Sponsor (Sept-Dec 1957)

"They can't spend it if they ain't got it!" $ I $ $ $ X. ou might not agree with the grammar, but the homespun logic of that saying cannot be disputed. You can create a desire for whatever it is that you have to sell, but if the means of purchase are not available . . . then you have no sale. BUT... Columbus, Ga. $ $ $ $ $ $ has it! nth IN THE NATION IN PER FAMILY INCOME — $7,339.00 Source: 1957 Survey of Buying Power . . . and WeeReBel sits right on top of the rich Columbus, Georgia 3-county metropolitan area. r^ry WRBL-TV Channel 4, is (©1 first in 97.3% of all quarter hours (Area Pulse. May, 1957) WRBL-AM-FM leads in homes delivered by 55% — day or night monthly (NCS No. 2) 61 They buy it when it is seen or heard on WRBL AM — FM — TV COLUMBUS, CEORCIA CALL HOLLINGBERY CO. by Bob Foreman Agency ad libs Let's stop ratings jitters television critics arc ;i controversial breed. Often maligned by people in the business, they, nevertheless, are generallx concerned with bringing to the attention of their readers what is worth-while in the medium and tossing cabbages at what is less than superb. To the best of my knowledge not one composes bis philippics from the point of view that he (or she I gets a pay check from a competing advertising medium (newspapei I. Where the 1\ critics occasional!) err is. I believe, in seeming to be oblivious of the fact that television is supported b\ advertising and that advertising is a sales-tool and as such must produce to be effective and be renewed. This is no excuse for the lackluster television we see so much of todax. Nor do I wish to argue with Jack Cunningham's recent premise that l>\ selecting audiences telex ision can still be succes^lul bookkeeping-wise as well as artistically. In fact, four weeks before Mr. Cunningham made his talk at the ANA, the following was said bv — guess who? — me. The event — a press party in Cleveland: 1 take the libert) of quoting: "Television too frequentlv caters to the lowest, the most common of our denominators. It can be too middle of the road . . . too imitative. If you sponsor a Western, your biggest competitor puts on a Western next year. If you do well with a dog in vour show this season, it is safe to sav that the profession of animal training will flourish next season. This can hardlv be called progress. . . . What ratings don't say "Our nervous preoccupation with ratings is absurd. Also, it i> a downgrading influence on the medium. All of us are to blame for this — station people, advertisers, but most of all we in the agencies. We were the ones who started using the rating services — and we started to use them in an intelligent, practical wax. Not because tliex offered complete evidence of the success or failure of a program. But as indications of progress or lack of it in audience size, in audience composition, and ex aluation of the time slot in which the show appeared. They helped us to determine where our audience came from — from the preceding program— from another network — or from nexv tune-ins. Thev told us xxhether we held the audience throughout the shoxx and whether our commercials were attended b\ a respectable number of tv homes during the average minute. "However, what ratings leave unsaid — the strengths or weaknesses of the shoxv. the climate it provides lor a product or company's adxertising. the emotional rapport or lack of it xxith viewers, the type of \ iewers it attracts, their active or passixe participation with the property — all these factors are too important to be ignored. \nd ratings do ignore them. Just l>x counting noses we max come to some xerx dubious conclusions such as the fact that a man with two *Sec also this issue, "The ratings madness." i>age 33 SPONSOR 23 NOVEMBER 1957