Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

Contemporary Films and others. Prices are $135 for a half-hour program; $250 for the hour-long productions. Still the same as two years ago, prices have deliberately been held down in order to get the educational product out and to extend the life of the programs. Steady customers include government agencies, armed forces, many industrial companies. Whereas tv films are expected to have immediate pertinency, the non-theatrical product is a better seller if it is not "too topical." Like books in a reference library, the films should be timeless rather than timely. (6) In the over-all approach to merchandismg (where each network has a broad variety of properties to vend), it's obviously better business not to play the whole field but to detect your strength in advance, then parlay it for all it's worth. Again, take ABC's Combat as a sturdy example. This program sired nearly 50 different items, most of which proved durably profitable: toy soldiers, leather holsters, bubble gum and inlaid puzzles. Fighting Infantry game, Anzio Beachhead game, toy tommy guns and helmets, etc. Such in-depth promotion sometimes leads to unexpected splashes, like skipping a stone across water. Consider the book, "F.D.R.," ($10, Harper and Row) published at the suggestion of ABC. Initial sales were good, but will undoubtedly become still better as soon as ABC's 26-episode series on the late president begins in January. Result: the network and publisher have collaborated again to produce a soft-cover version of the same photograph-rich volume — timed, of course, for a January appearance. And that still isn't all of the ABC-FDR boom. The network plans to use 14 hours of tapes, recorded by its news staff with the late Eleanor Roosevelt as she reminisced about her husband, as the basis for two long-playing Columbia records. Says ABC's Pleshette, "We operate across the board." And CBS has matched t h e Tinker-Evans-Chance triple play with a film-to-book-to-record pro motion of its own: Their starting point was the Army-McCarthy hearings on television a decade ago. Recently, the network reeditcd its kinescopes and released something like 90 minutes for theatre showings under the title, "Point of Order." As a "movie" showing in art houses, it won critical applause all over again, was subsequently sold for tv showings in England by ATV. And now the kinescoped film, in turn, has cleared the way for a record of the sound track, plus a book. (7) Never formidably exclusive when it comes to seeking merchandising advantages, networks TREND: Children's clothing like "Fess Parker" pajamas and the "Kukia" costume, is joined this year by items designed for adults, such as "My Fair Lady" blouses. have sometimes farmed out their tv properties to firms other than their own merchandising departments. CBS's "The Munsters," for example, is being promoted via a rock 'n roll single recorded by Decca records, but under the merchandising aegis of MCA Enterprises. Such deals sometimes cross what would otherwise be unexpected lines — for example, the merchandising of an NBC property on CBS-owned Columbia records. Not unlike his confreres at CBS and NBC, ABC's Pleshette estimates that about 10 percent of his network's properties "are committed elsewhere." (8) And now tv character merchandising is reaching beyond domestic markets to include many foreign nations, as well. CBS, for example, depends on films-product salesmen to represent its merchandising from CBS film offices in 25 major cities around the globe. Representatives are briefed in person, directed by telex and, when necessary, by telephone from New York headquarters. Similarly, NBC tv titles and personalities are popping up in any number of books and games printed in foreign languages, including Japanese. "Merchandising and films abroad are leapfrogging," says Lunenfeld. "One follows the other." ABC licensing is conducted through film syndication staffs in England, Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia and Latin America. As with other networks, the home office retains product approval. So, it would seem, the little wheel that came out of the great wheels of tv programing may run away with it all in the end. Not so, says ABC's Pleshette. "You can never lose sight o f what comes first. You're essentially selling the tv screen. After that, anything else is secondary." NBC's Lunenfeld frankly hopes there's more to come. His favorite dream is that an image developed strictly for merchandising — a Green Giant and an Ajax knight in armor — will star on its own as a tv entertainment personality. "So it'll be coming the other way," he explains, "from the store shelf to the tv screen." "We'll do the best job we can," says CBS's Benson, "producing products that'll reflect credit on our programs — and on our network . . There'll be no 'outlandish' percentages because it's the consumer, in the end, who has to pay." Whatever's to come in the future, merchandising has already, in 30 fast years, left a firm imprint on U.S. life and mores. And the most comprehensive — if unintentional — tribute paid to the whole effort came from C.D.B. Bryan, a young novelist who recently won the biermial Harper prize worth $10,000. When asked if he didn't agree that his award had been very well promoted, he replied, "Yeah, but where are the C.D.B. Bryan tee shirts and sneakers?" ♦ November 9, 1964 35