Sponsor (May-Aug 1958)

#» SPONSOR-SCOPE contiAued IZ. You can take this as a sign of the times (or a keen eye for publicity) : WBBMTV, Chicago, has appointed a full-time scientist to its staff as a consultant. The station apparently figures the space age needs more interpretation than the regular newsroom operation can supply. CBS TV this week introduced a new wrinkle for commercial allocation in its nighttime schedule for the fall. Advertisers on Perry Mason, now sold at 20-minute segments ($63,000 time and talent), may, if they so elect, use one of the two commercial minutes coming to them on one week and cross-plug the other minute the following week. Meanwhile Pursuit, a live newcomer set for Wednesday night, may be put on the market by CBS TV with a similar arrangement. Cost of a 20-minute segment of Pursuit for time and talent is $52,000, with about $27,000 allotted for facilities. Buick this week became NBC Radio's first buyer of the concept to precede a new copy platform in tv with a radio campaign. The buy: 10 five-minute Bob Hope tapes weekends for 13 weeks, starting early September, at around $13,000 weekly. Of course, the fact that Hope will be doing a series of specials on NBC TV this season for Buick had much pertinence. Another NBC sale this week: Mogen David Wine, 42 announcements weekly. CBS Radio's sales included a big schedule of news periods to R. J. Reynolds; 11 segments a week for 14 weeks to Pepsi-Cola; and three segments a week for eight weeks to Sterling Silversmiths Guild (which also will use NBC). Postscript to the wrangle over local vs. national rates: A preliminary look at the answers it got from stations shows B&B that its client, Maxwell House Coffee, isn't paying higher rates, generally speaking, than regional coffee brands. The agency recently asked tv stations what coffee brands they were carrying and at what rate. The returns haven't been completely analyzed. Compton, which also quizzed stations on how advertisers qualify for the local rate, reported this week that the answers were on the whole quite "satisfactory." General impression gained from the returns: The Compton letter served to spark the recipients into making a reevaluation of their local vs. national rates. Some wrote that starting with a certain date there would be a sharper demarcation of what type of client qualifies for the retail rate. (For background, see 16 August sponsor, page 27). The merger this week of C. L. Miller with Lennen & Newell underscores an opinion often expressed by agency management experts: You have to have $20 million in billings in one agency office to afford real marketing and research services. In announcing the merger L&N's Adolph J. Toigo included this statement: His agency's "extensive creative marketing research operation was a most important factor in the Miller Company's decision to merge with Lennen & Newell." Miller's billings run between $8-9 million. The merger lifts L&N's billings to around $77 million. (For more details, see NEWS & IDEA WRAP-UP, page 77.) If Buchanan joins L&N, the estimated billings would be around the $85-million mark. Added commentary: The number of agency mergers so far this year isn't so extensive as in the previous year or two, but the roster nevertheless is lengthy. The 1958 marriages include: MERGING AGENCIES ESTIMATED JOINT BILLINGS Roche, Williams & Cleary; U.S. Advertising Corp. $11,000,000 Grant Advertising; Abbott Kimball; Burke Co. 88,000,000 Honig-Cooper; Dan B. Minor 15,000,000 Humphrey, Williamson & Gibson; Erwin Wasey of South 8,000,000 Kastor, Farrell, Chesley & Clifford; Hilton & Riggio 18,000,000 Compton; Goldwaite-Smith; Carvell, Nelson & Powell 75,000,000 30 august 1958