Variety (Mar 1936)

:4v 40 VARIETY KADI Wednesday, March 25, 1936 Luxembourg Seeks to Shake English Time Brokers; Court Fight Looms London, 'March 15. Sir Patrick Hastings and Norman Birkett, two topnotch English law- yers, have been retained by Radio Publicity London und Radio Pub- licity Universal, joint plaint! , in an action to prevent Radio Luxem- bourg from doing business directly with advertising accounts that have heretofore been placed through the plaintiffs. Efforts of the commer- cial station to escape commission payments is behind the litigation. Radio Publicity London has a contract said to run eight years giv- ing it exclusive rights to brokerage English language-devoted broadcast time over the station in the. Duchy of Luxembourg. Ovaltine, Pond's Horlicks's are American firms that have advertised on thlr commercial transmitter for the benefit of the British market. Amateurs Walk Plank 'Sklpper : . and Amateurs' Is label for a new series over WNBW, New, York, Friday ights. Broadcasts are from stage of RKO Capitol, Union City, N. J. Sears-Roebuck Is sponsoring for 26 weeks. Instead of getting the gong, : entrants who fail' are to walk a "plarik at the skipper's com- mand. Differences between Radio . Lux- embourg and Radio Publicity orig- inally developed when the Crazy Water Co. became irked at the price it had to pay for the station and withdrew its British representation, from the Erwin, Wasey agency. Latter had dealt ,for.the Laxative through the International Broad- casting Co., a sub selling agency for RP. Crazy Water's burn derived from the discovery that the rate it was charged was considerably more than that shown on the station's rate card. Account sought to can- cel the contract, and when the IBC refused, it took its plaint direct to Radio Luxembourg. ALL-CANADIAN STARS ON PROPOSED PROGRAM Toronto, March 24, Elton Johnson of the. Locke, Agency, Toronto, is In New York seeking data oh costs for a pros- pective radio program that would include Canadian-born celebrities. A big Canadian advertiser may bankroll a series. Would involve pick-ups from New York, Holly- wood, etc. ' Walter Huston, Fifi D'Orsay, Douglas Dunbrille, Norma Shearer, Mary Plckford, Ned Sparks, Edward Johnson are among the Dominion made-gooders on. the list. "5-STAR FINAL' TO REMINGTON Deal was .oh yesterday (Tuesday) between Donald Flamm, WMCA head, and; the Remington-Rand Co. for the latter to assume, sponsor- ship March 30 of the station's 'Five- Star Final' on a basis of. five nights a week. Proposition as discussed involved airing the news dramatiza- tions over the Inter-City Group, of which WMCA is the key, and also over WQR, New .York, -with other Mutual stations added in the falK Contract, all around was to be for a minimum of 26 weeks. Remington-Rana has for the past three. years, been tied. up with the joint bankrolling of 'The March of Tlnie' series over Columbia. It is likely that the office equipment manufacturer "will stay along with this feature when it goes, to a weekly half hour, WIBW, KFQRTO CORN BELT Lincoln Substitute for KFAB, - peka New Des Moines, March 24. WIBW, Topeka, and KFOR, Lin- coln, have been added to the Corn-: belt group which is being fed the Gene and Glenn program daily by WHO, Des Moines* for Kellogg. KFOR replaces KFAB, which was forced by. CBS to drop the series. Addition of the two Outlets makes seven that are taking the program by the device Of rebrOad- castlng WHO's long wave signal. UNCHALLENGED DOMINANCE In the great northeast—tKe wealthy markets of eastern arid central New York State arid western New England—no other radio station can equal the power, the prestige, and the selling record of WGY. There is no better way to serve this great area whose population exceeds four million. WGY SCHENECTADY One of NBC's Managed and Operated Stations 50,000 WATTS NBC Red Network WBNY Agitates for NBC Blue Service in Buffalo; Downey Special Nixed Buffalo, March 24. WBNY. Is trying for NBC blue network service which doesn't come into Buffalo. Periodic station an- nouncements ask listeners to write NBC requesting service... Roy Al- bertson, WBNY owner, announced 'bank and newspaper interests have tried to keep, blue web out of here for'some time.' Did not elaborate this comment. WBEN, owned by The News, . carries NBC red web. WGR-WKBW, closely allied--with Marine Trust ' Co., divide CBS service. WBNY, 250 watts to sundown and 100 thereafter, got backing of 'Evening In Paris' sponsor (Bour- jois) in attempt at one-time chain service to air Morton Downey here Monday (23) in his regular blue network half-hour but NBC execs nixed It on. policy grounds. Sponsor wanted Downey broad- cast . heard hei*e to help capitalize oh his personal appearance at Gen- eral Motors Spring Show beginning today (24}, Xavler Cugat. orches- tra through Thursday (26) and Emerson Gill's band Friday (£7) and Saturday. (28) also set. KGO, SAN FRANCISCO* TO SEEK 50,000 WATTS? NBC, which- operates the. outlet, and General Electric Which owns it, are reported - oiy the verge of asking the Federal Communications for permission to; boost the power 6f KGO, San Francisco, froni 7*500 to 50,000 watts. The station is located on 790 k.c, and another GE trans- mitter; WGY, Schenectady, being on the eastern end of the channel. Lat- ter is licensed for 50 kilowatts. The 790 wavelength rates as hav- ing made radio legal history, It was the.- battle, that Charles' Evans •Hughes put up for GE arid WGY in 1927 that resulted in the breakdown of the channel and set a precedent that resulted in a general realloca- tion of wavelengths and the pas- sage of the Davis amendment to the Radio Act. Gulf's Summer Show Good Gulf, has handed the Phil Baiter show a 13-week renewal tip. to June 21 for the remainder of the season and will come back with it In the fall for 39 more, commencing •Sept. 21. For the Intervening 13 summer weeks the oil sponsor will retain its CBS Sunday night spot with a straight musical show consisting of Hal Kemp's orchestra and the Seven G's. June 21 Is the final hot weather date for the Jack Benny show as well as Phil Baker's, and both re- turn to the air the same night next season. Clark Luther Steps Up Davenport, March 24. Personnel at WOC here has un- dergone a revamping, major change being that Clark Luther, heretofore commercial manager, is now assum- ing the unfilled post of station man- ager. Morgan Sexton, program di- rector, moves into the commercial department and additionally be- comes publicity director. Kenneth Gfeller meantime leaves WHO, Des Moines, to take over traffic, and program chores at WOC. Americans in Berlin Berlin, Ma>-ch 18. Three American radio men are here making a study of Gorman radio and a hew television station. They are Dr. Max Gordan, NBC's European representative, C. W.. Horn, director of research and de- velopment for NBC, and Dr. R. L. Jolliffe, formerly chiet engineer, for the Federal Communications Com- mission and now director of RGA's frequency bureau. longf Eange Anticipation Cincinnati, March 24. Signs of spring? At L. B. Wil- son's WCKY they're far ahead of the season. National Carbon Co. just signed for spot announcements on its Prestone auto radiator anti- freeze to start October 19. Account through J. M. Malhes, lnc, Y, Lehn & Fink Goes 100% Live Spot Lehn & Fink' has become so thoroughly sold on the use of Hvo spot programs that it has decided to pass up network affiliation completely for the next year and ^concentrate its air appropriation for Hinds Honey Almond Cream and "Lysol onspot broadcasting. With the execution of this. new policy will come another change. Hinds Honey account is to be moved from Kc-nyon & Eckhurdt agency , to William Esty & Co. Decision to go spot all the way followed a survey which Lehn & Fink made oh the. contest response It got from both its spot place- ments and. the CBS series with Leslie Howard, In either instance Hinds H. &"A. Cream gave away a Pontine car each week, The ..'inquiries' that the spot programs pulled far exceeded the returns from the network show. As soon as the winter campaign on the cream has been com- pleted L. & ' F. will renew contracts with about .the 1 same list, of local stations nut with tub plug involving Lysol. The present* Columbia "hookup comprises 37 stations, while the outlets which are rounding out 26 weeks of local live program broadcasting for ' the same -cosmetic numbers 28. Lehn & Fink is now In the market for script shows. his search stems from the fact that the study of the contest responses on local .live shows showed that script programs outpulied all other types by a wide margin. " ' . Lehn & Fink proposes to keep some of-these Hinds & . A Cream shows going through the summer but with Lysol as the substituted plug. .. The Lysol spot stuff will be confined to the: large cities, but outside .of WGfN, Chicago, and WLW, Cincinnati, which will con- tinue indefinitely, the list Of stations has not been decided. Because of the restrictions which radio imposes on the product, L & F .will ■ move warily in placing the Lysol business, Same company is^.doing. some live spot testing- for Pefceco, having a show each -under the- toothpaste banner on WSB, Atlanta, an WLW. Eddie Cantor winds up for Pepeco-.the end of April. No renewal has been worked out with the comic for the coming fall. and Decisions Washington, March . 24.- New day transmitter, for New Albany, Ind., last week was okayed by. the broadcast division of the Federal Communications Commission. Sta- tion, owned by the North Side roadcasting Corp., will be Operated on 1370 kc with 250 watts. Extension of special experimental authority to operate days' with '2'/4' kw, was granted WDAE, Tampa, Fla., and license of KREG, Santa Ana, Cal., was renewed until July 1. Harry H. Culver, Beverly Hills, Cal., lost his application for new sta«i tion to be operated on 710 kc with 600 watts, for failure to show. ■ Commish relented, however, in the case of. WLAK; Lakeland,. Fla., an* okayed plans for a new station to be operated on 1310 kc with 100'watts. Transmitter, which had previously failed to comply with Commish rules but now is toeing the line. The following applications were referred to. examiners; Station WWAE, Hammond,. Ind., change of hours Of operation from sharing unlimited with WFAM, South Bend, Irid.,\ to sharing nights; Waterloo Times-Tribune Publishing Co., Waterloo, la., new experimental bi-padcasting station, to be operated on 1550 kc with 1 kw, using antenna array of special design; Times Publishing Co., St. Cloud, Minn., new station to be operated on 1420 kc with 100 watts. — Examiners' Reports Problems of WOOD and WASH,. Grand Rapids, Mich., stations sharin the same transmitter, were mediated by Examiner Melvin H. Palbc-r who took under advisement their- squabble with W.FBR, Baltimore, an managed to divide the 1'equested assignment among all three. Trio operates on the same 1270 kc frequency, each using 600 watts, and simultaneously applied for a boost to 1 kw. Finding Michigan's State and Zone quotas are considerably under the limit days, and that Mary- land daytime interference would be only slight, Dalberg recommended denial of night time operation for all three stations but advocated that daytime boost be granted. Nighttime interference from WJDX, Jackson, Miss., would result from granting the full request, Dalberg pointed out. Troubles of KVI, Tacoma, Wash.-, which must move from its present location to make way for flood control projects, were .Increased by un» favorable recommendation of Examiner Ralph L. Walker. New site pro* posed by the station, was not approved by Walker, because of program duplication with a.Seattle station, and an increased coverage in the north- ern part of the State, where it Is not needed. Big daytime juice-jump also was frowned on, since State of Washington 'Is now assigned ap- proximately 13% more than its equitable share of broadcast facilities for daytime operation.' Station, which is owned by the Puget Sound Broadcasting Co., im\, expanded since 1928 from a 50-watter to its; present power of J However, 'the transmitter, antenna and ground System now used by station have remained substantially .unchanged since 1929,' Walker', port points out. Located on sandy soil which gives poor transmission, KAT has been In a tough spot—through constant danger from floods and thrush inability to increase its 150-foot- antenna because of proximity to an airway. Sta- tion requested permission to locate on Vashon Island, install new equip* jnent and jump its day power from 1 to 5 kw. Tuscaloosa, Ala., will get its first broadcast station' if the Cominissh passes on recommendations of Examiner John P. Branihall for a smallid to be operated days on 1200 kc, by James R. Doss, Jr. Describing Tuscaloosa transportation facilities as 'three rail lines, Warrior River barge line and four paved highways,' Bra hi hall's report tells of the practical isolation of the small southern city from normal radio entertainment. Underquota condition exists both slate and zone, report points out." Plea of Champaign News-Ga7,ette, Inc., Champaign, 111., for a station (. to be operated on 1370 kc with 100 watts wras seconded, in part,-by Examiner George H, Hill. Application for unli itod hours should ho cut to daytime only, Hill decreed, since Illinois night quotas are heavily over* subscribed. Inauguration of nighttime service and jump in day power to -."0 watts, from 100 watts — requested- by KVSO. Ardmore, Okla., likewise wa*' trimmed to 'daytime only,' by Examiner R. H. I-Iyde. At present operat- ing oh 1210 kc with 100 watts, days only, KVSO requested unlimited houi* and the daytime increase in power. Finding Oklahoma's night quotas over-burdened by 29% In the third zone and 17% in the stale zone. Hyde ruled that only grants possible would be for daytime, which is un " der quota. — Wiltard J. Purcell, chief engineer of W(.iY, Schenectady, is slowly re- covering from pneumonia. Bernard Krucger lias charge in Purceils absence. Bill Lawrence, once with M>? Lincoln (Neb.) Siar here, has in the short space of three weeks son from the AP to KFAB and the" 19 VV'PA. fa