Sponsor (Sept-Dec 1958)

The next day, with Sweeney and Hardesty posing as the advertiser in question, the salesman will start his presentation. Sweeney and Hardesty will intentionally throw him curves — misinformation about the advertiser's media schedule or sales patterns — to fee whether the salesman has boned up sufficiently. If he hasn't, it's back to the files, and another run at the gauntlet. When the salesman has passed this acid test, he's ready for anything that an advertiser can throw at him. From time to time, RAB will try a ■gimmick" approach. For example, V, hen one RAB team wanted to achieve special impact in one market, RAB went out and bought 25 brassieres. The brassieres were cut in half, and 50 advertisers in the city each received half a brassiere. Accompanying it was a message pointing out that half a brassiere isn't much good, just like using (.nly newspapers will only reach half 111 a market. \ major purpose of all RAB's effort, explains RAB promotion director Miles David, is to get advertisers and agencies to listen. "We have begun to fulfill our function if we open their minds ti radio, and in that way give radio a i hance to compete for the advertiser's FORTUNE I Cont'd from page 35 ) can be made that, as mediocrity per\ades the medium, a chain reaction is set up that leads to further debasement of product, and a further strain on tv's financial structure." According to Fortune, tv is in a '"' ost price squeeze" which, compared lii that of other industries, is "something special." Citing 1957 FCC figures, the magazine maintains that "for the first time in history the industry suffered a profit -lump." For this year, says Fortune, I'lofits are apt to be "even slimmer" Itir the networks, costs are up, and the financial outlook is grim, both because of threatened FCC action, and because '■f\ has become a buyers' market." This "mounting |)ressure of costs" in Fortune s opinion, falls on "networks and sponsors alike" and has "weakened llie will to experiment." ^ et. according to many important tv "[""vators. there is something essen'iall\ suspect in Fortune's once-overliilitly financial analysis. Leonard H. Goldenson, pres. of ABC, for instance, points to the best profit ]3icture in ABC history, sa\s both network and stations are making more money than ever before, offers a "Price Waterhouse statement" to prove it. Other network executives, apparently more deeply aware of the nuances of tv finances than Fortune's Mr. Smith, caution that his sweeping conclusions must be taken with a grain of salt. Tv station operators, with whoiii SPONSOR talked last week, report generally good business, are cheerful and optimistic about 1959, and, far from fearing a "buyers' market," were, in many cases, so nearly sold out that they were talking of future rate increases. Obviously the "Light That Failed" is something less than a definitive financial work, in the opinion of most industry observers. But what it does represent, according to such men as Pete Cash. pres. TvB, Oliver Treyz, pres. ABC TV and others, is a more or less deliberate attempt to discredit the economics of tv as part of an over-all "party line" drive on tv's advertising revenues. Both tv programs, and tv business methods, the print media are saying, are essentially mediocre. Moreover, in the opinion of many industry leaders, such attacks must not be underestimated. They are bound to have some effect on both the public, and on advertisers. And they may even tend to weaken the confidence of Wall Street, and of other risk capital in various types of tv investment. Finally, as many tv men point out, "The Light That Failed" focuses on a third type of propaganda of which the industry will probably hear more in coming months. These are the gloomy, Cassandra-like predictions about the future of commercial vs. pay tv. Pay tv. of course, if it ever succeeds in overthrowing commercial tv, might release large advertising appropriations to such ad-hungry print media is Life and Time magazines. So Fortune, gazing into its crystal ball, concludes "The Light That Failed" with this wistfully hopeful prediction, "The restraints imposed on television by its own commercial interests will simply result in the raising of a new empire, the competing one of pay tv. and the crowning of a new set of kings." It may be silly. It may be wishful thinking. But, say top tv executives, this is the way the print media are fighting, and will fight harder than ever in the coming months. ^ Inland Washington POPULATION: 439,000* EFFECTIVE BUYING INCOME: $748,540,000* A distinct and separate market from Seattle's coastal region, and Spokane's Inland Empire. INLAND WASHINGTON KPQ KPQ WENATCHEE WASHINGTON 5000 W 560 KC MORE radio homes af the LOWEST cost per home of any station in the Heart of Florida 24-hour service to the Suncoasf ViSUft Radio St. Petersburg-Tampa Southeastern: JAMES S. AYERS SPONSOR • 29 NOVEMBER 1958