Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

Celebrating 15 years of sponsorship of "Tv Kitchen" on WRCV-TV Philadelphia, are (from I): Florence Hanford, program hostess; Milton Allen, vice president, sales, for Philadelphia Electric Co.; Harold Pennypacker, WRCV-TV account executive; M. N. Morrison, vice president of Al Paul lefton Agency, and WRCV-TV station manager Arthur A. Watson who holds a plaque presented to Mrs. Hanford and the utility company. Philadelphia Electric has sponsored the program since its inception in October 1949. The October anniversary was the 760th program in the series for the weekly cooking show. Selling better electrically ■ While it can likely happen only in local television, it's still rather unusual that a client will pay no attention to program ratings and place no prepared commercial announcements in a program sponsored for 15 uninterrupted years. And to top it off, the program format — once television's local program backbone — has all but disappeared from many of the nation's television markets. The Philadelphia Electric Co.'s Television Kitchen has, for a decade and a half, been — without direct sell — integrating the advantages of the electric range, mixer, freezer, refrigerator and toaster, among other electrical appliances (the washer and dryer manage to get worked into the show) via the kitchen capers of the utility company's supervisor of home economics, Mrs. Florence Hanford, who has conducted the program since the inception of its present format in 1949. The program, telecast live and in color from a specially constructed all-electric kitchen in the color studios of WRCV-TV (Tuesdays, 11:30 p.m.), is aired for Philadelphia Electric about 50 weeks a year. Its only preemptions are for such airfare as the World Scries, presidential press conferences, occasional holiday football games, or, as was the case this year, special political convention programing. Why does this client pay no attention to program ratings? "We judge the program's effectiveness entirely by viewer response," says Ernest R. Laws, advertising manager for Philadelphia Electric. "This has been a particularly effective method for determining viewer interest and the mail response over the years has been highly gratifying." The mentioned "viewer response" is the year-after-year increase in requests for free recipes for the complete meal prepared (from salad through main course and dessert) by TV Kitchen's long-time hostess Florence Hanford. Recipes are not given on the air. Instead, viewers are invited to write for them. "We feel that it slows down the program to give the recipe," says the utility company's home economist and tv personality. "It's hard to copy down and listen at the same time, and then so many mistakes might be made in copying the recipe from verbal instructions. "We also like the viewer to write us because it gives us a good idea of what they arc most interested in," she adds. "Mail gives us a good pulse of our audience and enables us to plan our programs according! ly." Television has virtually donci away with Philadelphia Electric': old platform-type cooking schoo held in a movie theatre or auditori ium. Among the many advantage: cited by ad manager Laws is th( tremendously increased audienceii which in turn results in a lower cosf per thousand, that can be reacheci with a single television prograr Philadelphia Electric estimates il would take upwards of 500 cookinjf schools to reach an audience of tM size that sees a single telecast of Tl Kitchen. As another advantage Mr. Law| points out that "there is no doul that we are also reaching a youngel average age group. Our requestj| now come from young homemakers many of them newlyweds, as well aJ the older age groups we alwayj reached before. We even note increase in school-age girls during vacation times. "That," he concludes, "is mos| valuable to Philadelphia Electri(| from a long-range public relationjj and promotional viewpoint." Officials at Philadelphia ElectriJ realize that while a recipe is somefl thing that viewers cannot easily bi stimulated to write for, the compan^j can point with pride to the fact tha 38 SPONSOl