Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1962)

tion to Philadelphia's mayor) who has the tour hour segment before Reynolds. Tate's show is the only one which plays record requests, has a heavy college audience. Shepherding the late-morning, early afternoon segment when the station picks up a large portion of women listeners is Marty O'Hara, a specialist in off-beat news and homemaking items. Chuck Dougherty, a former sportscaster turned disk jockey rides the evening hours from 6:15 to 10. Reporting on sports through the day are WIP sports director Jim Learning and Pete Retzlaff. WIP is one of the few area stations that has its own sports department. Learning, who sportscasts local games for national television, is probably the most versatile man in his field in the area, has broadcast basketball, racing, track and football in the area for over a decade. This fall he will do the play-by-play announcing on the Princeton football games which WIP will carry on Saturdays. Retzlaff, his companion in the department, is the star end for the Philadelphia Eagles and just as much a pro in front of the microphone. He started as a Monday morning quarterback, recapping the Eagles games on the station, was so impressive that WIP added him to its regular staff. Sponsor Strength. Merchandising savvy and a buying audience have kept the cash register ringing for WIP. "Last year was the biggest year for the station since I've been here," says sales manager Robert Mounty. Mounty and his sales staff have built a fanatical following of sponsors. General Motors Acceptance Corporation and Alcoa Aluminum, for example, use the station exclusively in their local radio buys. "Broadcast Advertisers Report shows we do business with more sponsors than any other area station," Mounty observes. "They don't buy us just because we're nice guys. They buy because we get them results. A local Peugeot dealer sold 40 cars as a result of a weekend campaign on WIP." Mounty says that the firm's strong signal gives it added mileage in the sales department. About 80% of listener mail comes from the suburbs and exurbs. Station executives claim the signal is the most penetrating in the area. All stations operate under power maximums allocated by the FCC. WIP's signal and its tower location in Bellmawr, N. J. give it a coverage which extends up to Stroudsburg in the North, past Lancaster to the West and includes all of New Jersey south of Newark. A Nielsen study made for WIP last year indicated that the station's signal reaches 24 counties — 20% more than its nearest competitor and that the station ranked first or second in almost 75% of these counties. Merchandising assistance is a big selling point in radio, explains WIP sales promotion manager Bill Mayer, who was formerly an on-the-air personality, got into the management end of radio four years ago. recently joined the station. WIP's reputation in food merchandising, an operation directed by Jack Faber, an ex-food broker who has been with the station for 10 years, has brought it business from all over the country. Just this summer the Avocado Council of California invested more than half of its local radio budget with the station to promote area consumption of avocados. WIP merchandisers persuaded area MOUNTY, MAYER & BROOKS The signal is strong restaurants and hotels to use avocados on their menus, and convinced supermarkets and produce stores to stock and prominently display what had always been a poor seller in this market. The promotion was so successful that within a week the price of avocados here jumped $2 a case and many wholesalers frantically tried to keep up with the demand. Show biz. Radio's spectacular results stem from the fact that it can attract large audiences. Basically, radio is still show business. And WIP, perhaps more than any other local station, gets the glow of the midway in its promotion. "I've been in radio for 16 years and I still find it exciting." admits Glascock. "We try to get that feeling of fun and excitement through to our listeners." Planning WIP publicity is astute, sentimental Joe Brooks. In Brooks's view of life, just about every day is a holiday and every holiday calls for some sort of contest or stunt in which the audience gets a chance to be involved. Just last month WIP ran a two week contest that offered a $12,000 summer home in New Jersey to the person whose post card entry was randomly selected from among all the cards mailed in. Station executives planned to use the promotion as an indication of the station's pulling power, expected to get 80,000 entries. On August 18th when the contest was officially over, WIP had received and tabulated a whopping 113,349 post cards. WIP's public service programming has to serve this vast audience. It can range from such pedestrian concerns as weather reports to such remote ones as locating a donor with a specific blood type for an emergency transfusion. Generally, in its public service menu, WIP concentrates on essentials. It has developed an elaborate system of ground reports on traffic conditions in the area during peak commuting hours, supplements these with weekend reports on Jersey shore route traffic radioed in from its own airplane with Paulsen at the mike in the cockpit. A community bulletin board programs announcements about civic meetings, charity bazaars, school get-togethers and social events across the Delaware Valley. Shoulder to the wheel. The station is proudest about two recent fund drives it conducted. One raised $6,000 for seven young Levittown girls orphaned by an automobile accident. The other helped raise $28,000 to send the Bonsall Band of the American Legion to perform in a world band concert which was held in Holland last month. WIP was the only local radio station to participate in the campaign. One of the leaders of the drive, N. W. Ayer's Kenneth Slifer gratefully declared that "your broadcast appeals every other hour around the clock for two months was magnificent assistance. You (deserve) a generous share of the credit" for the success of the drive. Another booster of WIP's public service programming is Lit Brothers' executive Samuel Cohen who is heading a drive to acquire the downtown Philadelphia site and rebuild the house where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. A hot dog stand now occupies the spot. Working with Cohen, WIP enlisted the aid of Metromedia to provide billboard space, develop an informational kit. transcriptions and film clips so that radio and television stations across the United States can help participate in the drive to restore the Jefferson House. WIP is completing arrangements with the American Legion to lend its support on a national basis. Before the project is over, $200,000 must be raised, Congress has to be persuaded to go along, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service will have to become involved, the plans for the original house will have to be pieced together through historical research, and authentic furniture acquired to stock it. "It's a staggering project," concedes Glascock. "But then, radio is an industry with staggering opportunities." ■ ■