Sponsor (Nov 1946-Oct 1947)

ADVERTISING INCHES Station Net Local Net Alone Total WDSU-ABC 18 4 0 22 WNOE-MBS 12 0 (1 12 WWL-CBS 0 6 0 6 WSMB-MBC 0 0 0 0 WJBW-Ind. 0 0 0 1) WWLII (KM) 0 1) 0 II This is the New Orleans picture as the present season started. As indicated it'll be different before another season rolls around, with new AM and FM stations in operation and the newspapers becoming interested in station ownership. ST. MM IS. MO. St. Louis is a town in which two out of the three newspapers own stations, the third being unaffiliated. The Pulitzer Post-Dispatch owns KSD (NBC) and the Star-Times owns KXOK (ABC). The stations without a publication daddy are KFUO, KMOX (CBS), KWK (MBS), WEW, and WIL; the paper without a radio-baby is the Globe' Democrat. The PostDispatch is the most radiominded and although the week checked was not one during which it went to town on its "plug-uglies" campaign,* it still gave plenty of space to its own KSD with the station receiving 75 per cent of the attention in the Radio Favorites listings. What it did for KSD made the latter's publicity record for the week checked some 20 inches better than the second station, KXOK. Of course the fact that KSD has NBC stars to talk about makes it easier to top ABC which can't compete at present in the stellar division with the senior web. In areas like St. Louis, the promotional job done by the broadcasters over and above their publicity fanfare is also vital. At some future time by a Promotion in Action series sponsor will attempt to assay the gold that the promotional phase of station and network operation produces. *The "I'ost Dispatch" during the last two years has been attacking over-commercialization of radio medical and laxative air-ad eopy. At frequent intervals it returns to the attack. II "popularized" the mum plug-uglies for "bad" commercials. PUBLICITY INCHES Station Net Local Net Alone Total KSD -NBC l'A 83 'A 4 89 KXOK-ABC 42 16 .V/2 61% KMOX-CBS 8 24'A 12 'A 45 'A KWK-MBS iVi 15 'A 2 21 WIL 0 0 0 0 WEW 0 0 0 0 KFUO 0 0 0 0 Advertising generally finds the networks running pretty much in the order of their gathering free space. The paid space standing shows up this way, the independent stations in the area again not competing: ADVERTISING INCHES Station Net Local Net Alone Total KSD-NBC 13 79 'A 11 103 'A KMOX-CBS 10% 44 JA 0 55 KXOK-ABC 6 45 Vi 0 48 'A KWK-MBS 0 15 'A 0 15 'A WIL 0 0 0 0 WEW 0 0 0 0 KFUO 0 0 0 1) FEBRUARY 1947 MUSIC SELLS {Continued from Page 21) with few exceptions an announcer has nothing to say but the commercials and that's no way to build a following. On a record-mc session he's given the play he needs to build a following or to collect on a following. The latter is what Husing, Havrilla (WPAT), Baruch are doing now. They have "famous" voices and they feel that they might as well collect on them while they're still that way. The only way to do it and be in the big money, really big money, is to turn disk jockey. Another way, although not so profitable a one, is by becoming identified as a character on a show, like Harlow Wilcox, Harry Von Zell, Ben Grauer, Ken Carpenter. Repetition — the basis of all good advertising — is also the basi= of all good program-building. Repetition is the foundation of the disk jockey routine. His listeners hear him at the same hour every day. They know he'll play Crosby at five, Goodman at 5:15, etc. They listen to him day after day, month after month, until they like him even if he didn't appeal to them so much to start with. Listeners like everyone else are creatures of habit, and disk sessions make it simple to develop a listening habit. Why do some disk jockeys (a majority of them, in fact) fail? The answer of the successful ones is that the failures don't program, they talk too much, and they're careless. The sessions must be timed so that they run like a network program schedule — to the second. Even with Martin Block on the West Coast his WNEW (N. Y.) transcribed Make Believe Ballroom has all the loving care that is bestowed upon a network show. Less than one-half of one per cent of the listeners (according to WNEW fan mail) realize that Block isn't at the microphone in the flesh at the station. Recently a reporter asked the station "When does Block go to the Coast?" .... Block had been gone for over two months. Actually his WNEW sessions, an hour and a half in the morning and the same span in the afternoon, are tops because he's still watching over them, via teletype and disk selection. Disk jockey sessions are high-ranking commercial sessions for all the foregoing reasons and one more — because the star's the salesman. If he's not he doesn't sell himself or the products to his audience — so any rating index can tell the man who pays the bills whether or not the disk jockey can sell for him. If he rates he sells. * As used in economics, "High-Powered Money" refers to an expenditure that produces further and greatly multiplied income. NIGHT & DAY 910 KC EDWAR&_f£TftY * C0.,J*fC. NAtlOMAi RfiPRilSNTATtVeS 41