. So the new fiction would seem, on the surface, to be absolutely realistic, the people they tell about like you or me. But that's only at first glance. Look deeper and you will find the "escape" is more insidious than the most fantastic fairy tale. For these people in the radio serials, who are so much like their listeners, these people who are always having difficulties even as you and I, who are worried about love and money and business, are different from us in only one way. But that is an all-important one. They always find the open door or the helping hand or the opportunity when it is needed. They ahvays come out on top. And so they give hope, that most precious gift of all, to those listening in. Letters proving how real these serials and the people in them are to their listeners come pouring into the major network companies. Once when Alice Frost, who plays the leading role in Big Sister, one of the top daytime shows, caught cold in one of the episodes, her personal fan mail reached new proportions. Her "radio" cold was so real to her listeners that a good percentage of them sent their favorite cold cures to her. In another serial, when it looked as if the boy were about to become involved with the wrong girl, hundreds of listeners wrote in imploring : "Don't let Ted marry Mary. She isn't the girl for a nice boy like him." And their letters could not have sounded more urgent had Ted been their own son. Readers constantly send in suggestions for ways out of dilemmas and offer advice to their favorite characters. Most of these letters are written as if the situations were real ones. Some of the suggestions are so good that the writers of the scripts might be tempted to use them. But they never do. There is a strict rule against it. Plagiarism suits are becoming as common in radio as they are in the movies and theatre and publishing business. Even the most seemingly naive suggestion might be a clever ruse for holding up the sponsor later. More surprising than these letters are the ones extolling the worth of the product advertised and suggesting new uses for it, uses that the advertiser himself never thought of. These suggestions are often used in the commercials with full credit given to the person responsible for them. And of course these letters, showing as they do that the writer is an enthusiastic user of the product, are the most valued. For they show conclusively that the serial is selling the product. "We don't try to sell expensive merchandise on our daytime shows," a radio advertising expert explained, "because we know it wouldn't have a chance. We leave that for our evening shows, when the whole family is listening in, for in the average family you'll find that every member of it has a say in any purchase that is out of the ordinary. They all go into a huddle when they're buying an automobile or something like that. "No, it's the day-to-day expenditures which the housewife must make that we concentrate on. We tell her about soap and foods at the time she is either thinking of soap and food or using them. We tell her about cosmetics when her husband isn't there to say, as so many men do: 'What in the world are you buying that junk for?' "We don't try to sell tires or oil or gas in the daytime, for the housewife has no interest in them. She leaves the maintaining of the family car to her husband. "We tell her about the products we are trying to put over at the time she is making out her marketing list. And we've discovered that that's the advertising which really counts. "The serials have proved to be the most popular of daytime entertainment. With few exceptions, such as The Mystery Chef and Martha Deane, we find that talks don't go over so well. Women want romance and the serials give it to them. Women are supposed to be primarily interested in their appearance, yet we have discovered that beauty hints and advice haven't the pull which shows like The Romance of Helen Trent, David Hantin, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, The Goldbergs, The Story of Mary Marlin, Big Sister, and Pepper Young's Family have." Fan mail comes pouring in. When prize contests are held or premiums offered, the mail received becomes staggering in its proportions. A lot of people wouldn't think of sitting down to write a letter saying that they liked the episode they had Pafti Chapin writes songs as well as sings them. 64