Sponsor (Nov 1946-Oct 1947)

SPONSOR SPEAKS Super-Test For Radio? BROADCASTING has a phobia for baring its 'back and asking anybody who is in the mood to lash it. Research at an average magazine or metropolitan newspaper usually consists of a man with the title of research director'who produces, upon request of the sales department, "facts and figures" about the newspaper's circulation projected from its Audit Bureau of Circulation report. Except in a few cases like the Milwaukee Journal that's black-andwhite research. Radio isn'l satisfied with Hooper, Broadcast Measurement Bureau, and Nielsen. Each network has a research depart mint ,1 stall as high as >() 40 at NBC). Independent stations in metropolitan centers maintain two-to-five man departments and even radio departments i>i agencies have research sections running as high as 10 men. This self-researching is healthy, though expensive. However, a number of probing young men at the networks now want to go a step further. They want to experiment with the medium with an advertising campaign for a product that has no distribution, no salesmen, no promotion, nothing but the product itself and a radio advertising campaign, a truly immaculate conception. Broadcasting is part of the advertising universe. When anyone looks to it to turn Atlas and prove it can carry the world, he's going beyond the bounds of good research and good sense. It would surprise no one if broadcasting should come through the bright young men's test by fire unsinged, but why test its ability to do something that's not really its job? Sponsored Newscasts RECENTLY Jack Gould (New York Times) turned the clock back over 12 years in one of his Sunday columns. He attacked the sponsorship of news on the air and inferred that news in a commercial program was suspect. Edward R. Murrow, public affairs vp at CBS, took umbrage at many of Gould's statements and wrote a schol arl) letter to Gould on the subject, which Gould printed. In answering Murrow 's letter, Gould disregarded most of the points made by Murrow, who made it clear that an advertiser's paying for a news show no more makes the news broadcast in the period suspect than does an advertisement appearing next to a column of news in a newspaper. Gould in his comments on the letter went off on another track but with the same objective, building in his readers' minds of the suspicion that news on the air. when it comes to them via a commercial program, has been open directly or indirectly to economic censorship. If Gould had been writing 12 years ago when news services were loath to permit their news to be broadcast, when newspapers felt that news on the air would be quick death to their publications, the original dissertation and the answer to Murrow might have been understandable. The only thing that makes it at all comprehensible in this day and age is that the New York Times will not permit its news summaries on its stations WQXR and WQXQ to be sponsored. Thus Gould may have been speaking on the basis of "house policy." To project from the specific | Times refusal of sponsorship) to the general all commercially-sponsored news being questionable) is an excellent way to make Gould's column suspect itself. Black-and-white is swell (after all we're a publication ourselves) but when it goes out of its way to break down another medium, it ought to do it in paid, not editorial space. 40 WEST .12nd Much of radio sales promotion has been of the internal-competition variety — one station selling itself against another. This is sometimes necessary, but the hope persists that all elements in the radio industry can devote a healthy portion of their sales promotion effort towards selling radio as the fine, resultful medium that it is. Your series (see page 38) is a constructive contribution to that end. Frank E. Pellegrin Director of Broadcast Advertising National Association oj Broadcasters Your issues, after having been read here, have been passed around with articles marked which meant that they were to be read by everyone in the advertising department and the Packaged Products Division. On the basis of our experience here I'm sure you're getting readership. Ken Fisher Treasurer Fisher Flouring Mills Company Special Investigator is a relatively new program, and for its 15 minutes on Sunday night has mighty tough competition, but, all things considered, it seems to be doing pretty well. If you catch it sometime, please let us know what you think of it, and particularly let us have your appraisal of the commercials. L. C. McElroy, vp Sheldon, Quick & McElroy, Inc. On inspecting your issue of sponsor for the month of February, 1947, I noticed that you had quite a display on disc jockeys. An obvious error at once noteable was the statement "Midwest fave Rush Hughes." Gil Newsome of KWK is undoubtedly the outstanding disc jockey of this area. If you will look at the Hooperatings for the period of November, 1946, through January, 1947, you will find that Gil New some has an average rating of 1 1 .6 on his 6:15-6:45 p.m. show, whereas Hughes has an average of 6.35 on his comparable show at 6-6:30 p.m. KWK has another disc jockey, Ed Wilson, who has an average rating of 5.0 on his afternoon show while Hughes has a rating of 2.5 on his afternoon show In light of the public acceptance of these two KWK personalities by the listening audience, I am sure you must agree that the above statement made in your magazine conveys an erroneous impression to all subscribers and I am anxious to bring this matter to your attention. Thomas E. Richter Promotion Manager Station KWK. St. Louis The article in your recent issue entitled "Selling the Undergraduate" seems to me to call for a few comments. The first table on page 15, indicating that CBS is in third place among the networks in terms of listener loyalty in colleges, is definitely misleading since it includes many colleges (Please turn to page 47^ 52 SPONSOR