Sponsor (Nov 1947-Oct 1948)

over is usually restricted to back-to-back scheduling. KWK (St. Louis) was one of the first to put on a mystery at the same time every night. The formula did well for Hyde Park Beer on this station. The idea spread. WNEW went all out for a Mystery at Eight appeal. The WNEW listening indices went up. The blow-up came because there weren't enough reasonably-priced transcribed mysteries available. So the station, unhappily, found it necessary to drop horizontally block-programed mysteries. There was no question of the listening appeal even against four-network competition. In Boston WCOP (ABC) has adopted the horizontal mystery formula and is finding it does things to its audiences. WCOP records several of the ABC block of mysteries and airs one at the same hour each night. Both vertical (back to back) and horizontal (same time daily) block programing are an assured way of reaching audiences. They make it simple to develop listening habits. Contrapuntal programing, the reverse of block programing, is not new. It too grew out of the CBS diary studies which showed where the audiences went when a mood or sequence of programs was disrupted. The basis of contrapuntal programing is fundamental — offer the audience something they can't find elsewhere on the dial. ABC, in an effort to build its own 8 to 9 p.m. listening, bought a Lou Cowan idea, Stop the Music. The idea had been turned down previously by CBS as not in. keeping with its programing. In a comparatively short time, ABC had built up a sizable listening audience. Other stations and networks found the new competition tough. Before long CBS decided that an audience participation program from 9 to 10 p.m. would catch the audience ABC was building from 8 to 9, so CBS added Catch Me If You Can to Strike It Rich (9:30-10 p.m.). With all the big-time competition on a Sunday evening, what can a block programing station like WNEW do to reach listeners? It goes contrapuntal. It programs the light classics in music since there is no music of this kind available elsewhere in the early Sunday evening hours. The broadcasts by the New York Times station WQXR are heavier in nature than WNEW's musical programing. Result? WNEW is reaching the highest Sunday evening audience it has had in a long time. Contrapuntal programing is the only way an independent station can obtain audiences for advertisers while the top ranking Hooper, Nielsen, or Pulse rated programs are on the air. Contrapuntal programing is, however, something more than that. It's programing with an eye towards reaching audiences of other stations which have disrupted their mood programing because of commercial commitments. In placing spot programs, contrapuntal programing is an essential hint to agencies on time selection. A sponsor may happen to have a soap opera like Claudia and David (Coca-Cola) and find it impossible to place it on a spot basis in a soap-opera sequence. It is not impossible to place it on a station which competes with the leading soap-opera station at a time when the soaper is forced to break into the daytime serial mood with quiz, news, or other form of show. The women who want daytime serials go looking for them when they shift on the dial. Timebuying can't stop with knowing what's before and after the spot that's being bought. It goes on to what's on every other station that can be heard in an area. If an audience isn't delivered by the station that has been bought in the past, it can be, and frequently is, delivered by a competing station. Audience larceny is one form of stealing that's legal. * * * This month, Kansas farmers are harvesting a rich yield of golden wheat. Millions of bushels are being sold for millions of dollars. All through WIBW-land farm families are buying. They're buying equipment for farms and homes. They're buying more food, more clothing . . . more everything. And they're making these purchases by brand name. That's why it's always harvest time for WIBW advertisers. Twelve months of the year, they reap the rich yield of sales seeds which WIBW has planted deep in the friendly, receptive minds of our vast farm audience. Put WIBW to work for you and share this year-round harvest. ^ First Families of Agriculture Ay^^Asf ^*^ ^>V., Rep.: CAPPER PUBLICATIONS, .Inc. '^-//ul''lijj,A wuw.rrKN JULY 1948 139