Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

VOL. 15: No. 48 5 Nov. 29, expressed to TV columnist Marie Torre last week what he believed was at least one positive virtue of the payola probe. It revealed clearly, he stated, “that the popularity of rock & roll is artificially induced.” The Grammy Awards voting in the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (with winners ranging from Nat King Cole to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) was proof, Wilson added, that “quality wins out all the time.” Meanwhile, the American Guild of Authors & Composers, which had spurred the House Commerce legislative oversight subcommittee into payola probes (Vol. 15:46 pi), shot off a letter to FCC asserting that suspect disc jockeys are displaying “merely a symptom of a disease.” Guild Pres. Burton Lane said: “The disease itself is the involvement of the entire broadcasting industry, including the networks & local stations, in a deliberate & successful distortion of music programming for their own financial gains.” Lane said he was talking about broadcastersupported BMI, Am-Par Record Corp., CBS’s Columbia Records. Successor to Anti-BMI Group Citing similar charges, the Guild and its predecessor Songwriters Protective Assn, (composed of ASCAP members) tried in Washington last year to push through legislation divorcing TV & radio from the music publishing & recording business. Their anti-BMI bill (S-2834) ended up in a pigeonhole after prolonged hearings by the Senate Commerce communications subcommittee (Vol. 14:30 p9). “Misdeeds of a few disk jockeys should not be allowed to blacken the reputation of the entire radio industry,” NAB Pres. Harold E. Fellows said in a Washington statement. He pointed out that station managements have “taken firm steps” against jockeys linked with payola. Fellows added that broadcasters generally shouldn’t be held responsible for the practice — “just as I say that newspapers should not be condemned because from time to time, individual reporters admit that they are liars or have committed other misdeeds.” Among the “firm” corrective steps taken by stations: Storer Bcstg. Co. is establishing a “quality control” board to monitor & report daily on all programming on the chain’s TV-radio outlets (WJBK-TV & WJBK Detroit, WJW-TV & WJW Cleveland, WSPD-TV & WSPD Toledo, WAGA-TV Atlanta, WITI-TV Milwaukee, radio WIBG Philadelphia, radio KPOP Los Angeles, radio WWVA Wheeling, W. Va., and radio WGBS Miami). The program “reporters” will be stationed in the station cities but will report to TV-radio programming vps at Storer’s home office. Storer Pres. George B. Storer said the “quality control” plan will go into effect as soon as proper personnel can be selected & “fully schooled in Storer policy, FCC & FTC regulations, NAB code regulations and other requirements necessary to do knowledgeable monitoring.” TV blackouts of professional football games within 75 miles of cities where college teams are playing will be urged at the next session of Congress by Sen. Kefauver (D-Tenn.). He said he will introduce a bill prohibiting such telecasts unless the colleges consent to the pro competition on home TV screens. Kefauver’s Judiciary antitrust & monopoly subcommittee already has approved a measure (S-2545) advocated by him to exempt pro football, basketball & hockey — but not baseball — from antitrust laws so that club owners can control those telecasts which interfere with games in the minor leagues. (Vol. 16:36 p3). Networks LARMON’S SUMMIT MEETING: A proposal for a top-level “Citizen’s Committee” to act as outside guardian of TV’s standards of morals & taste emerged as still another attempt at TV self-regulation in the wake of the quiz scandals last week. Authored by Sigurd S. Larmon, chmn. of Young & Rubicam agency, the proposal even had its cloak-&-dagger aspects. Larmon, whose agency is estimated to have billed $102.6 million in broadcast media in 1959 and to rank in 3rd place among the top ad shops (after J. Walter Thompson and McCann-Erickson), arranged a meeting of top officials of all 3 networks in a N.Y. hotel suite Nov. 13. Under Larmon’s proposal, a committee representing major segments of the industry (networks, sponsors, agencies) would nominate a group of outstanding citizens to act as a guiding hand. Network officials attending the Larmon-arranged meeting soon divided in their reaction to the Y&R chmn.’s plan. Robert W. Sarnoff & Robert E. Kintner, NBC chmn. & pres, respectively, generally supported Larmon’s views, and later announced that NBC planned to form its own advisory committee of leading citizens shortly. CBS Inc. Pres. Dr. Frank Stanton agreed that TV should stage its own cleanup or face govt, control, but in a follow-up letter to Larmon stated he had “grave misgivings” about the Larmon plan, principally on the question of whether responsibility for network program content could be passed to an outside group “without sacrificing our integrity.” AB-PT Chmn. Leonard Goldenson & ABC-TV Pres. Oliver Treyz sided with Stanton in not wanting to delegate responsibility for TV practices to a non-network group. Larmon himself appeared unruffled by the failure of his proposal to find immediate backers among leaders of the 3 networks. What he had really been trying to do with his network summit meeting, he indicated, was to “stimulate thinking” about TV’s increased responsibilities in an era of tighter self-control. NBCs Policy Ads: Quiz & other audience participation shows will continue on NBC-TV “for the millions who enjoy them — and who have a right to expect that we can & will safeguard the integrity of all our programs,” the network stated in full-page Sunday ads in The New York Times, The J oumalAmerican and Chicago, Washington, Detroit & Los Angeles papers Nov. 29 and The Wall St. Journal Nov. 30. Titled “A Statement on TV,” the ad was signed by Chmn. Robert Sarnoff & Pres. Robert Kintner. NBC “assumes complete responsibility to the public for what appears on the network . . . seeks to satisfy the widest possible range of program tastes & interests . . . has an obligation to provide entertainment & relaxation to millions of set owners as well as to inform & enlighten [and] proposes to keep ‘blazing the trail’ for color TV,” the ads stated. Sarnoff & Kintner urged viewers not to judge TV by the recent quiz scandals. “The shadow cast by a few men who poisoned a few defunct programs in a single narrow segment of programming has blacked out some remarkable achievements,” stated Sarnoff, citing “the TV debuts of Ingrid Bergman, Lawrence Olivier and Alec Guinness” and various other NBC specials. “We will crack do^vn on improper practices wherever they may appear in progi-amming or advertising,” the ad concluded.