Sponsor (Jan-June 1951)

"Well. I had a lot more spots before my eyes." "You mean, spots \s ith dollar "Oh."" said the patient, lighl dawning, "I see what you mean." "Ever hear about the savage tribes in Africa?"' asked the doctor, "They put the curse on an enemy, announce that at a certain hour of a certain day he will die."' " \nd does he?'* "Sometimes. That is. if he helicvcs the curse. Then he dies. If he doesn't believe the curse, if he is too busyplanning his own future to believe in witchcraft, he goes right on living." "Well, thanks, doc." said the patient, rising and reaching for his hat. "guess I'll do the same." • • • NETWORK RADIO FUTURE {Continued from page 26) told SPONSOR. Hut others modify that prophec) bj -axing that advertisers will eventualh lie dealing with just two sun i\ ing networks. On the basis of the shifts underway todav. veteran radio people believe that -pun--, ii will be dealing with a different type of network radio in the fu W B N S gives you this rich portion of sales „ producing Ohio. s* This is a big chunk of prosperous Ohio territory you sell when you advertise on WBNS. There are 187,980 WBNS families with. an income of $1,387,469,000. WBNS covers the market at lower cost to advertisers. A test will prove to you that you get the best results in central Ohio radio when the station is WBNS. ASK JOHN BLAIR NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES POWER WBNS 5000 WELD 53,000 CBS COLUMBUS, OHIO , ture. These are some of the trends thev see coming: 1. The network's position will weaken as the individual station's position grows stronger. Affiliates, stung into action by the recent rate cuts, will be asking — and probably receiving — more time from the networks to sell at the national spot rates. 2. Regional networks like Don Lee will continue to thrive since groups of stations in particular areas of the country will be vital to advertisers. Such non-link setups as Keystone will also prosper. 3. Networks will offer advertisers more flexibility in the ways that time can be bought and stations lined up. Flexibility will be evidenced in other directions, too. 4. Programing will continue to shift to low-cost formats such as mysteries, news, music, and sports summaries. Sponsors will find more and more time available for economical saturation campaigns. One broadcaster cites this example of how networks changed their attitude on the short periods of broadcast. CBS permitted a five-minute news strip during the evening hours only as a wartime emergency. After the war ended, the program was dropped because the network did not want to break up half-hour segments. Now, with fewer half-hours sold, the networks are eager to sell the smaller segments. Nielsen has shown that a great number of listeners can be reached over a week's time by using a number of different shows with unduplicated audiences. More advertisers are expected to follow the strategy of the large soap companies which fill the air with 15minute shows at different times. Sponsors with smaller budgets can apply this tactic, one network official says, by using the five-minute and one-minute segments. Network announcements often enable the advertiser to buy more stations for less money than if he buys them individually; this type of buv also has an appeal to agencies because they are saved staff work in lining up stations for a national spot campaign. Naturally, such a trend is meeting heavy opposition from the stations and reps whose income could be cut drastically by this development. As a counter argument, one network suggests that a network saturation campaign 11 SPONSOR