Variety (May 1941)

Wednesday, May 28, 1941 RADIO 2S H SHOW COSTS DOWN Five-Year Picture of Evening Programs , 1940^ ) Station Hn. Type of Program No, Far Week VARIETY .....42 1,587 DRAMA V ...44 1,190 AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 41 1,117 POPULAR MUSIC .- 21 789^ NEWS & NEWS COMMENTATORS. 37 686 FAMILIAR MUSIC 11 340 CLASSICAL MUSIC 5 .128 COMEDY TEAMS ^2 106 RELIGION 1 76 SEMI-CLASSICAL MUSIC 4 66 SPOJRTS COMMENT 8,. 63 NOVELTY 1 55 TALKS, GOSSIP, INSTRUCTION.... 5 51 BRASS BAND MUSIC. SINGLE ACT .. Bob Berger's Status As loweM MeOett Assistant .Clouded by Amendment Washington, May 27. Fate ot the New Deal's radio book- ing office is uncertain as a result of a unanimously - adopted Senate amendment to the HllI-O'Leary bill giving the Office of Government Re- ports (formerly the National Emer- gency Council) -permanent status. Issue is being threshed out currently in a House-Senate conference with Administration leaders trying to get a new lease on life tor the unit rep- resented by Robert I. Berger, one- time radio director of the Demo- cratic National Committee. Ban on any radio activities was in- corporated in the legislation upon motion of Senatpr Robert A. Taft, Ohio Republican, with absolutely no discussion of the radio activities. Senator Lister Hill, Democrat, of Alabama, accepted the injunction, saying he saw no objection to taking It to conference. Hill spOke solely, however, about the phraseology re- lating to motion pictures, not to that ,part which would put a stop to Berger's work. Though all radio functions of the old N.E.C. supposedly were moved to. the Office of Education when the latter was made part ot the Federal Security Administration two years ago, the O.GJl.—^technically a wing ot the Executive Office—^has been extremely alive In the broadcasting field. Besides scheduling programs such .as President Roosevelt's fire- side chats, pickups from the Birth- day Ball, and Presidential appear- ances before Congress, the O.G.R has prepared the series of platters de- .£crlbing the work of almost every existing Federal department and in- dependent agency and numerous other transcribed sets claimed to be merely 'educational' or 'informative' but denounced often by Republicans as 'political propaganda'. Berger's Title Berger continues on the O.G.R. payroll at $7,500 a year with the title of 'special assistant' to Lowell Mel- lett, the director. His assistant. Miss Bea Andreen, Is a $4,600-a-year special assistant When the biU giving the agency permanent s.tatus (and up to $1,500,- 000 per annum) was up in the House, there was considerable rum- pus about' reports that Mellett threatened to bring about the gag- ging of Fulton Lewis, Jr., commen- tator for Mutual Broadcasting Sys- •lenf The Senate, though, paid no attention to this incident during last year's national political' campaign and there was only casual reference during the debate to the radio^opera- tions ot the agency: WLW Staging Specs For Ohio State Fair Cincinnati, May 27. Grandstand spectacle for this year's Ohio State Fair will be an American musical cavalcade show, 'By Dawn's Early Light,' proauced by WLW Promotions, Inc., booking subsidiary of Crosley's 50,000 wai- ter. The extravaganza will entail the services of more than 100 peo- ple. It will be produced and di- rected by Howard Tooley, who was special events director ot last year's New York's World Fair. With it will be a large Littlefleld ballet. Bill McCluskey, WLW's booking chief, closed the deal last week with John T. Brown, Director of Agricul- ture, and Win Kinnan, manager of the Ohio State Fair. WLW's-Boone County Jamboree, rural show, will be the fair's open- ing night feature in the arena, the same as for the past tew years. RANSOM SHERMAN, SUB FOR TIBBER McGEE' FIVE-yEim TREi Only Seven Audience ParticI* pation Shows in 1936-37 Season — 41 During Pres- ent Season — Jump in Night Drama — Meantime Daytime Serials Hav« Risen From 45 to 75 NEWS: 3 TO 37 Chicago, May 27. - Ransom Sherman, Chicago radio ^mic, has been picked by Needham, Louis & Brorby agency to head the summer replacement for 'Fibber Mc- Gee and Molly.' Program to origi- nate here will have a variety for- mula. Sherman has been appear- ing on 'Club Matinee' and other Chi- cago shows. Cecil Underwood, producer of "Fib- ber,' will forego his sabbatical to handle the sliow. Likely that Billy Mills, music conductor, and Harlow Wilcox, announcer, will move over to the summer show, which tees up July 1. Dallas' Fourth Station Dallas, May 27. After failing in first attempt for an outlet here, the Chilton Radio ' Corp., filed a new 'application with the Federal Communications Com- mission and was granted a construc- tion permit to erect a new station here. Station will operate on 1660 kilocycles with a power of 1,000 watts on daytime operation only. Permit is subject to final approval of certain engineering-data. This gives this city a total ot four stations. Each an outlet tor a dif- ferent web. They are WFAA, KRLD and WRR. Kate Smith Gives Radio Philadelphia, May 27. In honor of Kate Smith's tenth an- niversary on the air, WCAU pre- ■ sented radio -receiver in her name to the Naval Hospital here. The pres- I entation was made in the presence of 400 patients last Thurs. (22) by Dr. Leon Levy, WCAU prexy, to Cap- tain H. L. DoUard, commandant of the hospital A plaque with Miss Smith's name on it was tacked on to the radio. Several minutes after the presen- tation the radio was tuned in to Kate's ■ program, which was dedi- cated to the Philly Naval Hospital. The program was piped to bedridden patients via earphones. HUGH HERBERT DISCS Brisacher, Davis Overtares Film Actor for Deal Like Baggies. San Francisco, May 27. Brisacher, Davis agency is dicker- ing with Hugh Herbert tor a new transcription series, 'Standing Room Only.' This follows agency's syn- dicated beer show) 'Barrel ot Fun,' using Charles Ruggles. New Herbert show will have a struggling-stock-company back- ground and is brain-child ot Walt Purdon. W. Lee O'Daniel Tunes Up San Antonio, May 27. Gov. W. Lee O'Daniel will Inaug- urate a new series of half-hour Sun- day morning broadcasts over station KTSA. Politics, philosophy and oc- casional bits of religious music by his famous hill billy band, included. O'Daniel has announced that he will enter the race for the Senate seat vacated by the recent death of Morris Sheppard. Connery Proposes Levies On Radio Running to 20^;' Aiong Lmes of Hagerty Washington, May' 27. Federal tax on gross incomes ot radio stations, agitated repeatedly in i recent weeks by the printing trades . labor unions, is before the ' House Ways & Means Committee In new ! form now. Rep. Lawrence D. Con- > nery, Massachuset|s Democrat, in- troduced a bill Tuesday (20) carry- ing out the ideas voiced a day' '.earlier by John B. Hagerty, presi- ' dent of the allied crafts, with levies running to 20%. The Connery bill, offered as a per- manent amendment to existing rev- enue statutes rather than a feature ot emergency legislation designed to help defray costs of national defense, also would place a statutory limit on commissions allowed ad^rtlsirtt; agencies. In figuring the gross in- come subject to tax, the Bay Stater specified that agency cuts cannot ex- ceed 15% of total time sales. The suggested addition to present laws would levy 20% 'amusement tax' on stations with an annual take' exceeding $500,000; 19% on plants' taking In $250,000 to $500,000; and 10% on those grossing from $150,000 to $250,000. If 'approved, this would be espe- cially hard on proprietors of more ^ than one station, inasmuch as Con- ' nery's measure stipulates that a net- work or group of plants 'owned, controlled or operated by. substan-' tially the same Interests,' shall be treated tor tax purposes as a single- unit. ; Quiz KidsV Ohio Date Chicago, May 27. NBC -Artists has set three name acts for the Miami 'Valley^Chatauqua in Ohio, starting with the Quiz Kids on June 29. H. 'V. Kaltenbom will appear on July 13 and John Charles Thomas on Aug. 17. CAMELS CHANGE YYETTE TO ILKA CHASE SHOW Yvette, singing portion of the Thursday Camel broadcasts, drops off that show after tomorrow's (28) broadcast and shifts over to the new show, debuting June 6 on CBS for same sponsor. She'll join Ilka Chase and Paul Baron's orchestra in a 10:30-11 p.m. slot Miss Chase and Baron former- ly were backed by Camel on Satur- day matinee shows from the Wal- dorf-Astoria hotel. New 'York. As was evident and predicted last fall, the radio season now drawing to its close produced no startling changes in network commercial pro- gram content - It was practically an encore on the 1939-40 sea^n, barring a few minor ^ighlightc. .And yet, when a five-year comparison Is put together (as in the. adjoining charts^ compiled by 'Vabisty), it will be seen that commercial network radio is -really gradually undergoing a major revolution. The salient points ot this metamorphosis are as tol- lows: (1) 'Nighttime radio on the whole' is getting cheaper and cheaper in production values and costs. Where- as in 1936-37 there were 69 variety . programs—many ot them with. ex- pensive name stars—the past season accounted tor only 42. And of these 42 so many had hillbilly or other corny slants that perhaps in anotfier year 'variety* will have to be broken down into all sorts- of separate items. (2) In place of ' the. expensive variety show, a veritable deluge of dramatic and audience-partlcipa- - tion programs has been ushered in. By and large these programs are not expensive (nor sophisticated). 'Drama' is a word that covers a mul- tude of radio odds and ends. "Wearing Oat' (3) Barring drama and audience participation (and a bunch ot new- casters who are riding the war wave), radio has found no' replace- ments to fill up the dreaded "bearing out'' of the name stars. ■ In other words,-while the variety ca'tegoiry is getting smaller and smaller mainly, because -of the lack of new' name stars, cheap dra^natic and quiz re- placements show no real staying power. Even though they are rid- ing reasonably high (on statistics) they are not riding very hjgh in com- mon-sense long-term values. Next year may see a wholesale slaughter among this cheaper tare. This is, of course, a prediction, but It's based (among other things) on the catastrophe suffered by mystery, dramas about nine years ago. Mysteries—which were cheap., and spectacular—rode to tame over night, and theii burned out just as fast They had no staying power. [ (4) The daytime serials are stiU blissfully on top of the daytime, heap. This is not surprising, tor the serials have exactly the 'out' of this ! world' quality which women want. But U. S. advertisers were slow to ' (Continued on page 33) Five-Year Growth of Daytime Serials Type of Program KENTUCKY CLUB SEEKS LOCAL AIR CELEBS TALKS AND- FAMILIAR M H. M. Klesewetter agency is mak- ing inquiries tor sports and news programs on local stations In behalf of Kentucky Club tobacco. The requirements are that the se- ries be-framed around a personality that is well established with local listeners. HYMNS CLASSICAL MUSIC SONG-PATTER TEAMS. BRASS BAND MUSIC...