Sponsor (Nov 1946-Oct 1947)

school bulletin boards is in the works Credits: Nora Antoun docs this show almost by herself. She writes it, directs it, and acts as moderator. Tom Russell announces, Roy Hendrickson plays the piano, and on the program reviewed Marjorie Harding sang, Brian O'Connell and Nancy Beck acted in the Miniature Drama, and Stuart Richmond was the Personality of the Week.. Once the show loosens up, it should sell for the sponsor. PLAY THE GAME WABD (DuMont) 8 8 30 pm est Program: Charades are a natural fcr television. That's beyond question. In this scanning New York University's Professor Harvey Zorbaugh has presented, with himself as M. C, the ideal mixture of home and studio audience participation. It's 100 per cent visual. The titles, words or ideas to be acted out by the notables in the studio are sent in by the audience. The home audience is given a number of opportunities of winning $$$ by guessing what the charade actor is trying to pantomine. At other times they know what the player is trying to do and are thus able to enjoy the mental agility or the dumbness of the studio players. At still other times they are placed on the same basis as the studio panel of judges and thus are able to match their wits with specialists. All the regular players, Charlotte Adams, Willard Mullins, Alan Chidsey. and Irene Wicker are relaxed and as real as though they were charading at home. Mullins (N. Y. World-Telegram cartoonist) gives an added pictorial variation to the charades, since he doesn't act them out; he draws them. Commercial: The selling of Alexanders' Department Store, the sponsor, is scanned in the middle of the half hour. It's pictorial, but the performers weren't as relaxed as the charaders. The idea of having a young husband walk past Alexander's Department Store in the Bronx, see a coat in the window that he thinks would look well on his sweetie, go into the store and get all the information on the coat is okay, but the boy has to be good. He seemed at sixes and sevens and the sales girl not the sort of a clerk whom the viewer would like to have sell her a coat. On the plus side, however, the girl modeled the coat well, knew all its sales points and the cameras were closeup everytime she was making a styling or a needlework point. Using a store window enabled Alexanders' to employ billboard type advertising. The in-store demonstration permitted direct product selling. Bringing the home to the sales floor of a department has plenty of point. It should sell. Time: Telecasting this at 8 P. M. will be a little expensive for any selling directed at women only. However, for milady who wants to ease hubby into "laying it on the line" lor a new coat it'll help, unless he walks into another room during the commercial. Promotion: Alexanders' manager isn't too sold on spending money for TV at this time, so hasn't used in-store sales tie-ups with the program as yet. However the president of the store (he bought the program due to the fact that his wife's a friend of the Mrs. Zorbaugh who assists her husband on the show) is getting his results by entertaining the key men of his sources of supply each telecast. He points out at each banquet that Alexanders' is a store that looks ahead and goes beyond the narrow confines of department store merchandising. The dinners and subsequent telecast viewings (he takes them over to the studio to see the program), has resulted in a better than normal flow of merchandise to the store. This has paid off better than the $500 per airing that the program cost him. It's a promotional twist that's in keeping with the times, when getting merchandise to sell is more important than selling it. Credits: Dick Goggin directed for ABC whose show it is. Goggin hasn't shown too much imagination in the past but he really made the charades part of everyone's home and handled his camera selling better than effectively. His directing proves that intelligence plus experience does add up and that the latter is a must in video as it is in any other entertainment field. A STAR WALKS . . . (Continued from page 19) the program could be musically slanted away from the type of songs that Aci ff sang, without offending the listeners. That was a plus since if the new star didn't sing the typical Acuff tunes he wouldn't offend the Acuff followers. From the sponsor's point of view it was necessary to find a man to take over the singing M. C. slot who wasn't tied up with any other manufacturer's product. Acuff never had produced a top "sponsor identification" record for Frince Albert. That was because Acuff sold plenty of other things on Grand Ole Opry besides smoking tobacco. With Acuff moving out the Reynolds and the Esty organization looked for a man who was not identified with any product or service. First check-up was made in the jukeboxes of the blue grass country. The singer had to have records in the boxes and they had to have received a fair amount of play. Then came a personal mouth-tc-mouth survey, with an Esty exec spending his vacation in the mountain-music territory. Final double check was made among the other fo'k-music sessions on the air. Out of it all (and much more besides) came Red Foley, now star of the Grand Ole Opry Prince Albert half hour. Red's discs weren't tops in the nickel-a-tune players, but he earned plenty of money for the music machine operators. He had been born in Blue Lick. Kentucky, and had bi i n mii radio since 1930 when he joined the Cumberland Ridge Runners on \\ 'LS as baritone soloist. Later he aired with the Renfro Valley Barn Dance program on WLW but in 1938 he had returned to the National Barn Dance on WLS. He had written a number of successful folk tunes, among them "Old Shep." Song wnting seems to be another must with folkmusic stars. Red's no Acull and he doesn't try to be. However, althc he only started in April, he hit a 12.1 for his sponsor in May and on the September 15th rating he had a 10.2, was in the "First Fifteen," and was expected to hold a good part of the audience of Judy Canova who is building fast on NBC right ahead of Opry. More important even than the fact that Red Foley is holding the Acuff audience, and adding to it, is the fact that he's developing an easy manner of sneaking in Prince Albert credits, in a way that doesn't offend even big-city sensibilities. The S. I. (sponsor identification) figures don't show any sizeable jumps as yet but that's because of two reasons. First, the entire east isn't measured for S. I. due to the fact that the show is aired at 10:30 and a great section of back country where Opry fans reside (and it has a big following in the larger cities) is in the East. Second, the new approach to handling the continuity which Reynolds is developing hasn't been set yet. The program is being tightened more and more and the agency is working closer with Red Foley and the Opry cast on every airing. Last S. I. was 34.6. Foley's record sales have jumped in the past few months. He's building his own musical unit. This is a must since all the other units are touring all week long and get back to WSM, Nashville, where the Opry originates, only on Saturday, thus giving Foley only a few hours to rehearse. A folkmusic singer requires a musical backing that is as much a part of him as, in Foley's case, his guitar. Besides, Red isn't getting the kind of folding money that a big-time network star usually is paid and he too, will also have to collect upon his reputation by touring the gold-laden Smoky Mountain country. He'll be selling his pictures, his song books, and his records, all of which. will not only bring in the shekels but will build those sales of tins of Prince Albert tobacco. Tom Luckenbill, radio head of the Esty ad -organization, had a great deal to do with building the Lux Theater formula when he was with J. Walter Thompson some years ago. He's doing that building job for Reynolds Tobacco products with time-tested, rating-building ingredients. . . . and so another star has taken a walk and another sponsor has held his audience and is building towards a greater acceptance, higher program rating, and lower media selling cost, simply because nothing was taken for granted, show or advertisingwise. NOVEMBER, 1946 47