Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

12 AUGUST 17, 1959 Falling (for TV) Stars: Huge talent fees for specials this season (as much as $100,000 asked for Ingrid Bergman or Elvis Presley; $25-$50,000 for appearances of lesser-star draws) are causing shrinkage in the roster of TV holdouts. Miss Bergman will star in an adaptation of Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw” for Hubbell Robinson’s NBC lineup of Ford Specials. Seldom-seen (on TV) Rock Hudson has been signed to host Revlon’s opening 90min. special (CBS-TV Oct. 8), with Tallulah Bankhead & Sammy Davis Jr., among the guests. The William Morris agency is discussing with Revlon a “sales personality” contract that will bring Marlene Dietrich to TV as a sort of sultry Betty Furness. And 2 of TV’s top holdouts, Marilyn Monroe & Marlon Brando, are now expected to be delivered, as promised months ago by MCA, for the Oct. Wonderful World of Entertainment opener of the Ford specials (NBC-TV). Still “not available” for TV: Clark Gable, William Holden, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo. * * * Biggest crop of TV specials due to pre-empt network shows on a one-shot basis will be agency-handled this season through BBDO, by network count. Led by Du Font’s 9-show lineup of Show of the Month specials, there’ll be a total of 39 such BBDO-supervised shows bumping regular series on NBC-TV and CBS-TV. J. Walter Thompson, with 39 specials for Ford alone, has a higher total count than BBDO on network specials, but most of JWT’s are in scheduled time periods not involving pre-emptions. * * * General Motors is seeking a “super-super special” for early Oct. to be used as TV keystone for the kickoff of the auto maker’s line of 1960 models, including the new “compact” cars, GM agency sources in N.Y. told us. GM’s problem, they admitted, is that “there are so many specials scheduled this season we’ve got to out-special everything in sight.” Currently under discussion are several names not slated for more routine specials, of which the favorite, at a blockbuster price, is Danny Kaye, who’s hitherto not been seen in live TV. Originally, GM had planned “An Evening with Lerner & Loewe,” which blew up when performance rights couldn’t be cleared. New TvB pocket-piece, mailed last week, is a handy, fold-open version of Advertising Age's list of the media spendings of 1958’s top 100 national advertisers (Vol. 15:24). It spotlights the gross volumes in print media, outdoor, spot radio, spot & network TV. The TV spending, however, refers only to gross time and does not include production costs which would run TV expenditures considerably higher — and give them even more domination of the picture than they have now. Over-printed on the chart in red is a bar graph showing percentage of ad budget allocated to TV time. TvB points out that 65 of the top 100 considered TV their basic medium, investing more money in TV than in any other ad effort; that nearly half (49.4%) of 1958’s ad spending went to TV. Gains & losses for all media in 1957-58 comparisons are compiled in the TvB mailer. ARB will lose its last network flagship subscriber for N.Y. at the end of this month, Arbitron reports, leaving the “instant ratings” service 3 N.Y. station subscribers (WORTV, WNEW-TV & WPIX) and ARB’s agency clients. WCBS-TV’s Arbitron cancellation last week will cut the research firm’s monthly income by about $6000. WRCA-TV dropped Arbitron last spring, and WABC-TV cancelled its subscription at the end of last year. The 7-market Arbitron reports now serve NBC-TV and 10 agencies. Film & Tape TV Goes Bigtime at 20th: A visitor to 20th-Fox’s huge Westwood studios these days must be impressed by the TV-film operation as compared to its status a year ago. Until this season, when it placed ex-Playhouse 90 producer Martin Manulis in charge of TV production, 20th had sputtered unimpressively along in TV. This studio’s new-era shows won’t be seen until fall, so we took an advance behind-the-scenes look to find that 20th seems to have gone all out for maximum impact in TV. To an old Hollywood hand, production here resembles movie-making more than TV shooting. Expensive, realistic sets and costly production are going into the two 60-min. series. Adventures in Paradise & 5 Fingers. The budget for each show runs around $100,000, with an 8-day shooting schedule. A 3rd network series, the 30-min. Dobie Gillis (being filmed at 20th Fox’s Western studio) , is using top talent in writer-creator Max Shulman and producerdirector Rod Amateau. Twentieth also has in production 2 30-min. series for NTA — How to Marry a Millionaire & Man Without a Gun. Also, NBC has an option on a 30min. anthology series. Whodunit, and CBS holds an option on the 60-min. New Frontier series. The Paradise set, on the backlot at 20th, is a remarkably accurate facsimile of James Michener’s Hawaiian locale. (Michener, we were told, had advised that it would be more practical to film the series here than in Hawaii.) Five Fingers, a suspense show with European locales, produced by Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr., and starring David Hedison & Luciana Paluzzi, was originally filmed as a 30-min. pilot but has been expanded to 60. Rumbles at Republic: Republic Pictures, recently ac quired by L.A. financier Victor Carter, last week took 2 seemingly contradictory steps. It folded its TV production subsidiary. Studio City Productions, and it began to expand the sales staff of its other TV subsidiary, Hollywood Television Service. Actually the moves were elements of a pattern (Vol. 15:30) that might reactivate TV-film production at Republic. Studio City Productions had been inactive & on the “unfair” lists of Hollywood talent gruilds because Republic’s former pres. Herbert J. Yates had sold his post1958 movies to TV without making payments to guild members. It’s likely now that Carter will achieve new TV production by financing independents, who will be told to follow guild regulations to the letter. Chief casualty of the Studio City Productions folding: Morton Scott, pres, for the past 8 years. Don Fedderson Productions has signed Cliff Arquette (“Charlie Weaver”) to a 3-year contract for a live comedyinterview series. Fedderson was scheduled to video-tape him in a 30-min. pilot in N.Y. last weekend with Zsa Zsa Gabor & Terry Huntington (U.S. entry in the recent “Miss Universe” contest). The pilot was made, said Fedderson, “in the full knowledge that network nighttime slots are virtually sold out for next season.” But he added “when you have a good show, program time can always be arranged.” Tape will improve the “fi” of TV commercials, as compared with other production techniques, believes Jim Ellis, pres, of Plandome Productions, N.Y. firm specializing in creating music backgrounds for TV selling. Ellis cites the improved audio frequency response of video tape (a high end of 12,000 cps as compared with film’s usual 7500 cps) as adding “substantial tonal fidelity to TV music.”