Variety (Jul 1939)

Wednesday, July 26, 1939 RADIO VARIETY 81 ASCAP AS 'LOCAL' ISSUE MINTT-RUBNOW SPOT-MINDED Bristol-Myers is planning an ex- tensive spot campaign for Minit-Rub witli newscasts as the major pro^- gram item. During the past season the account included Minit-Rub among the three products plugged on the Fred Allen show. Young & Rubicam is the aigency, Aaspitz Joins Erwin With Cadahy Account; Adolph Lee in Hosp. Chicago, July 25. Most of the Cudahy Packing ac^ count has moved into the Erwin- Wasey agency under the eye of ac- count executive Irving Auspitz, who has moved, into the E-W outfit as v.p. here. Auspitz has resigned as president of the Auspitz & Lee agency which remains entirely in the hands of Adolph Lee. Despite the resignation of Auspitz, the A. & L. agency will retain that corporate name due to its long usage In the business. E-W has all of the food products of Cudahy; the Old Dutch portion of the account remains with the Roche, Williams Sc Cunnyngham agency lo- cally. Old Dutch is on the ether with the network ride of 'Bachelor's Children' program. Adolph Lee is seriously ill in Michael Reese hospital here. Was operated on last week. ^MOTEEASE'OirWAr FOR PACIFIC REPEAT Canada Dry's 'Information Please' program will henceforth be broad- cast from recordings on the west coast. The show will be disked oft the line and aired at a later hour the same day (Tuesday). NBC's broadcast reaches the Coast at 4:30 in the' afternoon and the ac- count figures that the show's pulling power is that area is badly handi- capped by lack of an evening audi- ence. Oshkosh Overalls on 10 Stations in Late Summer Milwaukee, July 25. Oshkosh Overall Co. starting In late summer will use a varying schedule of spots on about 10 sta- tions. Last season the schedule consisted of five weekly quarter- hour periods, but program length is undetermined as yet for the com- ing schedule. Handled by Ros" Metzger, radio director of Ruthrauff & Ryan. SELF-REGULATION IS AN ART The action of the Atlantic City convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in ratifying a code and embarking on the seas of self-regulation gives historic significance to the recommendations made Nov. 14, 1938, by David Sarnoff, president of RCA and board chairman of NBC. In a series of public ut- terances in the last year or two Sarnoflf has consistently opposed the Government drift to censorship and, with equal force, has insisted upon the ability of the radio industry to gov- ern itself. It was while testifying before the Federal Communications Commission last fall that Sarnoflf said: The fate of broadcasting in other nations and the attacks on democracy throughout the world clearly indicate the necessit-y-for finding a democratic solution for the problems of the American system of broadcasting-^a solution which on the one hand will enable us fully to meet the social obli- gations of radio, and on the other, will protect our traditional freedoms. 'I would therefore like to take this opportunity to advocate to the broad- casting industry that it establish a' voluntary system of self-rcgulation in its field of public service, and that it take the necessary steps to niake that self-regulation eflfective. 'My recommendation is that the ex- perience of the different groups within the industry should now be. combined and correlated. An indus- try code should emerge that advances beyond all previous standards. Such a code should be an act of voluntary §5lf~rc^la"tlT)yrT5ir^lTe~p"jn^""o^ en- tire broadcasting industry in the United States. 'In writing this code, the industry should gather the views of broadcast- ers, of groups representative of public _ opinion, and of this Commission. After the code is formulated the pub- lic should be piade thoroughly fa- miliar with it. All broadcasting net- works and stations should be invited and encouraged to adopt it. The code should be subject to periodic review by the industry, and kept tip to date. It should be administered by a suit- able agency representative of the en- tire industry.' 'CALLING ALL POETS' Alka-SeUzer's Prize Lure (or Verse Makers In Ft Wayne Ft. Wayne. July 25. Alka-Seltzer is sponsoring over WOWO here a 'Calling All Poets' program with Oliver B. Capelle, Alka-Seltzer's sales promotion head, acting as 'poetry professor' and Frank Carlton Nelson, Indiana bard, as judge. Best serious and best com- edy poem wins cash. Two singers, Jeane Roth and Lil- lian Lane, complete program. GEORGE HAEN PROMOTED Sioux Falls, S. D., July 25. George Hahn has been boosted to job as assistant manager of statipns KSOO and KELO by general chief- tain Joseph Henkin. Hahn has been associated with the stations, which are NBC affiliates, for several years as commercial manager and his new appointment will find him handling sales as well as assisting Henkin in policy and general operation. It may still be too soon to gauge the full reaction to the N. A. B. code, but that the in- dustry—heretofore notoriously unable to unite on anything—could adopt more than pious am- biguities and did, within six months of Sar- noflf's urging, bespeaks a good start. It is of a parcel with the new stififcning represented by the courageous opposition to the attempt by the F. C. C. to impose specific 'rules' and 'guides' to what may or may not be broadcast to foreign countries by the shortwave divisions of the American' broadcasting units. This 'censorship' thing is no mere play on words or theoretical hair-splitting over prin- ciples. The fury of office-holders at the 'im- pudence' of private interests in challenging the attempted usurpation'of authority is in itself proof that the broadcasters have rightly sus- pected intentions to gradually go way beyond anything the present law sanctions and, per- haps with laudable motivations, to curtail do- mestic freedom of action on the plea that it's part of the fight against foreign autocrats. While there have been sins of good taste in radio they have been remarkably few. The industry flutters like an aspen leaf in the breeze of any adverse public reaction. The radio in- dustry ts, in fact,-far more sensitive and re- sponsive to public opinion than are maiiy -elected representatives of the people. The recent agitation of clubwomen—part of it ex- aggerated, some of it foolish, a lot of it idle parrot-talk-—has brought~ab5^ut"prompf accept- ance of the valid points of criticism. In the coming months the kid programs will be con- fined to new and distinctly tough require- ments. The case of General Mills' 'Jack Armstrong', as recently reported in Variety, is a notable example of radio acccptmg public opinion. GOOD POLITICS TO fillP'CITySLICKEfi' Washington Hears Dept. of Justice Will Renew Pros- ecution Suit of ASCAP Dormant Since 1935—Be- hind-the - Scenes Activity Intensifies PRESSURE Radio does outlaw practices that become ob- jectionable, it does self-regulate once the need is clear, it does admit the rnajority's will as paramount. This willingness arid ability to rec- ognize 'the people' is in turn part of the story why the people, in the mass, hold for radio an intimate affection practically without parallel anywhere else. So long as radio is realistic and flexible enough to stay attuned to public sentiment, and so long as the majority of lis- teners feel as they obviously do, most of the -blasts-ag-ainst-the-industry-by-friistcat£d-sel£=- seekers or other malcontents will fall on sterile ground. Sooner or later a new basic Federal radio law will have to be written. The Hatch bill that attempts to divorce WPA and politics may well be the spiritual godfather of a distant bit of now-unforeseen legislation to lessen the present overwhelming domination of political wire-pulling as a prerequisite to getting on the air, staying on the air, or improving the con- ditions of tenure. For, whatever may be said against the Washington radio, smell, past or present, it has been and is a condition created by lawmakers and law-interpreters quite as much as any pri- vate entrepreneurs seeking valuable franchises to use the air. Apd this is fairly clear: The broadcasters have become progressively more responsive to public opinion and they have been reasonably consistent in observing their own rules, a claim that the F. C. C. itself could perhaps not make in its own behalf. Self-regulation is an art requiring skill, deft- ness and perspective. The radio industry ns^ demonstrated a composite flair along these lines not always evident in the past. SarnofT's leadership has been important. NBC Cooperates in a Gen'l Community Effort to Sell N. Y. Fair to Country Some mystery surrounds the de- tails of the commercial program series which is being launched today (Wednesday) in behalf of the New York World's Fair over the NBC red (WEAF) link. What Is de- scribed as 'a group of Fair bond- holders' has underwritten Floyd Gibbons for a series of sales talks on the exposition. It's for five quar- ter-hours a week'over a period of nine weeks. The move is the first in an intense campaign to hypo at- tendance, which, the Fair heads ad- mit, has fallen far under the esti- mated figures. It is reported that about the only factors collecting on the series are Gibbons and the stations. Indica- tions that the network itself, wasn't profiling from the hookup were given last week when Mutual, hear- ing about the deal, wanted to know why it wasn't getting some of the business. . Mutual was informed that the Fair authorities weren't spend- ing the money and that NBC wasn't cashing in on the series, Gibbons did a similar group of proOTams In connection with tfie ChiMgo World's Fair but under the banner of the Palmer House, Chi hostelry. He and a stnff of four as- sistants will be housed on the ground of the N. Y. Fair, whence the daily broadcasts will originate. Lord & Thomas is the agency on the series. REED KENNEDY AT KDKA Pittsburgii, July 25. Reed Kennedy is back at KDKA, j Pittsburgh, for the summer. Has a Sunday afternoon spot and also sings on Maurice Spitalny's beer program. Before becoming a network bari- tone, Kennedy got his radio spurs at KDKA. Fred Saviers of KDKA has joined . WesHnghouse in Baltimore. - .. Washington, July 25. Behind the scenes here at Wash- ington, .and with conduits back to home" States in the south and-far west, there is going on at the pres- ent time a renewed burst of activity in the long ' campaign to dethrone the principle of performance rights in music copytlght as now em- bodied in the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers. The latter Is being assiduously biillt up In the minds of members of Congress as the villain incarnate of all monopoly. Some of the poli- ticians from rural or sparsely set- tled states are quick to detect the political possibilities of attacking ASCAP as 'city slickers from New York.' Such a- division of the is- sue in terms the public—rather than the trade—would understand' is one of the psychological factors that has ASCAP worried. It thrusts for- ward the confusion-creating ele' ment of a Federal problem, vast, and involved, getting kicked around -in—the-vagarie3-of^home-st*te-^ppli-- tics. At the moment there Is small. likelihood that any congressman would take on, in this kind of weather, this technical detail and thankless labor of basic copyright revision. Although lacking such willingness to go to town for the radio broadcasting Industry many legislators are nevertheless friendly. ASCAP has as many anxieties, and on as many fronts, as the prime minister of Great Britain. .Prosecution Due Meantime renewed Federal pros-. ecution of ASCAP looks more probable than passage by Congress of any bill modifying the copyright law. Forgotten suit initiated - back in 1935 is being dusted off for presentation to the U. S. District Court in New York during the Tall term. Introduction of a bill by Senator Burton K. Wheeler, foe of the copy- right pool and the broadcasters alike, revising the damage award provisions of the present statute, doesn't mean much. Congress will run home before.any. consideration . can be given to legislation. But be- fore the law-makers return, the Jus- tice- Department is almost certain to revive the attack which was sus- pended for taking of stipulation (os- tensibly).a few days.after trial be- gan. The situation here Is. as follows: 1. The NAB, with negotiations over contract renewals still in progress, is secretly egging on both the D. J. and Congress. 2. Pressure has been exerted to force Attorney General Murphy to move soon to break up the alleged 'monopoly' on music. 3. The so-called 'compromise bill* bringing the copyright laws up to date is on the desks of several legis- lators, but nobody is interested enough—or friendly enough—to jjut it in the hopper. Even if they did, It would not receive any attention this year. 4. Opinion of Associate Justice Hugo L. Black in the recent Supreme Court side-stepping of the Florida copyright suit has e^ged on the New Dealers. Declaring that such or- ganizations should be curbed, the for- mer Alabama Senator voiced ideas which tantalized the Justice Depart- ment, catching the eye of Attorney (Continued on page 55)