Sponsor (Jan-June 1953)

AMERICAN AIRLINES (Continue)/ from page 77 I on the <i\ shows. Each was selected from as many as a dozen local personalities by means of live and/or taped auditions. "We wanted nothing but the best," an \ \ spokesman explained. The story of how Bob Hall, the \\ ( BS announcer, was picked is typical of the procedure used. Hall was originally in a group of about 12 WCBS announcers who tried out for the job. After many hours of listening, AA advertising officials and Ruthrauff & Ryan brass narrowed the list clown to two. A "live" audition was finally held, with all of the AA and agency brass gathered in CBS Radio President Adrian Murphy's office, armed with notebooks and pencils. Hours went by. Finally. Bob Hall was iiiven the nod. The entire selection process, from start to finish, took nearly two months. Hall, by the way. is also rather typical of the calibre of announcers selected by American Airlines. He has a classical music education ( Eastman ii! : Illllllllllllll IUIIIIIIII Il!llllllllll!!llllllllllllll!llll!lllllllilllllllllllllllll!llllllllll!llllllll!llll> Illlll IlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllUi lU WHH BUSINESS IS GOOD ON LONG ISLAND BUT IN THE SUMMER , . . TERRIFIC ■& QUARTER MILLION Additional Residents in WHLI's Long Island during June, July, Aug., Sept. EIGHT MILLION will visit LI. Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches this Summer A vast additional audience will listen to WHLI in their summer homes, bungalows, hotels, cars, boats and on the beaches. More people listen to WHLI during the day in the Major L. I. Market than to any network station or more than all independent stations combined. ♦Conlan— Feb. 1953 daytime — Hempstead Town Represented by Rambcau HEMPSTEAD LONG ISLAND, N. Y. PAUl GODOFSKY, Prejident AM 1100 FM 98.3 worn of IIIIHilllE School of Music at University of Rochester), and plays piano and trombone. Veteran of several years of radio announcing, he has also sung with the Rochester Civic Music Association and the Detroit Civic Light Opera. He speaks Italian. French and German, pronounces everything from pizzicato to Prokofiev with practiced ease. AA took no chances that its air talent would have to operate in a vacuum when it came to selling the merits of American Airlines. At its own expense, AA took Hall and the other five announcers for extensive trips on AA's flight routes, and toured them through AA installations like the pilots' and stewardesses' schools, ticket offices of key terminals, the huge Tulsa maintenance base, and so on. As one of AA's announcers told sponsor in an interview: "It's one thing to pronounce all the words in a commercial properly. It's another to put it across as though you meant it. I'm sure my '40-cent tour' of American Airlines is helping me to be sincere in the commercials. Certainly, it gave me a wonderful perspective on how a big airline operates, and what its problems are." Cotiittit>rt'i«f policy: Early in the game, A A and Ruthrauff & Ryan decided that the air commercials on the six all-night shows were going to be live, rather than transcribed. And AA decided also that they should be done in a semi-ad-lib style, rather than in a straightforward, read-from-copy manner of presentation. "This way we can avoid jarring the mood of any of the shows." an advertising executive of AA explains, "and we can keep our copy flexible so that it can be woven into the general musical structure of the programs." So that Ruthrauff & Ryan does not have to work up 22 commercials per program per night for each area during a three-year period — a copywriter's nightmare — a compromise between local and national selling was worked out by the agency. During the first two hours of any of AA's shows, the commercials are tailored to the particular market. That is. New ^ ork commercials discuss the frequenc) of flights from New York to Chicago. Washington commercials plug the daily flights between Washington and New York, and so on. Sales stress is also placed on savings made h\ flying on AA's "Airtourist" flights, 86 SPONSOR