Radio stars (June 1933)

RADIO STARS B. A. Rolfe — his or Thomas D. Curtin, They say Jack Pearl chestra rates $1500 author. $500-$750 gets $3500 for each per week. for each effort. broadcast. Have you ever stopped to realize the tremendous cost of putting on your favorite programs? Or the amount which radio's favorites earn every week? about the banking situation, it has been estimated that 50,000,000 Americans were listening. One voice ringing in 100,000,000 ears ! Imagine ! IT is just that power that persuades our makers of cig■ arettes and soups and sedans to buy the air. Pepsodent "tested" its audience not long ago by offering an unbreakable drinking cup in exchange for the top of a Pepsodent carton. The offer was made over only eight stations. Immediately, the Post Office was swamped with mail. Pepsodent was forced to order and re-order fresh supplies of drinking cups until over 650,000 had been distributed to people who had bought toothpaste. Responses like that help us to understand how the Pepsodent company can afford to spend one-and-one-half millions a year for its kilocycle advertising. D y DA And if you call that big business, listen to this : Have you any idea of "j" Q what those time-talks cost ? I mean the ones that say, "It is exactly thirty seconds past nine, B-U-L-O-V-A, Bulova watch time." Well, it's a deep dark secret, but about a year ago an expert estimated that those words were costing the Bulova ballvhooers over a half million dollars. The Big Boy of broadcasting, of course, is the fellow that Walter Winchell used to call "Mr. Lucky Strike." Here is the proof. In 1931, Lucky Strike spent $3,500,000 solely for advertising on the air. In 1932, the figure slid to $3,250,000. This year, on account of the price cut, somewhat less will be spent. Even then, though, Mr. Lucky Strike is still the papa of the business. Where does his money go? Hold onto your chairs . . . and listen ! Jack Pearl is reputed to be drawing $3,500 for every one of his sixty-minute appearances as Baron Munchausen. He's the biggest item on the bill. Walter Winchell got that same sum for making "Okay, America" a national byword. Each week, a dance orchestra receives from $1,250 to $1,500. Twice a week, fifty-two weeks the year, that item runs into important money. Actors who played in Tom Curtin's famous police dramatizations drama drew $10.00 an hour for rehearsal . . . and Lucky Strike rehearsals last a full ten or twelve hours. For the performance itself, by the way, the price dwindled to $25.00. And Curtin, the author, we understand cleared between $500 and $750 for each of those thrillers. The announcer — Howard CTaney has had the job recently— rates a plum worth $75.00 for each broadcast. With Claney working thrice a week as he did all winter, he was getting $225 for this program alone — and there were others that paid him just N N Y as much. Walter O'Keefe's word juggling built up Jsyj C his bankroll at the rate of $1,000 a week. The gag man who writes the jokes that Baron Munchausen springs on "Sharlie" is worth $500 to Lucky Strike for each week's work. And "Sharlie," he gets between $100 and $250 for hearing the Baron's, "Plizz, the Baron makes the funny answers." PROBABLY the most amazing fellow in connection with the entire Lucky Strike set-up is Singer Theo Albans . . . "Lucky days are here again." Twice — thirty-five seconds each time — each program, he sings his soul away, identifying Mr. Lucky Strike's program to Mr. and Mrs. Tuner Inner. For almost 1,000 consecutive programs he has done this. Four years of it. His contract provides that he can do no other singing. For those seventy seconds of singing, he gets $450 a week. The orchestra that supports him through the theme song plays all of two and one-half minutes. It rates from $500 to $700 a broadcast. And here is a funny thing. Around the studios, they (Continued on page 46) 17