Sponsor (1964)

SPONSOR WEEK Monday Night Baseball On the Auction Block Deadline for bids on 26-week spectacular has been set for Sept. 15; no conflict with pay-tv is seen New York — Although the sound of the auctioneer's hammer will probably be conspicuous by its absence, a call has been sounded for bids on a proposed major league tv series called The Monday Night Baseball Spectacular. Dubbed "perhaps the most genuine united effort of the American and National leagues," the series, if it comes to fruition, would spotlight 26 weeks of major league baseball on Monday nights. Contrary to current practice in some regions, no area would be blackedout. Proceeds would be divided equally among the 20 major league clubs regardless of how often their individual games are televised on the network. Deadline for bids is Sept. 15 with invitations going to potential sponsors, broadcast networks and others who have shown interest in the project. CBS, which already has its hands full of baseballs, will not be bidding "due to previous program commitments," but the network did enthusiastically endorse the project. The CBS purchase of the New York Yankees will be up for an American League airing on Sept. 9. John E. Fetzer, owner and president of the Detroit Tigers and chairman of the major league's joint television committee, points out that "a tremendous amount of discussion and negotiation has been necessary to bring this proposal to the stage of asking for bids. The 20 clubs in the major leagues are in complete agreement on this plan. They had to overcome a great number of internal problems, especially scheduling, to reach this agreement and it might not be possible to ever again mobilize all of baseball so completely on an\ subject of this nature. Therefore, it is a case of mobility now or perhaps forfeit a grand opportunity." Fetzer added that it is generallybelieved that the Monday night spectacular does not conflict with 22 the subscription tv program being introduced in California. "Many people, in and out of baseball," he said, "relate subscription tv to the economics of the choice of witnessing a game at the park or at home, whereas the Monday night spectacular is a gigantic public relations program in behalf of baseball." Plan is to schedule two games in the East (one of a standby in case of bad weather) and one in the West. One of the eastern games would be fed to a network in that section and to the Midwest at 7 p.m. CDT. The western game would be aired in the Pacific Coast and mountain states at 8 p.m. in both areas. "There were suggestions that other nights of the week be used," Fetzer declared, "but the game of baseball is not that flexible and it is impossible to hedge-hop from night to night during the weekly cycle." Although reaction has been mixed at both NBC and ABC Sports Network has shown an active interest. Cox Buys Pittsburgh Tv Outlet Metromedia Sells Calif. Station New York — Major action on the tv station buying and selling front last week: Cox Broadcasting Corporation negotiated the purchase of WIIC. Pittsburgh, while Metromedia consummated its FCCapproved sale of television station KOVR, Stockton-Sacramento, Calif. The Cox deal was reported in excess of $20 million and is subject to FCC approval. WIIC is currently owned by the P-G Publishing Co. which publishes the Post-Gazette and Sun-Telegraph in Pittsburgh. The station is an NBC affiliate and represents Cox's fifth VHF outlet. Also last week. Cox, which went public earlier this year, announced a regular quarterly dividend of ten cents per share on common stock payable Oct. 15 to shareholders of record Sept. 22. The Metromedia sale, aimed at affording the company "the opportunity to upgrade its broadcast facilities through the acquisition of another television station in a larger metropolitan market." was for $8.4 million in cash. Metromedia acquired KOVR from the Gannett newspaper chain in 1960 for $3.5 million. Purchaser of the California outlet was the McClatchy newspapers This leaves Metromedia with foul VHF stations and two UHF opera tions. Legal limit under current FCC rules is five VHF and two UHF. From a Madison Ave. Lexicographer's Notes New York — Whether they're running ideas up flag-poles or watching cookies crumble. Madison Avenue invariably has a word to cover any situation — and the slanguage changes from time to time. Piggyback, used to describe multiple product announcements and currently an advertising storm center, is no longer preferred by some practitioners. The new word making the rounds is "shared-commercial." When an advertiser pulls his schedule from a station because of premium charges for sharedcommercials, he places the onus on the station In saying he was "locked-out." SPONSC