Variety (Sep 1946)

Wednesday, September 25, 1946 RABIO 37 MHER UP FOR AFRA AND NETS PACT \m STIfiT TUES. It's "Batter Up" time in the na- tional network-radio talent league. Negotiations for a new contract (or contracts) start Tuesday (1) be- tween Vat networks and the Ameri- can Federation of Radio Artists. Each side has wound up its pitch- ing arm and is ready to go when the game is called Tuesday at the headquarters of the New York Bar Assn., N. Y. The nets have a slight edge at this moment, as far as bar- gaining technique is concerned. AFRA,: priding itself on being a democratic union, has ma?ie virtu- ally every: one of its steps public by having these aired at the i-ecent Los Angeles convention. The net execs, however, have been holding quiet, off-the-cuff meetings, with only a handful of veepees, labor-relations experts, and attorneys in attend- ance. AFRA's moves, therefore, are known to the other side—but AFRA can only guess how the nets will react to the various proposals. It will be a .strictly "professional" batch of negotiators on each side that will get together. AFRA has placed its job in the hands of George Heller, national executive secretary (who is also secretary of the largest. New York City, chap- ter); Ray Jones; national asst. exec sec; Claude MicCue, Pacific Coast national rep and head of the Los Angeles chapter, and Henry Jaffe, attorney. The nets will place their cases in the hands of Robert D. Swezey for Mutual; Clarence L. Menser for NBC; Frank White for CBS, and Charles "'Bud" Barry for ABC. All are veepees but Barry, who is Bational program director. Three-Way Hurdle At the very commencement there is sure to be the kind of argument that has snagged global politics in the United Nations, the two sides disagreeing on whether one of AFRA's requests is "substantive" or "procedural." ^AFRA will insist that the. last pact, signed in 1944, and expiring Oct. 31 this year, was one agreement with three parts to it, to ■ wit:.-' ■ (a) Network commercial employ- ment in N. Y., Chi, Los Ajjgeles and San Francisco; (b) Commercial employment for Chicago locally; (c) Commercial employment on the 11 Pacific states and on local programs over Pacific stations. Right there, the nets will say these are three separate and distinct con- .tracts, each of them to be negotiated separately. That hurdle will have to be surmounted before any further negotiations proceed. Involved as part of this part of the negotiations is the place for the negotiations. The nets will insist on separate tYieetings in at least three different Places, ,N. Y., Chi and the Coast. AFRA will want to put aU the egsjs in the N. Y. basket. : Once 4his "procedural" or "sub- stantive" dispute is settled, they get down to scales. AFRA will ask a : 35'/i increase for actors, singers and announcers on national network shows; and it will want to wipe off differentials between regions. Following commercial negotia- tions, AFRA will want to e.stablish sastaining parity-^i.e., get commer- cial scales for sustaining shows. The latter point will make little dif- ference for 15-minute sustainers, but ^will mark a substantial increase, if L v^on, for people working on haif- , nour sustainers. ,', Next will come the effectiveness ,p,f the contract. AFRA for once will insist that only stations that recog- , flize AFRA locally shall benefit from the national contracts. There are network affiliates around the : counti y that don't recognize AFRA. The union will in-sist, in effect, that Ihe.se ' be read out of the network" and .should not be fed programs on Which AFRA members work. Also Transcriptions While these major network nego- tiations proceed,. AFRA will conduct another set of talks, with transcrip- iion companies. Here, no.central or- ganization is empowered to do the oargaioing for the employers. These (Continued on page 46) CBS CLINIC REACHES GRASSROOT STATIONS Research, data, copies of speeches, minutes of meetings and other mate- rial collected or requested in con- nection with the CBS program Man- agers Clinics in New York will be ready for distribution in about a month. Meanwhile, the third : and final Clinic is in session this week (23-27) at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in N. V. Williaifi Fineshriber, Roy . Langham and Robert Kennett preside at all meetings and luncheons. Current batch of local program men embrace the small-wattage home town group. They followed the high-powered and regional station reps who met the two previous weeks. This was the second year of what CBS has in mind as an annual institution. Talks have been given the pro- gram men from out of town by such CBS personages as Davidson Taylor, Edward R. Murrow, Elmo Wilson, Cabell Greet, Mrs. Frances Wilder, Robert J. Taylor and Robert L. Shayon. . Wet Blankets CBS programming dept. has bein running into some extra- curricular headaches in connec- tion with its brace of 90-minute promotion progl-ams (Sept. 22-29) showcasing top talent on all web commercial airers. It seems that some of the agen- cies handling the sponsored shows have been getting temper- amental over the spotlighting of talent; if they felt a character froifi another agency's show was getting two more gag lines than their own, the pressure boys went to work on the network, with resultant "appeasement lines" written into the script. CBS, incidentally, has been splurging plenty of coin on the brace of shows, particularly on the writing end. As his first free- lance assignment since checking ■ out of J. Walter Thompson, Car- roll Carroll was pacted for a comedy writing contrib. It's re- ported he's getting $1,000 for each of the two shows. But tnat's only a smaV part of the budget; Spingarn Springs Into Radio Arena With Another Finger-Point 'Expose' Workshop to Reprise % Baseball Died' First repeat broadcast on the pres- ent cycle of Columbia Workshop shows will be given this Sunday (28). It's "The Day, That baseball Died," scripted by Irvin Title,- which was done a few weeks back. CBS felt that proximity of World Series games made it a natural for repent, along with fact that; web re- ceived an enormous fan mail urging the reprise. ■ Repeat will differ from original production only in omission ot music; it's been decided that the musical score was superfluous. : Round of radio expose.s, sparked by release of FCG's Blue Book last spring, ' speeded on its way by ■ Charles Siepmann's "Radio's Second Chance" and hitting the big money with Frederic Wakemann's "The Hucksters," will be augmented here next week when Public Affairs Com» mittee. Inc., turns off the presses "Radio Is Yours," a capsulersized^ plainspoken critique of radio for the layman. The paper-back pamphlet, to be put on sale for the usual dime, is understood to have an assured pre- press„ circulation over 100,000 with Wide distribution expected in schools and libraries throughout the country. Author is Jerome Sping- arn, who has had long experience in both business and government end of radio. Spingarn, recently released from (Continued, on page 46) ' ••SO goes the nation" This is ihe lime for testing. New products are entering an untried market; old products are venturing forth in new packages;/ war-born improvements are ready to be intro- duced; changes in price structure, in distribu- tion policies, in sales appeals, await accept- ance or rejection of an unpredictable public. Because the safe and sound approach to problems like these is the intelligent use of test markets, WLW offers its advertisers and pros- pective advertisers a Test Market Plan, com- plete in scope, and so thoroughly integrated as to make possible any test or combination of tests... at remarkably reasonable cost; We invite your study of this plan, and of WLW's facilities for implementing it. Contact your nearest WLW Sales Office— our representatives will beglad lo go over this new Test Market Plan, created by. Ihe Nation's Most Merchandise-Able Station ■ Crosjey Broadcasting Corporation . 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