Variety (May 1946)

WnlnrflJay, May 22, 1946 IABIO 31 SRO SIGNS ON JUNK PILE NOW Solid Days Ahead , The Big Noise in radio today centers around the wave of commercial cancellations, as bahkrollers hit by shortages continue to run for cover. The retrenchments down the line were not unexpected, with radio one of the. several advertising media affected. The bowout- parade prob- ably reached its peak during trie past couple of weeks, when the agen- cies sang the Exit Blues to thetune of several million dollars. '" Bui the prevailing impression among the top agency arid network execs is that the whole radio programming picture.is due for a healthy . reshaping in the not too distant future; that.'when the thinking has been crystallized, it's the old reliables with multiple products to peddle who will be right back on top of the heap. The shortages in fats, oils, soaps, wheal, etc. may cause Lever Bi os, or General'Foods to tem- porarily pull in the reins, goes the thinking: but once the cloud of uncertainty is lifted, these are the boys who will again move in with . their lop-budgeted operations.. In the case of Levers, the anticipated ascendancy of Charles Luckman. who has been radio-minded from 'way back, to the presidency, is cited as but one omen of the better days aliend. The current tobogganing of billings adds up. for the most part, to the demise of the "gravy train'' operations in radio: the fadebut of the low ceiling, tax-dollar shows thai were selling prestige in lieu of mer- chandise. From here on in, it will be less prestige and more product peddling. Levers m Big Pullout; 'Big Sister (800G) Gets Quick P&G Pkkup Lever Bros, has cancelled "Big t Sister," one of its brace of CBS day- time strip shows, effective June 21, relinquishing the 15-minute cross- the-board period. It< represent a ta00.000 retrenchment on time and talent, with Levers, now crowding General Foods lor top. position in (he wholesale commercial exodus from radio. Within a few hours after Levers unloaded "Sister," Proctor & Gam- ble picked up the lab, effective July 1. with the quick grabup offering evidence anew that the solid pro- gramming fare with a sure rating payoff can command sponsor re- spect. The Julian Funt "Big Sister" package. heard 12:13-12:30. has been one . of the "old reliables" of the daytime "hangover formulae." LB also sponsors "Aunt Jenny" in the 11:45-noon segment, and latter will be moved into "Sister" time, Willi the sponsor abandoning the earlier-time slot. P&G has bought 11:43 for "Sister." The Lever Bros, picture thus looks set for some drastic overhaul- ing in the fall. Sponsor is drop- ping the Bob Burns Thursday night show on NBC, and wants to scrap the top-budgeted Joan Davis pack- age in the 8:30 Monday night slot on CBS. LB will retain the time bul put in a less expensive show. Remaining undisturbed will be the bank roller's Amos *n' Andy show, Bob Hope (Pepsodenti and Lux Radio Theatre, with its Lip- ton Tea commercial switching from "Inner Sanctum" to "Vox Pop." Razor Show Cuts Sharp Disputes Although the new Schick Razor Monday night (10:30) show On CBS, headed by Conn.ee . Boswell, Ted Husing and Ray Block's orch, is in on a six-week trial basis, already it's provoked a teries of "incidents" that's making it anything bul a smooth operation. First of all, Gil- lette broke out with a peeve rash over Husing signing up on behalf of a competing product. When the Biow agency, on behalf ot Schick, finally decided to give the show a whirl, after rejecting, the initially-auditioned stanza. Gillette, via the Maxon agency, put itself on record that Husing and .CBS were being unfair to a client that has long sponsored top-budgeted Husing spe- cial sports events. Show preemed last week (13) but it wasn't until the last minute that the program was whipped into fi- nal shape. Originally Jane Froman had been set for the femme vocal spot, bul she was'rejected by the client and on llth-hour notice Con- nee Boswell went into the show. Bundles for Britain Aside from the acute shortage of fats, which affects virtually, every Lever Bros! product, one of the principal factors in the LB radio retrenchment is the July 1 bowout of,the high excess profits tax in England.: Parent company of Levers in England, as result, has dropped the word to the Cambridge. Mass.. bosses to start shipping over some of the profit coin from the U. S. P&G Sees Farther Than Nose, Keeps $17,000,000 Slots Despite the fact that the new fall broadcasting season will witness a reshuffling of the top client bill- ings 'with agencies and networks, Proctor St Gdlnble will retain its No. 1 position with its $17,000,000 lime-lalent outlay. P&G is retaining its daytime and nighttime franchises on the major webs right down the line, instead of dropping shows, outfit has in- creased its billings with acquistion of the "Big Sister" show (re- linquished by Lever Bros.) and pur- chase of the 11:45-noon CBS slol. While PfcG recognizes that it tvon'l show a profit on its fats-in- gredient products until 1948,. it's looking beyond the "famine era" and doesn't see any percentage, in dropping the choice time slots on the networks. Race Problem Too Rich For War Dept Blood Gets Quick Y.A. Okay Less than a year ago CBS got a turndown from the War Dept. when it tried to put on its "Assignment Home" program a Negro tolerance- themed show scripted by Arnold Perl called "The Glass." Despite or- ganized protests from the Independ- ent Citizens' Committee and other groups, the War Dept. remained firm in its decision. Hence it was with something ap- proaching trepidation that the net- work sought clearance last week for ariather. Arnold Perl "Assignment Home" script, "the Biggest Crime," which reprises the same tolerance theme but is even broader in scope. This time, however, Gen. Omar Bradley, chief of the Veterans Ad- ministration, came through with a quick okay. As result "Crime" foes oh this Saturday (25;. GET WEB TIE The opening of choice time seg- ments on the major networks in the wake of the current retrenchment era is proving a boon to those ad- vertisers who. during the high-wide- and-handsome war years of radio prosperity, were either shoved out of the network programming picture or .had to content themselves with "fringe time" operations. Faced with the loss of millions of dollars in billings, the agencies, in an effort to fill the gaps on the ledger sheets, are. now romancing clients who previously couldn't get a look-in on the SRO webs. Similarly, the move is to attract bankrollers new to radio who have- something substantial to sell and are not .sna- fued production-wise by material shortages. At the same time, sponsors of coast-to-coasf programming who have not been drastically affected by the current situation are jockeying for position to strengthen their radio operations. Cited as but one illustra- tion is American Home Products, which has wrapped up a new CBS cross-the-board daytime show for a June preem and is now setting a deal for a top-budgeted show to ex- pand its nightime web programming. Friend* Come First Meanwhile the networks are show- ing a disposition to turn over va- cated cream time segments to estab- lished clients who contented them- selves with border niches through the boom days. CBS, for example, has turned over the 9 o'clock Thurs- day night slot vacated by the Chrys- ler-Kostelanetz show to Auto-Lite, which bankrolls the Dick Haymes program. Latter is moving over from the Saturday night 8 o'clock niche, which becomes vacant. In addition. Squibb has been given the nod to move its Academy Award Theatre on July 3 into the Wednesday night CBS slot being vacated by Celancse "Great Moments In Music." Several choice half-hours still re- main, open. General Electric bows off Sept. 1 with the Phil Spitalny show, leaving the 10 o'clock Sunday night NBC slot open. The Lewis- Howe Co. (Tumsl cancellation of the Agnes Moorehead show leaves the Sunday night at 8 CBS segment va- cant. Raleigh cigaret's announced in- tention of dropping the Hildegarde airer will leave the 8:30 Wednesday night NBC niche open. And with Weslinghouse planning to drop the John Charles Thomas show, the Sun- day afternoon 2:30 NBC slot will be for sale, Pix Don't Fancy McCrary Porridge As far as some of the picture com- panies are concerned, Tex McCrary, who, with his wife. Jinx Falken- burg, wraps up the cross-the-board "Hi. Jinx!" ayem on WEAF (N. Y.>. is becoming "radio's bad boy." While to many in the trade Mc- Crary shapes up as one of the po- tentially promising voices on the air, contributing an editorial hypo to the Mr.-and-Mi's.-cereal circuit, the pix companies don't see it thai way. Primarily what they object to is the "sneak previewing" of new pix product that gets the editorial once- over from McCrary before the film's' New York release. Pix com- panies believe the same unwritten code that applies to dailies laying off reviews until..pic. hits New York market should similarly apply to ra- dio gabbers. But apparently the gripes would appear to be predicat- ed on McCrary's highly critical tone, Crusading overtones of McCrary's pix comments haven't been setting any too well with Metro, either, particularly his reprising, comments on "Postman Rings Twice." current- ly, al the Capitol. N. Y. McCrary brought a jurisl lo the mike last week to support his feelings about the film. Sic Transit Gloria, Thursday, When CAB. Board Axes Ratings Audience Talks Back ■ While the industry may frown on using the airwaves to edi- torialize, apparently there's nothing in the books that says you can stop a studio audience froin giving vent to its reactions on political-economic issues. As. for instance, last Wednes- day's (15) unusual incident on the Eddie Cantor NBC show when the comedian's gag about John L. Lewis "giving the atom bomb 24 hours to get out of town" was drowned out amid an audience round-robin of boos. CBS Program Sked Is Swiss Cheese Wanting Mustard Here's an idea of what the net- works, and particularly CBS, are up against this summer in trying to fill the program gaps in the wake of the record number of hiatus- bent sponsored shows. CBS is faced with the problem of spotting about 20 new shows on the air. That in- cludes the plugging - in - the - gaps created by the commercial exodus as Well as the shows required un- der the ■ new Bill Paley-Dave Tay- lor program revamp setup. But CBS is far from realizing its quota of 20 half-hours, and. in fact, less than a half-a-dozen loom on the" immediate horizon. All of which in- dicates that the network at the mo- ment is primarily concerned with plugging up the holes with any- thing that's available and that the real test of the new CBS program operation won't reveal itself until the fall at the earliest. (Hypoed budget for the CBS program dept.. incidentally, is said to be in excess of $5.000.0001. Thus far the summer picture shapes up thus: .Milton Belle goes into one of the half-hours being va- cated by Lux Radio Theatre. The web is also pinning high hopes on the new Willie Bryant-emceed show with a night club atmosphere, which will go into the Monday night 8:30 time being hiatused by Joan Davis. "Assignment -Home'' will be moved from Saturday afternoon Into a nighttime spot. A new show being produced by Cy Howard. "Dale With A Comic." spotting different comedians weekly, looks set for a 13-week cycle. CBS also wants to bring John Faulk in for his halt- hour show. He's currently being groomed via a Texas - affiliate "showcasing." .' Thus far nothing definite shapes up in the way ot Coast-originating shows, with that phase of the CBS program operation not expected to yield substantial results until Ernest Martin checks in after completing his N. Y. indoctrination semester. * The Board of Governors of th« Cooperative Analysis of Broadcast- ing at a meeting last Thursday (16), which revealed a noticeable shrink- ing in Board membership, decided to get practical about matters. In ef- fect, it was agreed then and there to suspend the CAB rating service. "The word "temporarily" was used, but actually it means the permanent bowout of Crossley ratings. The week previous, the CAB membership had voted to provide an interim rating service until Nov. 1, while a tri-partite industry commit- tee comes up with a plan to set up research standards. But the interim service, was predicated on whether or not $60,000 could be raised to carry it out. At last Thursday's meeting it was agreed that the best the Board could hope to raise was possibly $20,000. Which- paved the way for the de- cision to fold up at once, or as soon as CAB could negotiate a severance with Arch Crossley and dissolve the present contract. Crossley himself, from all indica- tions, isn't particularly concerned one way or the other. Bul of more concern was the feeling highlighted at last week's session that the report submitted by the three-man commit- tee, recommending the rating fold Lip and exploration into new 'research standards, was a sound one. To clear up its current obligations to Crossley the CAB customers, etc., will probably take another month or so, but meanwhile the Board has de- cided to proceed with negotiations with C. E. Hooper for the latter to take care of the CAB customers. A. C. Nielsen, of course, also enters im- portantly into the picture. Also, a finance committee will be put to work to set up a new scheme of dues under the new operation, which will probably find the net- works returning to the fold as the heroes. The webs have gotten what ■ they wanted—less excessive dues, and a setup that will explore re- search methods instead of selling re- search. DINAH WON'T SING CROSBY OBLIGATO Ford Motor, striving for big post' war circulation via a hypoing of its BobCrosby CBS show, wouldn't mind snaring Dinah Shore for the Wed nesday night stanza. However, it looks , like a "no deal" proposition since Miss Shore, who is bowing out of the General Foods Thursday, night show, isn't anxious lo share billing with another singer, prefer- ring a solo vocal spot. Meanwhile Ford Co. is reported romancing Mickey Rooncy for a possible spot on the show, the pic star now being in the open market following the Ward Wheelock option cancellation. GF Cues Fast Checkers Game The whole General Foods radio picture appears to be in a state of flux at the moment, with agency- sponsor execs confabbing on setting a pattern for the new fall season. Right now there appears to be a strong possibility that the "Aldrich Family,"' currently heard Friday night back-to-back with Kale Smith on CBS,, will move back in the fall to its old NBC Thursday night slot in the spot being vacated by Dinah Shore. During the summer, while Miss Smith signs off for a 13-week hiatus. "Aldrich" will take over the GF-Smith Posturn commercial, but slay in its same 8 o'clock slot, with the network filling in the B:30 seg- ment with a sustainer. Miss Smith is due back in the fall for the spon- sor. GF Ls dropping the CBS 7-7:30 Sunday night opposite-Benny slot, but is reportedly retaining the "Thin. Man" property, with possbility that • it may wind up in the tall in the Friday night CBS spot now occupied by "Aldrich." B It A in Another Mocba Stint Hollywood. May 21. Burns and Allen definitely will re- turn to air next season Tor Maxwell House, starting again on Aug. 24 after summer hiatus commencing May 30. Act last week tried to nego- tiate release from pact with coffee account to seek Sunday night spot- ting with Bnother sponsor. When deal didn't jell comics amic- ably agreed to work another season for Maxwell in same Thursday night NBC niche. < Prime reason B St A sought release from contract which has another term to run was to dodge that competition aligned against them by CBS' "Suspense" dramas.