U. S. Radio (Oct 1957-Dec 1958)

ARER DARK (Cont'd from p. 1 7) in New York, Chicago and San Francisco and went a long way in exploding the myth that the evening audience was a group that could not afford to buy goods and services. One of the most interesting developments of nighttime radio has been the trend towards imaginative progTamming on the local level. This ranges from public affairs shows to in-depth news programming to well produced music shows with a "live" personality. Local sponsors, of course, have been using evening radio for some time and have found it a very productive sales tool. National advertisers are still to be won over, although there is evidence that past obstacles are being overcome. \Vestinghouse radio stations' newevening lorniat, Frngrain FM, is a scven-day-a-week series featiuing behind-the-scenes, in-depth program This Man I Had to Get KWFT serves 590,260 farm and ranch people within the 1/2 mv/m contour. Gross farm and ranch income: $814,726,000. A long-time, well-known pal to these folks is EARL SARGENT. Earl was formerly Agriculture Department Manager of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce. Now he's full-time FARM AND RANCH SERVICE DIRECTOR for KWFT. He has an M.S. degree in agriculture. He is president of the Wichita Falls Farm and Ranch Club, and holds area-wide offices and honors galore. With KWFT he's keeping right on with these activities — and doing three broadcasts daily. Object: to make EVERY family of this area a steady KWFT listener and friend. The KWFT fami-and-ranch market is BIG. Your H-R man has new and complete data. Call him up. L OW FREQUENCY BEN LUDY President and General Manager ^^ M ,^XIMUM CONDUCTiv 1/^ O^Vkc --Wichita Fails, Texas Call Your H-R ming in news, nuisic and entertainment. Since the advent of the program five WBC stations averaged a 150 percent increase in evening revenue. Local accounts outnimiber national orders four to one. Hut in the past 40 days 15 new national products have signed up. Among these are: Pall Mall, Armour, Tetley Tea, Pontiac, Colgate's Ad and Tidewater Oil. Significantly enough, this list demonstrates the power of nighttime radio to move all types of goods, from high-priced items to impulse articles. On the local scene there is ample testimony to successful retailer use. On KDKA Pittsburgh, a mail order house selling a musical album for five dollars was so satisfied with sales that it also promoted a slow-selling pocket adding machine on PM. Responses have averaged a thousand a week, the station reports. Dramatic Reactions In Boston, VVBZ has had rather dramatic reactions. One evening at 8:10, the station announced that it had 50 pairs of tickets to the Icecajjades. These were offered to the first 50 car radio listeners who called at the station. According to official police reports, traffic was blocked 10 minutes later in a two-mile area around WBZ. It finally tok eight policemen and five squad cars to untangle the jam. And last month WBZ devoted a segment of PM as a salute to Ted Heath, recalling events in his career. A London album of his was played and a trans-Atlantic call was made to Mr. Heath in Great Britain. At the end of the call, London albums were offered to the first 200 people who wrote in to tell what they had liked about the program. Less than a week later, about 1,400 letters had been received. Many stations across the country have examples of well-j:)roduced shows that have compiled record sales results. KFRC San Francisco is compiling revenue with its late-evening program, Newswheel, a seven-night-aweek show that presents 15 minutes of national and international news .■)0 U. S. RADIO March 1958