Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1960)

TV {Continued from page 31) fairs, James Hagerty. Each network has scheduled at least one hour weekly in prime time for public service programing, and is turning back a half hour every third week for local station public service shows. ABCs elbow room: Top intraindustry story of 1960 was ABC's successful bid for elbow room and its revolutionizing of network tv selling (with its effect on spot tv selling) . ABC, for the first time, took over the No. 1 spot in largest average audience per (7:30-11 p.m.) minute — in the November Nielsen national ratings. Although CBS expected to regain the lead in December, blaming political pre-emptions for a "distorted" rating picture, there was no doubt that three networks were a reality. Most network selling innovations, which will have a long-range effect on it and the spot medium, originated with ABC. The rise of spot carriers was led by American's 14 hour shows (involving 13 hours) sold that way for the fall of '60. NBC TV had eight spot carriers involving seven hours; CBS TV five shows involving three and a half hours. Total — 27 shows, 22^ hours on nighttime network tv. Another ABC TV innovation, which may have a long-range effect on network and spot selling, is the 30-second commercial permitted within nighttime shows. The Roaring Twenties has recently been added to Stagecoach West and Naked City on the list of programs which have, in effect, seven commercial positions instead of six. They are spotted this way : one following the mid-show station break and the other as a floater in the first half hour. The extension of spot carriers was also the final push that knocked the sponsor virtually out of the picture as far as program control was concerned. On the fall schedule this year, only 19 shows in 18 time periods were controlled by agencies and their clients (13 shows on CBS, three on NBC, three on ABC). This was only 15% of all programs on nighttime web tv. And the figures showed the strength of network tv. Latest totals from Television Bureau of Advertising for the first nine months of the year show network gross time bill ings at $494,396,640. This is a 9% increase over the comparable period in 1959. Trouble spot: Spot television seems to be gearing for a big sales push in 1961. Industry sources report several of spot's best clients leaning* toward less spot and more network purchases. The increasing flexibility of network selling — spot carriers, split networks, scatter plans, cross-plugs, spreads and "snakes" — has put spot's paper work jungle in a cold agency spotlight, and made the network buy even more of a media glamor boy for big and small advertisers alike. Spot tv's gross time billings for 1960 were up, but the boom may have lost its sizzle. Nine-month totals stood at $445 million, a gain of 8.5% over 1959's first three quarters. Last year at this time, the figure was $449 million, a gain of 23.8% over the similar period in 1958. Under N. C. Rorabaugh's new method of computation (which delivered the '60 figures), 1959's $449 million becomes $410 million. Network tv affiliates cried out over spot carriers in 1960, but were not very successful in getting concessions from the networks or support from the agencies. Their plea: as network selling becomes more flexible, station selling becomes more rigid. They suggested an increase in the number and size of station breaks between and within network programs, specifically: additional minute breaks between commercial network shows in daytime instead of conventional 20 and 10-second breaks; affiliate selling of daytime minutes adjacent to unsold web shows; middle breaks in hour-long shows when such breaks do not harm the program content— or, eliminating middle breaks and substituting 40 seconds before and after such programs; two 20-second spots between nighttime shows, and the sale of unsold minutes on a two-week recapturable basis. Media directors reacted negatively. Thev said that in view of the difficulty of clearing time and the increased cost of network shows, it would not be practical to lessen the desirability of these shows by increasing the amount of commercial time on a local basis at the expense of the network advertiser who, after all, makes valuable adjacencies possible in the first place. Over-commercialization would, in the long run, affect the size of the audience and hurt the advertisers, the networks, and the station. To the stations' advantage, however, the concept of product protection died a little more in 1960. Typical of off-the-record agency opinion of the practice: "Many agencies use the fable of product protection to freeze out the competition. But everyone loses. The networks lose because of look-outs; the sponsors lose because the next time it's they who are locked-out. Back-to-back product protection is feasible and necessary, but the degree to which protection has been carried is unrealistic and cannot be maintained." One station group will take its sales into its own hands. George B. Storer announced late in the year that he will form his own national sales organization, following the lead of the Westinghouse stations. His target date is 1 July 1961. Two offices will be opened, in New York and Chicago, with Peter Storer, now managing director of WSPD, Toledo, as general manager. Daytime doings: 1960 saw a general upheaval in daytime television selling techniques, and the effect was to bring a lot of advertisers back to the medium who had deserted it (it was in bad shape as late as the summer of '60) . Sales plans — including spreads, "snakes," scatter plans, cross-plugging — all favored the advertiser, and helped the smaller budget clients get network exposure. ABC permitted 30-second commercials within a program, and the others followed this lead. NBC allowed the use of a 30-second commercial (alongside the opening and closing billboards) and four commercial breaks in the quarter-hour period. This was to accommodate Colgate, which put all of its daytime web tv business (seven quarter hours a week) on NBC. Colgate's nighttime web t\ is all on CBS. ABC permitted 30-second commercials without total purchase of the quarter hour (an NBC requirement). However, the major sponsor must use the third minute in another stanza of the same program series if he takes advantage of ABC's latest daytime plan. The 30's are split around the final credits. CBS permitted 30's in daytime, but only where a sponsor splits his regular minute announcement into back-to-back 30's or 40-20. SPONSOR • 26 DECEMBER 1960 51