Variety (Jul 1946)

44 RADIO Wednesday, July 24, 1946 CIRCLING THE KILOCYCLES Chicago—First of National Safety Council's annual awards of merit to be given a radio personality will go to farm commentator Everett Mit- chell Saturday (27), when it'll be presented to him by Ned H. Dear- born, NSC prez. Mitchell served as chairman of the council's farm radio committee for the past two years, coordinating efforts of farm radio directors in the promotion of Farm Safety Week, and turning out a series of farm safety transcrip- tions. San Francisco — Station KGQ, ABC, will increase its power from 7500 watts to 50,000 with completion of -a new transmitter about Jan. 1, FCC has granted an okay. Approx- imately $250,000 will be invested in KGO's new transmitter to be located near Newark on the East Bay side of the Dumbarton Bridge. Schenectady—Transcribed package announcements, running to 1 min- ute, 50 seconds with Clem McCarthy featured, arc being broadcast over a string of stations to plug the Sar- atoga racing meet. The first por- tion of it got under way Monday (22) at Jamaica, this ending August 3. On August 5, the horses will re- turn to the Spa for the first time since the war. forced transfer of the August session to Long Island. Out- lets turntabling the platters are: WHN, New York; WGY and WSNY, Schenectady; WTRY, Troy; WABY and WOKO, Albany; WENT, Gloversville. department stores and other pub- lic places. where receiving sets will be installed. KSD. is the first SI. LouLs station to announce tele- vision broadcasting. Dallas.—Caso March,, candiatc for governor, has announced that he will speak over the Texas Quality Network with money provided him by the Rev. Sam Morris, Baptist prohibition missionary. The last lime March spoke over TQN he had lo mortgage his car to pay the radio time costs. hour. Stookey, who has a pilot's private license owns his own air- plane. Blnghamlon — David Carpenter, former gnl. mgr. of WKNE, Kecne, N. H., has been named gnl. mgr. of WINR, Binghamton, N. Y., NBC af- filiate. Washington — Novel stunt was tried out last week by WINX local waiter. Jerry Strong, the G-9 a.m. morning man, who handles the pro- gram, "Wake Up With WINX," played Ralph Slater's well publi- cized "go-to-sleep" recording at in- tervals during the program. Only trouble, there was no way of check- ing whether Strong was waking 'em up faster than Slater was putting them to sleep. Denver. — KFEL, 24-hour-a-day station, is planning a $300,000 broad- casting transmitter to be built if the FCC allows its request for 50,000 watts on 770 kilocycles. The station is to be built north of Denver'with three towers, each 684 feet high, and will be directional. SI. Louis. — KSD has received a television license from FCC and broadcasts of black and white images is expected to start before March, 1947. Limited demonstra- tions will be conducted next fall in Chicago—Back with NBC central division after two years of Army service, Bill Brewer was named as- sistant to the division's continuity acceptance editor, Robert Guilbert, last week. Brewer was in the net's Chi guest relations dept. prior to entering Ihe service. . Cleveland. —Tommy Tarbox, ex- newspaper columnist and spieler over WW now in charge of press at WTAM. ~ Elmer Krause, assistant treasurer, WGAR. awarded Army Commenda- tion Ribbon for initiating and in- stalling a plan for computing com- bat tables of supply while serving in air forces. He was a major. Kansas City—John Battison has been appointed to post of develop- mental engineer at KMBC. He'll devote his time to future technical planning, including television, fac- simile, and the present AM and FM facilities. Syracuse — Lansing B. Lindquist, just back from the Army, has been named manager of Syracuse's first FM station—WSYR-FM. He served as field producer of "Army Hour" in 1944-45, and since August. '45, when he was transferred to Tokyo, was General MacArlhur's radio and com- munications officer. , ; Chicago — New package agency headed by Carl F. Kraalz's, Chi ac- count exec, will be set up in Holly- wood Aug. 15, following Kraatz's resignation from Schwimmcr & Scott. Outfit, Teleways Radio Pro- ductions, Inc., with Kraatz as prexy, will have its own sales organization to peddle live and transcribed radio programs. Arno Huth Continued from pace J7 Memo. On ! ! PAUL BARNES Actor-Announcer-Narrator "Esquire Sports Rexiew" _ • _ Prtu RtpreMitarlvM DUTTON-UPPOLD Fori Worth.—A new weekly pro- gram broadcast directly from a new Dallas restaurant will be heard each Tuesday for a quarter hour over KGKO titled '"Chef of the Air." Airings will feature George Young, managing chef who will interview diners, relate interesting facts on the backgrounds and origins of food and give his own special recipes for foods. St. Louis. — The first peaches to move via air from the Southern Il- linois fruit belt to St. Louis were flown out of Carbondale by Charles Stookey, Farm Editor of KXOK. Five baskets of the fancy fruit were loaded into Stookey's own plane and delivered to St. Louis within an ALL GAME THE SAME TO CLEVELAND'S STATION Big or small, WJW consistently brings in the gam* that counts in the Cleveland billion dollar market. Local programming that hits home gets more day- time dialers per dollar than any other regional station. choice. German programs broad- cast about nine hours a day; French, eight. News is broadcast by a semi- official agency four times a day, for about six minutes each. There are dramatic programs, talks, lectures, educational programs (although no political or campaign speeches or discussions). There is much classi- cal music, some modern, and a little jazz. No Commercials There are no commercial .programs in Switzerland, these being forbid- den by law. Listeners are request- ing commercial programs, feeling the added revenue would give better and more varied service. The govt, is bending an ear to some extent, not to commercials, but to the need of reorganizing its service. With over 800,000 setsiin Switzer- land (high percentage per capita), budget for program service and ad- ministration is roughly $2,000,000 a year, balance of the tax revenue go ing to the postal service, etc., radio not getting it all. With three dif- ferent sets of programs in three lan- guages, says Huth, it's obvious how meager the budget is. Govt, admits it can't give good programs on pres- ent budget, or pay proper wages, but promises some changes, somehow. Foreign broadcasts are_ hearc'. in Switzerland, Lyon and Luxembourg in French, Luxembourg and Stutt- gart in German, some Austrian sta^ tions in German, and Milano in Italian. Luxembourg, principal commercial station in Europe, is pip- ing in commercials, but effect is limited. Huth, who has written several his- tories of radio, in French, German and English, has been writing a col- umn on international' radio once a month for a Zurich daily, Die Tat. Sheet has a radio page once a week and, as far as. Huth knows, is the only paper in central Europe that has a radio page. ,. Blueprint to Break Down Gears Pushed at FCC by Regional Rep Washington, July 23. A blueprint to break down the ex- clusive clear channels and provide the bulk of U. S. listeners with a va- riety of four network programs,, was the target of attack as the FCC re- sumed hearings here yesterday (22) on the fate of the clears. The plan was submitted here last week (18) by Paul- Godley, consult- ing engineer for the regional broad- casters,- to take care of present un- derserved areas, which Godley said, now receive only nighttime service from-NBC and CBS transmitters. ' The regional* balked earlier argu- ments of James Shouse, vice-presi- dent of Crosley Broadcasting Corp., CAP WIREWAX IS OUT BUT ONLY IN DRIBBLES Hollywood, July 23. Capitol Transcriptions hit the market with its new product on the promised date of July 1—but they didn't hit it with the promised amounts. Transcribery has been un- able to furnish sufficient platters to subscribing stations due - to RCA, which is pressing for them, failing to come through in style scheduled. In consequence, Cap is on the de- fensive and trying to hypo jobbing plant to greater effort. Stations are beefing because they are still unable to set up regular scheduled pro- gramming, although making no com- plaints about quality of material so far received. Cap is also stressing the angle that its ."Music From Hollywood" that's being served. That twist may be played up even more if plans for its own local plant go tftrough. Par ent company, Capitol Records, has a small shop here and may add or build to suit. TuthiU NC AC Exit Cues Pop Div. Shakeup Departure of Daniel S. Tuthill, vice-prez of National Concert and Artists Corp. and head of its popu- lar division,'from the NCAC scene this week, cues several important changes in the corporation's setup.. Alfred H. Morton, NCAC prez and non-operating head, will now. join Marks Lcvine, head of the concert division, and O. O. Bottorf, head of Civic Concerts division, in active management, taking over headship of the pop division. As such, Morton Is expected to coordinate the radio activities of NCAC, hitherto separated, with the pop and longhair divisions each heretofore handling radio affairs of their respective artists, so that all NCAC radio activities will be un- der his charge. Salesmen of radio in both departments will work under him. Tuthill, who was one of NCAC's founders five years ago, and a di- rector, apparently was more inter ested in the promotional aspects'of handling artisls, and reportedly didn't see eye to eye with the other directors oii policies. Resignation, however, was reported amicable. He owned 24% of NCAC slock, which he released for a cash set- tlement. Tuthill is now going into personal management for" himself. He al- ready has Dunninger, the mentalist, released to him by NCAC as part of his deal. He expects to sign Isabel Leighton, writer, and has a couple of radio package shows in mind. Tuthill was assistant managing di- rector of NBC Artists Service, and with NBC 18 years before NCAC was formed. NCAC pop division, which he headed, brought in $200.- 000 in commissions annually. Tut- hill- brought to his department a lecture business which brought in $75,000 annually in commissions. He's credited with developing Dun- ninger as radio and nitery attrac- tion and Garry Moore for radio, as well as arranging John Raitt's re- cent Metro contract. At NBC he de- veloped for radio Vivian del la Chiesa, Earl Wrightson, Thomas L. Thomas and others. D.C.'S RADIO WORKSHOP Washington, July 23: More than 100 applicants have al- ready signed up for the 10-day ses- sion of Washington's second annual radio workshop. Course is jointly sponsored by WTOP, the CBS sta- tion and the D. C. public school sys- tem and will begin Sept 10. and WLW, Cincinnati, who asked FCC to give all clear channel sta- tions, including WLW, higher power. The regionals maintained that giving WLW and other clears Ihe hike in . power to 500kw they are after, would still leave large areas in the moun- tain states without radio service. Even if all dominant clears were upped to 500kw, Godley told the FCC, over 900,000 persons in 10 dif- ferent stales would still hear only two network programs, while the entire West Coast area would get reliable signals from only three ma- jor webs. The regionals' No. 1 proposal called for a breakdown of a few clears to require the dominant stations to op- erate with directional antenna sys- tems. In this way, nine additional 1-B stations, capable of using up to 50kw power, would be able to go on the air. Breakdowns Sought By directionalizing WJZ, the ABC flagship station in New York City, Godley said new stations could be added in Phoenix, Omaha, San An- tonio and Shreveport, La. This /egionals also wanted the breakdown of four CBS clears now used exclusively by WCAU, Phila- delphia; KSL, Salt Lake City; KMOX, St. Louis, and WWL, New Orleans. By dividing up these chan- nels, the regionals suggested that new stations with Mutual network affili- ations could then be added in Salt Lake City, Denver, Tulsa and Bir- mingham. All of these areas are now without MBS primary service. Five NBC clear channels were also sliced up in the regionals' proposal. They wanted operation of NBC- owned WSM, Nashville: WMAQ. Chicago; WHO, Des Moines; WTAM, Cleveland, and WHAM. Rochester, directionalized, and a new NBC-af- filiate ' put on the air in Helena, Mont. If FCC adopts these suggest ioi' . the regional licensees maintained practically everyone in the U. S. would be able to time to at least throe network services. Only ex- ception would be for persons living in a -narrow strip along the northern Montana-North Dakota borders, the Mojave desert in southern Califor- nia, a small piece of southern Ari- zona', the southern tip of Florida, and a small area around Dallas-Ft.. Worth ./.*// ... . WJW