Sponsor (July-Dec 1952)

orange juke to folding beds has been sold successfully, usually through local feature-film packages. Only the kids are missing from audiences. Here are just a few of the late-night film shows open to advertisers on a participating basis: The Late Show and Late Late Show of WCBS-TV, New York; Nite Owl Theatre, on VAX EL. Cleveland; Sound Stage Four on WTCN-TV, Minneapolis; Movie> ill Midnight on WTMJTV, Milwaukee I a station which also telecasts late-night kinescopes of network shows to reach defense workers) ; Late Evening Movies on WDSU-TV, New Orleans; Jackson s Theatre on KTTV, Los Angeles ; Clover Club Date (in conjunction with a local night club, a la Barry Gray) on WTVJ, Miami; and Movies 'Til Midnight, on Baltimore's WAAM. Sponsors who think that, outside of New York, the country retires around 10 o'clock are in for a great surprise. Nielsen TV sets-in-use figures for January 1952 in the U. S. showed an average of 14.3 for the period of 11 to midnight, compared with 10.5 for the same month in 1951. Expectations for fall are even better, since most stations in one-station and two-station markets have been scheduling programs I including network kinescopes) later and later at night. Costs are low, and costs-per1,000 homes reached are comparable to those of the best daytime TV shows. Film programing Q. What's the trend for fall in spot film programing? A. Multi-market spot TV campaigns, using film programs, are on the increase. In fact, this is as significant a TV trend, in the eyes of both advertisers and agencies, as merchandising is in spot radio. By industry estimates, at least two or three years will pass before there are enough TV stations to (a) give networks full-time affiliates in all of the key video markels, and (b) until the problems of clearing live TV network time begins to ease, and the number of kine stations in station lists begins lo drop. Meanwhile, reps and stations are promoting the values of spot TV film programing to national advertisers as spot has never been promoted before. So successful has this campaign been that agencies handling network shows have often had to put emissaries on the road to help cement their relationships with TV stations who view network shows as "30-cents-on-the-dollar deals." (That is. the station's share of the rate paid to the network by the advertiser comes to 30%.) Needless to say, the sales target for the reps and stations promoting this method of TV advertising is not simply a list of current network clients. Many clients sponsor package shows (examples : CBS TV's Suspense, NBC TV's Kate Smith, DuMont's Captain Video) which are firmly tied to the network by virtue of being a "house package" or through iron-clad contracts with producers. These programs, which constitute over 40% of TV's major vehicles, are never likely to "go spot." But. among the clients who sponsor and the agencies who handle the remaining shows, sponsor learned that there is growing activity and interest in the idea of filming these programs, then placing them on a spot basis. Q. What are some of the leading reasons why sponsors are using multi-market film program campaigns in spot TV? A. There are several good arguments for the use of film programing, placed on a market-by-market basis, as opposed to a straight network program deal. The Katz Agency, Inc. (station reps) lists a few of the more important ones as being: 1. Ratings: "Based on Pulse averages (for N. Y. and L. A., before the cable went through I the kine rating is just a little more than a third of the live rating. An audience loss of twothirds is the price the network advertiser pays when, to get any decent kind of coverage, he has to resort to delayed kinescope recordings." 2. Market choice: States Katz Agency: "On spot TV you select as many or as few markets as your budget or sales strategy dictates." This is usually a matter of small concern to the advertiser with a huge budget who wants the utmost in a station list. But, for the medium-budget or small-budget advertiser who's faced with bin inii minimum networks that can \ar\ from about 20 stations to about 40 outlets, spot's flexibililx looks inrreasin<d\ attractive. Adds Katz: "If you are on the network, and the network's affiliate in a multiple-station market can't deliver satisfactory time, then you're out of the market — no matter how important it is to you. As a spot program advertiser you can, in these markets, cross network lines for the stations which offer the best buy." 3. General costs: Putting a show on film, which gives the advertiser better quality, fewer fluffs and greater scope, is not inexpensive. Costs run all over the lot, with producers hesitating to give off-the-cuff differentials, sponsor estimates that to do the "average" live TV show on film and then distribute it will cost anywhere from 15% to 40% more, depending on show type. However, a good bit of this is balanced out by the fact that buying the same station time, through spot channels rather than network sales offices, can cost less. Katz has figured out that an evening half-hour on 39 NBC TV affiliates and stations will cost some 19% less when bought on a spot basis than when it's bought through NBC TV, for instance. 4. Amortizing: There's a healthv outlook for advertisers in rerunning their film programs in new TV markets, or in reselling them for "second runs" in markets already used. This, however, is not a gravy train; there are many problems to be solved, many deals to be made, and a lot of paperwork involved before a sponsor's film show begins to pay dividends. Standardization Q. What's being done to "standardize" and simplify the problems of spot TV? A. In the early days of spot TV, building schedules and planning campaigns was often as difficult as shipping a freight car from one end of the country to the other in the days before track widths were standardized. Today, although many problems of "standardization" of TV coverage figures, equipment, techniques. s< ript foi mats remain to be solved, there is progress. Here are just a few of the more important industry developments which have eased headaches of buyers and sellers in spot television : 1. Film problems — With the advent of TV, many agencies found that they were suddenlv in the film business, not 164 SPONSOR