Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1962)

IN PORTLAND OREGON... IT'S EYE-CATCHING KOIN-TV Women can get bored to death when all they have to look forward to every day is housework. KOINTV sees to it that women in Portland, and 34 Oregon and Washington surrounding counties, have something else to look forward to ... a really eye-catching array of daytime programs. That's why, according to Nielsen, daytime's a good time to buy KOIN-TV. Channel 6, Portland, Oregon One of America's great influence stations (g/ Represented Nationally by HARRINGTON, RIGHTER & PARSONS, INC. Give them a call, won't you? 'SPONSOR BACKSTAGE by Joe Csida Television's Travail Travail, thy name is television. Hardly a day goes by that broadcasting doesn't have its full measure of bumps and knocks. If Jim Hagerty isn't being blasted because an ABC TV news show features Alger Hiss on Richard Nixon, Lucille Ball is getting subtle threatening notes from the National Italian-American League to Combat Defamation indicating every confidence that she will not permit good Italian names to be used excessively for gangsters on The Untouchables. If the FCC isn't havinjl at video, the FTC is, and if a Congressman from somewhere ha turned his carping attentions elsewhere for the moment a Senatol from somewhere else has not. Television people are accustomed to this. But even so, last weell was rather much! sponsor editor John E. McMillin had hardlf finished calling the attention of the industry at large to the coml pletely out-of-line speech of Paul Willis, president of the Grocen Manufacturers' Assn. (see speech and editorial, 26 November issue) when LeRoy Collins, president of the National Assn. of Broadcast ers, himself, told the Portland regional meeting of the NAB (anc thus the entire country) that he thought broadcasters should make "corrective moves" to avoid influencing high school-age (and lower) children to smoke. Understandably, since the tobacco firms spend over $100 million in television, and over $30 million in radio, many broadcasters were quite upset. Even more understandably, many tobacco people were upset too. The trade press has dealt extensively with Collins' speech and the reaction to it. The consumer press has had quite a ball with the subject as well. Two of the most interesting sidelights of the situation which have come to my attention are these: 1. By quite an odd coincidence the president of the Tobacco Institute, George Allen, who is leading the outraged cigarette industry in protesting Collins' remarks, was one of Collins' closest rivals in the race for the presidency of the broadcasters' association. 2. Jack Gould of the New York Times, in a piece on the subject1 Wednesday, 28 November, quotes "one broadcaster's" reaction as follows: "The Governor has us over a public relations barrel. How can you seem to be against school children?" This last remark, of course, apropos of whether Collins' contract as the $75,000 per year prexy of the NAB will be renewed when the question comes up in January. Cigarette problem still red hot We may all be sure of one thing. Neither the nation at large, nor the broadcasting industry has heard the last of the cigarette problem. It is fairly well known, of course, that in England both the Royal College of Surgeons and the Government itself have been conducting most aggressive campaigns to discourage smoking. British television doesn't carry cigarette or other tobacco commercials before 9 p.m. There are certainly enough forces in the country who are convinced that smoking is harmful and must be curtailed, if not eliminated, to keep the issue red hot. (Please turn to page 65) 26 SPONSOR/ 10 DECEMBER 1962