Variety (May 1941)

Wednesday, May 28, 1941 RADIO S3 Inside Stuff-Radio •Speaking of Books,' series handled on WGY, Schenectady, N. Y., by Richard J. Lewis, has recently been the battle ground between several name writer giiests. Latest was a tUI between Rockwell Kent and James T. Farrell, who tangled on the program when Farrell criticized Kent's recent book. Some time previously Gontran da Poncins, author of the best-selling 'Kabloona,' exchanged verbal shafts with Sir Hubert Willpns when the latter threw wet blankets on his book. 'Speaking of Books' was formerly heard over WABY, Albany, under the title, "The Book of the Week.' Broadcaster Lewis is book reviewer for Hearst's Albany Times Union. 'Candle In the Wind,' the Maxwell Anderson play which Is slated for fall production • ■\frith Helen ■ Hayes in the lead, has a title relative in a dramatic serial which Transamerican has already auditioned for several prospective commercials. Transamerlcan's script, authored by Nick Daw- son, Is tagged 'Candle in the Wind.' Several episodes have been waxed and Transamerican doesn't Intend to change the title because of the Anderson development. Weber's Slant Fred Weber, general manager of the Mutual Network, took recognition Monday (26) of the pamphlet reprint , of the speech which Mark Ethridge, of WHAS, Louisville, made before the re- cent convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, by reminding the Mutual stations which resigned from the associ- ation that it was 'their money the N.A3. had used to print and ; ,inail out a speech attacking their • network.* Weber's comment was in the form of a letter. Baroness Helene Von Polenz, who has made sundry appearances on New York radio stations as Interviewee and commentator, is dropping the . Germanic title in favor of the original Polish version. Hereafter she will be Baroness Polenzskl. Refugee has a deal pending with Station WBNY, the merged set-up of three Brooklyn smallies which has taken over the old quarters of WOV on 43d street in Manhattan. The boys in the band at the Cavalry Replacement Training Center at Fort Riley, Kansas, need a P. A. system. Anyone who has an old one to spare communicate with Pvt. Hal Schenker at Headquarters Bldg. there. Dunlap Feeds (not Seeds, as wrongly named) is specializing In local show for Its current campaign. Account's agency is Young & Rubicam. Show Costs Down -Continued from page 23; Trade CommKsion Analyzes Radio Advertising; Finds Big Markets Proportionately Worst Offenders Ward Wbeelock agency has been assigned by Colgate-Palmollve-Peet to handle the advertising of the latter's new product, Vel, effective June 1. SoothCarolina State Senator Strikes At Charleston Air-Press lonopoly Charleston, S. C May 27. WTMA, recently acquired by the. Jointly-owned Charleston News and, Courier and the Evening Post, has with the two dallies themselves be- come the target of a State senatorial i attack. The charge levelled at the I threesome is that they are 'a dan-| gerous monopoly.' A resolution^ adopted by the Senate asks State Attorney General John Daniel to rule on whether the state's anti-trust and^ monopoly laws apply to 'com- binations of newspapers, news serv- ices and radio stations.* Senator Cotesworth P. Means, who inspired the resolution, told the house I that he thought the 'evil lay in the' political and financial setup of the; papers. He charged that the two^ papers would not cooperate with WSCS, Charleston, and would not publish the latter's programs except! as' paid advertisements, but that not only were the programs of WTMA printed but these newspapers car- ried 'big advertisements' about their | station. In his statement on the floor Sen- ator Means siaid he was giving a month's notice to the news services used by the paper (the Associated; Press, the United Press and the In- ternational News Service) to 'clean' up the situation' or else legislative' action would follow. There are other; newspapers in the state that own and operate stations but the Senator made no mention of them. Political implications of Senator' Means attack was reflected In his reference to W. W. Ball, editor ofi the News and Courier. Means said' that the editor acted as though he were the political .inanager of some opposition party (South Carolina Is 98% Democratic) in running candi- dates for the legislature. Editorial comment, the Senator added, was •all on the same subject of prov- ing the legislature is imworthy, in- competent and dishonest,' and in his opinion 'the substances of such edi- torials Is wrong, imwholesome and destructive.' Jacksonville, Dlinois, Granted 250-Watter Washington, May 27. Rivalry over new broadcast sta- tions for Jacksonville, 111., and River- side, Cal., was terminated last week when the Federal Communications Commission made its choice between four applicants. Final okay was given Hobart Stephenson, Milton Edge and Edgar J. Korsmeyer for a daytime transmitter at Jacksonville to be operated on 1150 kc with 250 watts, Stephenson and Edge have for several years been interested in ob- taining a license, Commlsh ex- plained, and 'have taken the initia- tive' in attempting to furnish the area with broadcast facilities. Their application also was filed two months prior to that of Helen L. Walton and Walter Bellatti, a partnership seek- ing the same facilities. New London, Conn. — Francis Garufy left chief engineer's post at WNLC for transmitter Job with WOR, N. Y. Walter J. Tucker, Jr., of Mystic, replaces In New IlK)ndon and Harold Michaels of N. Y. has also been added to WNLC staff. catch on. For a long time they used: bridge lessons, etiquette lessons, and cooking lessons as daytime enter-j tainment It never got anywhere.' Only when the 'out of this world', serial was invented did daytime radio get really big. So the serials- should not be sold short. They have I genuine staying power. | For the rest, the statistics show only minor variations in minor, types of programs. The big point is \ Uiat the name stars—or what is left of them—are on the descent, and that all replacements are distinctly on the cheap side. That means, of course, that radio must either get new name stars or else toy around with tons and tons of easily-consumible corn.' The trend may also refiect itself quite adversely on the size of listen-' ing audience unless checked pretty soon. I The following definitions should be borne in mind in reading the ac- | companying five - year program ' charts: | Badlo Season: This is computed as | running from June to June. Thus i the 1940-41 season runs from -June ' 1, 1940, to June 1, 1941. I Station Hour: Variety uses a sys- ! tem for automatically weighting pro- grams both by length of broadcast and size of hookup. A 'station hour' ' is really one hour over one station one time. Therefore a 30.-minute program broadcast once weekly over 50 stations is counted as 25 station hours; and a five-a-week serial broadcast over 40 stations in 15-min- ute segments is counted as 50-station hours. Unless a system such as this is used, program categories could never be computed. For the reader will immediately see that it would be false to call 10 dramatic pro- grams simply '10' when some of them may be 15 minutes long, oth- ers 30 minutes long, still others 60 minutes long, and all varying in size of network hookup. Size of hookup used for this com- putation is' the maximum number of stations used at any time during the radio season. Totals are cumulative. That is, under 'drama,' for instance, all drama programs' for the entire season are added together. Program Categories: These afe generally self-explanatory. The main objective of the program is what classifies It. Thus the Lux Radio Theatre is classified as 'drama,' al- though there sometimes is enough by-play in the program to make it seem like 'variety.' On the whole, however, the dramatic side predom- inates and hence the 'drama' classifi- cation. (These categories, developed by Variett, are now also used by the Cooperative Analysis of Broad- casting, and undoubtedly may soon be the standard nomenclature of the Industry). A few of the more difficult cate- gories will be explained here: 'Audience participation' includes all programs' in which the audience either broadcasts, or votes (as In the Major Bowes program), or com- petes for a prize. 'Familiar music' covers catchy tunes with a reminis- cent angle; thus the Stephen Foster melodies, cowboy songs, and 'Down by the Old Mill Stream' are 'familiar music,' but recent popular melodies are definitely not. 'Comedy teams' are two-person serials such us Amos 'n' Andy and "Ezzj Aces (Burns & Allen, on the other hand, are 'va- riety' because their show includes much more than Burns and Allen). 'Single Act' Is one-person entertain- ment, such as Tony Wons, etc. 'Song- patter' teams are what the name im- plies, and Include such acts as Tim and Irene, etc. AH other categories are deemed sufficiently clear per se to need no further explanation. NATT KltMSIHTAllVIS nuniiiijx nmT jAcsfoir* 4«,M« MZN Washington, May 27. Broadcasting stations in the big- gest cities, not the smallies who have been the object o£ finger-point- ing by various industry reformers, are more liable to transgress the rules against unfair or misleading advertising, according to a Federal Trade Commission review of its 1940 script scrutinizing. 'Summary re- leased Monday (26) showed that while only a microscopic fragment (1.87%) of the ogled continuities contained material that was consid- ered questionable, the biggest batch of material deemed to need ipore careful Inspection came from 94 transmitters in 15 cities with popu- lation over 500,000. (Which casts doubt on the assertions of strutting spokesmen for the big boys that they have the highest scruples and it's the small competitors who are Irre- sponsible about checking on the blurbs.) The number of continuities exam- ined by the F.T.C. censors varied for. the different classes of stations, but the tabulation was properly, weighted so that each group of transmitters (on the basis of popu- lation of the place where they were, situated) was responsible for one- sixth of the total copy checked. By Popnlation | Out of 115,304 continuities sub- , mitted by the outlets in cities over 500,000, a total of 3.0% was marked 'questionable' and subjected to close examination. The F.T.C. marked 'questionable' 2.4% of the 93,682 pieces of copy from 79 stations in 25 cities between 250,000 and 500,- 000; 1.5% of 126,522 pieces from 93 { stations In 42 cities between 100,000; and 250,000; 1.9% of 109,292 pieces' from 103 stations in 76 cities be-! tween 50,000 and 100,000; 1.4% of 91,827 pieces from 108 statiohs In 103 cities between 25,000 and 50,000; and 1.1% of 164,570 pieces from 241 sta- tions in 239 cities under 25,000. The Commish report dealt only, with non-network copy (both local | and national spot), in order to avoid i duplication, and was not concerned with chain ballyhoo as far as the' stations and their markets were in- volved. Out of 50,863 pieces of copy from the webs, the Commish foimd 16.8%, or 8,485 samples, warranted further checking. Script from tran- scribed programs was 'questionable' in 9.5% of the cases. Proportion of national network advertising set aside for additional inspection was higher than in th« case of scripts from regional webs. Survey showed 19.8% of the 33,122 commercial continuities obtained from the nation-wide combos (rep- resenting all of their sponsored ma- terial) looked at first glance as though It should be sapolloed, but only 11.1% of the 17,741 pieces of script from 13 regional skeins was tagged for investigation. WCAU's/Gronnd Schoor Reaps- Ahunni Crop Philadelphia, May 27. The first commencement of WCAU's aviation ground school was held last Friday; (23) with 250 stu- dents receiving 'diplomas.' The stu- I dents, 16 to 60, completed 40-hour courses in basic air subjects con- ducted by Dr. Lloyd Bohn, professor of aeronautics at Temple University. Ten of the graduates' received ten- hour flight scholarships offered by Philly airports. Due to the interest shown In the school, held in the WCAU auditorium. It was decided to continue It 'next fall. Speakers at the graduation exer- cises were: Captain Jack Knight, United Airlines; R, S. Gall, Brewster Aircraft Corp., and Captain E. M. Pace, of the U. S. Naval aricraft factory here. San Antonio—KABC added Vir- ginia Puri^ell to continuity, Edward Klnslo to merchandising and Stan- ley Lucas to engineering staffs. Mlsa Purnell comes from WLW, Cincin- nati, while Lucas comes from KTSA here. 1% Schenectaay. — Robert Warner, WGY's news department, resigned and left for Corpus • Christl, Tex., where he will sell electric refrigera- tor!. mu ¥Sii 9eu /rp A BIG appetite is £ne... when ^ou can afford to satisf7 it. And the follcs in "America's Money Belt" are happy about the whole thing, when they get up from the table. For flour alone they spend enou^ to ransom & king, and a couple of dictators for good measure. 'Why not step right up and mix yourself a batch of the dough that makes the "Money Belt" the nation's best bet for advenisers? The recipe calls for one medium ... the four- way voice of The Cowles Stations, specially prepared. We're doing it for others, every day. 'Write, we'll tell you the secret. WHICH OF THESI DO YOU SELL7. Anniul RdM Stlit in "AmtttUi Moiuy Bth" Cuuicd Fub ...»10,188,579.30 AU Cerealt . 2I.39<>.016.<4 Cunaei Milk .. 27,370,3j55.09 SboneniDgi (Vegetable ud Salad Oils) (not iadudiog lard) .. 31,20<7,919.20 All Perfuma and Cosmctia 17.21).412.<)ti All Soapj. 39.197.763.40 All .Candcd Fnilt and ■Vce5Ublcs47.731,971.20 Tobicto . 85,649.799.31