Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

Record Details:

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character licensing RENEWED TREND; "Steady sellers" among records taken from sound tracks of each network's more notable documentaries also reflect adult interest in products made familiar by tv. crosses his fingers and hopes the tv show will be a hit. "There is just one qualifying detail," says Lunenfeld ironically. "The show must stay on the air." "It all reverts to television where the original 'sell' is made," Pleshette explains. "The minute the program is off the air you can take your tv merchandise and go home." If the tv program is a success, however, chances are that the merchandise, too, will prosper. For example, games like "Concentration" have sold as many as 5 million sets for a retail gross of about $20 million. Daniel Boone merchandising (and its "Trailblazer Club") will receive extra impetus from 5 million Gold Key comic books (Western Printing) monthly! The "Video Village" board game continues to sell, has reportedly reached the halfmillion mark even though the program it's named after has been off the air three years. Rod Serling's book based on "Twilight Zone" (Grosset & Dunlap) sold an impressive 82,000 copies at $3.95 a year ago; result, although the program is off the air, is "Twilight Zone Revisited" this year. And even if the Civil War fad didn't materialize in the toy field, southern-drawl tv shows like Beverly Hillbillies are hotcaking a great variety of tv merchandise, especially in the South and Southwest. Another tv game. Beat the Clock, is played in almost 5 million living rooms around the country, thanks to merchandising. "The Fortunes of War," a book based on CBS-TV's Twentieth Century episode, became a monthly selection offered by The History Book Club. Not Without Problems That's the way it's supposed to work. But, of course, there are hurdles along the way. For one thing, each network has learned (sometimes the hard way) the value of dealing only with reputable manufacturers. And since "the children's market is the backbone of profit,"' as ABC's Pleshette puts it, merchandisers are automatically thrust into close touch with the clutch-and-claw toy business. NBC's licensing of "Fess Parker merchandise from the Daniel Boone tv show" is thus being watched with interest. The lengthy identification and specific inclusion of Parker's name are safeguards against infringement. The problem is that Boone's name, as that of an actual historical personage, is in the public domain. To be "utterly safe" about poachers, NBC's Lunenfeld has called into play his 10-year backlog of legal practice in New York {alma mater: Columbia) and has posted warnings in the toy-industry trade press: "Please take notice that any companies which attempt to manufacture or sell merchandise which is in any way identified with our Daniel Boone television show or its star, Fess Parker, will be vigorously prosecuted to the full extent of the law." Even if the warning doesn't as such make the industry take notice, its force as a promotional statement undoubtedly will. For all their upsets and ulcers, networks receive good rewards, however, for merchandising is one form of promotion that pays off in dollars as well as publicity. About half of merchandising's annual volume (an estimated $350-400 million at retail) stems from networklicensed products, on which they collect a 5 percent royalty. That $5 million melon is probably spht so that NBC gets 40 percent; CBS, another 40 percent, and ABC, 20 percent. That puts each network's take at an annual $1-2 million which must, in turn, be shared with participating producers and performers whose names (or properties) are used. Nevertheless, it's a remarkably good promotion department that makes any profit at all! i In Retrospect Character-merchandising, as is well known, began in 1933 when one manufacturer, inventive in the face of the depression, decided to try making some Mickey Mouse dolls. The toy business has never been quite the same since. Mickey's (and subsequently Minnie's) early success was followed in 1935 with curly-haired dolls in the image of Shirley Temple, and their colossal success removed any doubts about the impact of character-licensing. From Maine to the Monterey peninsula, little girls lay down in store ^ aisles and screamed until they got|B|j one. Although children's persistence 30 SPONSOR