Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

Stanton: Scientific Realities Demand a Political Revamping New York — CBS president Frank Stanton last week sounded a call for a uniform 24-hour voting day for national elections, a shorter presidential campaign period and repeal of the "equal-time straightjacket" provision of the Communications Act. In an address before the 26th annual meeting of the Institute of Life Insurance, Stanton declared: "We cling to election customs that are empty survivals of a past durinu which it took three to four days to get from one coast to the other and when verbal communications were halting and fragmentary. One of the most absurd of these is the widely divergent hours — not only across the country but within some individual states — that the polls are open .... The time has come for us to have a common nationwide voting day for national elections. It ought to last 24 hours — so that any voter anywhere can vote at any time of the day or night." Blaming voter apathy in the 1964 campaign on the "uninspired and uninspiring use of communications," Stanton pointed out that compared to the peak audience of 75 million that witnessed the presidential de W&L Snares Additional Helena Rubinstein Products New York — Warwick & Legler has fallen heir to an additional batch of Helena Rubinstein products. Moving from L. W. Frohlich & Co. to W&L are Ultra Feminine, Skin Dew, Medicated and Herbessence lines. Transfer date is March 1. Two months ago, W&L was awarded the major portion of the Helena Rubinstein account, which had been at Ogilvy, Benson & Mather. Products included face make-up, lipsticks, hair products, fragrances, eye make-up and a number of new products. Last year, Helena Rubinstein spent over $2 million on spot tv. bates of 1960, the peak audience of any political broadcast in 1964 (the night before election) was only 16 million. "And the rate at which television audiences watched the other paid, net-piece political programs of 1964, compared to the average audience of 71 million for all four debates in 1960, is no less persuasive evidence that something is tragically wrong with the role that today's communications are permitted to play in American political life." Stanton added that "it takes no mystical insight to see where the trouble lies to a great extent." The fact of the matter, he said, "is that, instead of using the great communications advances of our time, the political forces in this country have been resisting them — commanding them, like latter-day Joshuas com manding the sun, to stand still while the politicians do business at the old stand in the old way." Among the steps Stanton urged to "bring our political processes into line with the scientific realities of our time," was elimination of Section 315. Declared the CBS president: "So far as the public interest goes, the people of this country are the prisoners of a discredited and unworkable legal relic of a generation ago." He said the failure to repeal Section 315 made confrontations between the major candidates impossible. Stanton also urged the major parties to hold the national conventions in September, shortening the presidential campaign to "perhaps no longer than a month." Arguing that this reform is long overdue, he said, "Every year the price for the delay mounts — not only in huge campaign costs, but also in terms of the suspension of normal legislative and executive functioning, uncertainty among other nations as to our future policies, and the bitterness at home that becomes inevitable as charges and counter-charges stretch out interminably." I Katz Agency Launches New Survey New York — The Katz Agency is looking into the riddle of audience music preferences with last week's disclosure that the rep firm has joined forces with Frank N. Magid Associates, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in field-testing a new survey design which it hopes "will enable radio stations to assess more accurately audience reactions to musical programing." In announcing the study, Daniel Denenholz, vice president and director of research and promotion at Katz, pointed out that "it is not designed as a sales tool. It is being developed because of the real need expressed by station management for a guide to audience taste in music, which represents such a significant part of radio programing today." The field test, currently underway in a major Midwest market, involves a tape containing 70 short musical selections, each representative of a type of musical fare. In each inter view the tape is played, and the respondent then grades selections on an ascending scale from one to ten. Explaining the test, Magid said, "If you ask people what kind of music they like to listen to, you are going to get a subjective answer. The interviewee may be totally honest in his reply, but such everyday terms as 'classical,' 'good music,' 'jazz,' or 'rock-and-roir have different meanings for different people." By playing actual selections, an objective rather than a subjective response is anticipated. In addition to musical preferences, demographic data, such as age, sex and family income, as well as station preference and hours of listening, will be collected. Denenholz pointed out that the survey will make "possible a more refined analysis of age groupings than the usual 'teen-adult' comparison." 22 SPONSOR