Variety (Jul 1946)

82 RABIO Wednesday, July 24, 1946 With Wheeler Out Johnson of Colo. Is In Line for Chairmanship of ICC; \ He's Vs. Liquor, Petri), Britain f Washington, July 23. ♦ Defeat of Sen, Burton K. Wheeler In the Montana Democratic primar- ies last week may have a big im- pact on both broadcasters and the FCC. His defeat at the polls, ac- cording to reports here, may-throw out of the window . White . House coinir-itments ■ to elevate J. Burke Cl.-^>fnts, head of the Montana State I'll Accidents Commission and strung political ally of Wheeler, to the democratic vacancy on the FCC. At the same time, his defeat means the all-powerful chairman- ship of the Seriate Interstate Com- nifiic Committee, which controls n.ilio legislation, will go to Senator l'.<'vv:.i C. Johnson (D., Colo.). .'.ceording to reliable spokesmen, Cii- nots was to have been named v ilie FCC at the same time that Prcsiiient Truman elevated acting FCC Chairman Charles R; Denny to title of full..FCC chairman. Whether or not Clements still gets tiie post, it was understood, de- pends on the nature of Mr.'. Tru- man's commitment to Wheeler. His nomination, would be strenuously opposed by Montana's . Sen. James Murray and other Capitol Mill mem- bvif «ho would like to see a New York Slater or New Englander get the politically important FCC job. Senate Majority Leader Alben Barklcy is next in line for Wheeler's old job as head of the I.C.C., but will rule himself out because of his more important floor duties. Sen. Johnson is second in line for the job and has indicated he will ac- cept the post. This Is Johnson Johnson and Wheeler are close in their isolationist, foreign policies and both are experts in railway labor. Unlike Wheeler, however, Johnson has shown little interest in radio, other than his most re- cent committee assignment as head of the Senate subcommittee which stcoreji the anti-Petrillo legislation through the joint House - Senate Conference Committee. Like Con- gressman John Rankin of Mississip- pi on the House side, Johnson has introduced several bills to outlaw tht advertising of alcoholic bever- »•:«••; on the air. Colorado Senator has taken • i ctive role in foreign policy ■ < .~rs, having led the fight against ' British loan. He is also co ■ r of the May-Johnson bill call- . for military control of the .. i nb; and, as a spokesman for •■ '.rmy in the Senate, has strong •-dorsed a merger of the armed :es. ' 'inson, a former governor of •ado, was first elected to the . le in 1936. His present term ex- Jan. 1, 1949. the unlikely event of a Repub- > majority in the Senate next . minority leader Wallace White (R., Maine) would be next in line for Wheeler's job, -tv.r»igh he would probably pass the chOi* on to Re- publican Sen. Charles Tobey of New Hampshire. Markle Hits Mark Top radio success, story of the year has projected a youthful Canadian—Fletcher Markle—into the forefront, exciting consider- able comment.in New York trade circles. Markle, 26-yeai-oTo: writer- producer — actor, came down from Toronto several weeks ago to put on one of his shows for the Columbia Workshop. He re- prised the visit two weeks ago for another Workshop presenta- tion. Orson Welles popped in on the program, heard about Markle's Canadian "Stage '46" performance of a Welles satire "Life With Adams," which Welles : put on his Mercury theatre CBS show last Friday. Now Markle has been pacted, despite efforts of CBS to ink him to a contract, to go overseas with , Welles on pix . commitments when latter teams up with Alex- ander Korda. li. 1 Phi Bet* Kappa Announcer LEE JONES Recent graduate of Denver U. and nntlonal debate champion, Phi Beta Kappa Jones has teen announcing at KLZ for two and a half years. KLZ,.DENVER. CBS Spreads Net Tor H wood Stars William S. Paley, chairman of the CBS board, has been shopping for new talent on the Coast and, before he gets through, may snag some of Hollywood's top stars for one of adio's biggest talent hypos to date. Paley is understood to be trying to line up some of Hollywood's most luminous names on a regular basis, so ■ that their appearance will be scheduled in advance instead of on a catch-as-catch-can guesting basis. He's back in New York now. But he's known to have told his friends before his trip to the Coast that he won't be satisfied unless he gets some of that film talent, no matter what the cost. Paley's idea is said to be to use the Hollywood people regardless Of their picture tleins. In this plan, he's expected to find opposition from some of the big producers who don't want their stars on the air unless their products are tied. in. But Paley is reportedly holding out enough money as bait to interest a number of the stars so that they'll flock to the CBS banner regardless. If he lines up the Hollywood peo pie he wants, the result is likely to be an expansion of CBS originations from the Coast, with consequent shifting of some personnel from the New York office. Slide-Rule Magk One of the network executives last week took time out to disprove, statistically, the contention of critics of daytime radio that serials predominate throughout the day. When the exec refuted one such dritlo by stating that, In the overall American radio picture, the soap opera formula represented less than 6% of daytime programming, the guy thought that the exec would have to resort to black magic to prove his point. However, simple figures and not sorcery established the claim, Com- Eutation goes like this: Taking the hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., NBC and IBS, who monopolize the suds saga field, devote .30% of their quarter- hour segments to the soapers. Each network feeds the shows to 100 stations. These 200 stations represent one-fifth of the 1,000 outlets in the country. . Thus, through the simple expedient of taking one- fifth of the 30% network time devoted to the serials, you have the 6% figure. Any other questions? . Religious Hot Potato Dropped In FCC Double-Talk After 18 Months Gray in Doghouse Again, BankroUer So Unhappy OverHappy Felton Rap Looks like Barry Gray, WOR's all- night disk jockey, has gone and done is again; Right on top of being hauled on the carpet for plugging WNEW's 'This Week in Music" show, Gray again stepped out o£ bounds last Tuesday night (18) in com- menting on Happy Felton, with re- sult that Felton isn't so happy, neither is WOR hor (and this is what hurts) is Felton's- sponsor, Sheffield Farms. it appears that Gray took time out to comment on a trade paper's re- view of Happy Felton appearing at Iioev/s State, N.Y. Review was a pan, and Gray backed up the re- viewer's opinion. All of which was within his domain, except that Felton's sponsored show is also carried by WOR, and Sheffield is burning plenty over the fact that a WOR personality should go out Of his way to rap another WOR per- sonality. Sunkist Lemon Contract Appears Juicy (75G) Melon for Keystone Net Sunkist lemons are going to try to squeeze the last drop of coin juice out of 205 single-station, "beyond metropolitan" • radio markets throughout the U.S. for 13 weeks be ginning Aug. 12. California fruit growers, who find themselves this year with a bumper crop of lemons on their hands, have placed a 13-week one-minute an nouncement campaign on stations of the Keystone Broadcasting System Foote, Cone & Belding's Los Angeles office handled the account. - While. KBS officials wouldn't dis close the figures involved, reference to their rate card shows that the campaign including 15 one-minute announcements on each station— stacks up a total of about $75,000 for time alone. Announcements, all pre-tran- scribed will be played on each of the. stations at specific times agreed on by the agency, net and KBS affili- ates, and there will be no guesswork about the airings... The Sunkist peo- ple expect to sell a heap of lefnons to make up-for the costs. Meeker Buys Baymer Outfit Ownership of Radio Advertising Co., station reps, has switched hands, with Robert D. C. Meeker buying out the Paul H. Raymer Go. Outfit's headquarters are in New York. KH, NBC Come To Grips in Battle For Customers Hollywood, July 23. It was such a happy affair, that went on for the years, or that's what it seemed to be .That's the saga of NBC and its Coast affili- ate in a knotty and never too happy nutshell. From here on in, it's polite war between the twain that have never, known true love, as witness the re- cent video gambol here. Now both are hitting with gloves off as a pro- motion battle augurs between mother and step-child. It may even develop into a little throat-cUtting sales war between KFI and other, nearby NBC affiliates. On the basis of recent surveys, the network is attempting to show losses to KFI of the letter's primary area of coverage. Such unfavorable fame, occasioned by net now having its obstreperous affiliate surrounded with a crescent of three other sta- tions, will be combatted by KFI with high pressure promotional campaign, and trade and customer relations cultivation. NBC has slowly encircled KFI with stations at San Diego (KSFD), BakersAeld (KERO). and Harry Butcher's KIST, Santa Barbara, all as affiliates. That puts KFI virtually in the inside of a half moon facing the Pacific. The order of the day at KFI is that the alcyon days are over. This coming season (and fall will be'the go sign) will be one of salesmen. Gone are the days when acceptance of sponsors was on the basis of pressure, desirability or priority. Overall strategy is being mapped by station's top bras whereby time buyers will be wooed. NBC, it's thought, will continue to fill considerable amounts of time on- KFI, but no time will be lost by KFI in its efforts to keep old accounts and in encouraging new ones, de- spite the competition presented in the prestige being given surround- ing latecomer net affiliates. The net's dependency on KFI les- sens with the new contracts. The testy situation is certain to increase. KMPC, G. A. Richards' indie, is on (Continued on page 42) Temporary Visitors' Hang From Rafters of Writing Division at CBS in N. Y. Typical of the office space con- gestion at CBS hdqs. in New York is the present crowding of tem- porary "visitors" in the Program Writing Division suite. Four em- ployes, including Bessie Mack, who are engaged on CBS audience par- ticipation programs, are bunched in the corner office. A director, Clint Johnson, a returned GI, is tem- porarily parked in one cubicle and Cabell Greet, CBS authority on pronunciation,-has another. Secre- taries of both men also swell the congestion. Irving Tunick, who has a special writing assignment on the atom bomb series, being supervised by Guy della Cioppa, also hangs his chapeau in the Program Writing Division. Relief from the congestion to promised in September. . . Suds In Your Eyes Soap won't mix with soap on the air, and that's why Howard Teichman isn't scripting for "State Senator" although he did. the writing job on the show's presentation and was scheduled to do the writing if as and when sold. Now the show's been sold, it turns out Lever Bros, is the sponsor. Teichman happens to be the writer, for Procter & Gamble's "Road of Life," and would jeopardize one contract if he took the other.. Scripting for "Senator," instead, are Joe Rus- coll, Joe Liss and Larry Menkin, with latter scheduled for the opener (29). 'State Senator No Phony Politico One of the most unusual jobs of preparing for a radio show has been completed by Louis G. Cowan, Inc., in preparation for "State Senator" which bows next week (29) on CBS for Lever Bros. A high-priced expert on Ameri- can politics—M. R. Werner, author of books on Tammany and on other phenomena of the American political scene, and contributor to the New Yorker—had been engaged to pre- pare a 1-page book on "State Sena- tors and the Government of the State." That book, which discusses the State Senates in every state in the Union, gives the writers of the show, and others on the talent side, authentic original material of a gen- eral nature for a study of the char- acter of the generic state senator in the United States. -Before the show was sold, a half- hour platter was waxed giving the biography of the "senator" whose story will be told on the show from week to week. This platter traces the mythical Senator's biography and background. He's 34 years old, practiced law before he entered the Army, and won a Congressional Medal of Honor in . Italy. When he came home, he was propelled into politics. Howard Teichman wrote the half- hourer for the presentation, and it was directed by George Zachary be- fore he left for the Coast to d6 his present Ford Sunday Evening Hour show on ABC. Lynn Murray con- ducted the music. ! Altogether, Cowan, who owns the ['Senator' package, spent an cslimat- Jcd $5,000 for the preliminary de- l lineation of the character of the State Senator. Maynard to Leave CBS, 'Portrait' to Hoffman George Maynard and CBS are parting company next month. May- nard, ex-NBC producer, was brought into the network a few months back to produce the ■ Saturday night "American Portrait" show. . . "Portrait" series will be reorgan- ized, with Robert Hudson, educa- tional director, continuing as super- visor. Interesting angle is that for the first time CBS will have an ed- itor as producer, with Elwood Hoff- man taking over. Move projects web's program writing division into a more prominent position. Washington, July 23. The FCC, in one of the most un- usual opinions ever handed down by a Government agency, took time out here last week (19) to deliver a five-page sermon on the rights of atheists and agnostics to get time on the air. The commission warned radio licensees that too narrow a view of the rightness of religious or irreligious beliefs might find such leaders as Thomas Jefferson, An- drew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln barred from expressing their re- ligious philosophies through a mike. Occasion for the decision, was the long-delayed FCC action on a peti- tion of Robert Harold Scott of Palo Alto, Calif. Scott, over a year and a half ago, made the first of several pleas to the FCC to revoke the licenses of KQW, San Jose, and KPO and KFRC, San Francisco, because they had refused to make time avail- able for discussions of atheism, al- though they gave lime freely to various religious sects. The issue, the FCC said, was of too wide a scope to be invoked here against three stations alone. Scott, a retired court reporter, had argued that the existence of a Divine Being was certainly controversial and that stations, under the Com- munications Act, are obliged to present all sides of important con- troversial issues. Managers of the. three stations; however, took the position that it was hot in "the pub- lic interest" to air such unpopular views, that belief in God was not controversial, or that time was not warranted to air the .views of the small minority which chose to deny His existence. Advises Stations The FCC, which had been nursing the "hot potato" petition for over 18 months, stopped short of recom- mending that stations give time to atheists, but dipped deeply into Constitutional guarantees on free- dom of religion in advising stations how to handle such requests. Said the FCC opinion: "Freedom of aeligious belief necessarily carries with it freedom to disbelieve, and freedom of speech means freedom to express disbeliefs as well as beliefs. If freedom of speech is to have meaning, it cannot be predicat- ed on the mere popularity or public acceptance of the ideas sought to be advanced." The commission added that while an "overwhelming majority" of peo- ple profess belief in a Divine Being, "so diverse are these conceptions that it may be fairly said, even as to professed believers, that the God of one man does not exist for another." The Romans, FCC went on, called the early Christians "atheists" be- cause they denied the existence of Rome's pagan gods. The FCC agreed that every idea does "not rise to the dignity of a public controversy, and every or- ganization, regardless of member- ship or the seriousness of its pur- poses, is not per se entitled to time on the air," but the holders of a belief should not be denied the'right to answer attacks upon them or their belief solely because they are few in number. The FCC warned against any "rigid policy that time shall be denied for the presentation of views which may have a high degree of unpopularity" and concluded: "The criterion of the public in- terest in broadcasting clearly pre- cludes a policy of making radio wholly unavailable as a medium for the expression of any .view which falls within the scope, of the con- stitutional guarantee of freedom of speech,"