Variety (Oct 1946)

Wednesday,, October 9, X946 FMYetsFi^tOn Recover Frrat Washington, Oct. 8. The Penn Allen Broadcasting Co. AVFMZ) of Allentown, Pa., one of the few all-vet-owned, exclusively mi operations in the country, last week took the lead in a new drive to pressure set manufacturers to switch over to FM production. Penn Allen president Ray Kohn addressed letters to some 800 FM licensees and applicants urging them to wire manufacturers and request that reteivers be turned out imme- diately for their particular areas. He wrote that he had canvassed 22 receiver companies as late as Sept. 11 and discovered from their re- plies that "they,,are waiting for FM stations to take the lead in build- ing up demand." Set makers also in- dicated, he said, that sets would be allocated first to those areas in which good FM signals would be rtceived, and those areas where sta- tions are actively promotmg FM. At the same time, the five vets who own Penn Allen followed ■ the lead of pioneer FM operator Leon- ard Asch (WBCA,. Schenectady) and took a half-page acV last Wednesday in the Allentown Evening. Chronicle to expound the advantage of FM and to urge buyers to purchase only ,FM- cquipped sets. The vets, all of whom are devoting full time to the station, also put out a periodic newsletter on FM developments for distribution in their town. The Ave—with an average age slightly under: .30r-'are long on enthusiasm and short on funds, hav- ing, sunk their combined savings and those of their wives into , the FM venture. At the same time, they lost any GI benefits which might have been forthcoming by incor- porating to set up the new station. BufTalo—J. Woodrow Magnuson has been made director of programs for the Buffalo Evening News FM station. . RADIO 59 FEMME SHOW ADDED ON ABC PRE-CROSBY ABC net has sold another Wednes- day night spot (9-9:30 p.m,),building up its pre-Bing Crosby parlay. New show, "The Afltairs of Anne Scot- land," starring Arlene Francis, has been bought by Raymond labs for its Rayve Crene shampoo product, to start Oct. 23. Deal was placed through Roche, Williams, Cleary agency. Mpls. Group Seeks AM Outlet to Make Up For Religious Program Curb Minneapolis. Oct. 8. Held as an outgrowth of a recent protest against banning of religious broadcasting, the Family Broadcast- ing Corp. here applied to the FCC for a permit to build and operate a new 10,000-watt station with studios in the Minneapolis loop. Building . is owned by the Chris- tian Business Men's Committee of Minneapolis. Under contract to man- age the proposed station is. Lee L.. Whiting, former manager of WDGY. Common stock is held by Whiting and the committee; • Whiting said construction would start as soon as FCC sanction is re- ceived. Application stresses station would provide "facilities not avail- able at present on existing stations" and points out. emphasis would be on local talent productions, WDGY several months ago re- stricted scheduling of religious pro- grams, following suit of other sta- tions in: the area, and barrage of protests foUowedj religious broad- casters charging 'they were- being throttled. Officers of Family Broadcasting Corp. include Henry C. Klages, pres- ident; Joseph E. Dahl, vice presi- dent; David Nelson, secretary, and William R. Anderson, treasurer. Board includes eight other business- men or industrialists. Daily News-AJC Fight Wears Both Sides Down In Four-Day FCC Meet Washington, Oct. 8. Long-winded four-day FCC hear- ing on battle between the New York Daily News, an FM bidder for New York, and the American Jewish Congress, which claims the News isn't qualified to run an FM Station, wound up here last Thursday (3) with some heat and both parties worn to a frazzle under a steady barrage of cross-examination and pounds of statistics.- At -end of the hearing, FCC examiner Alfred Guest ordered both partie.s to file proposed findings within 30 days. Last two days of the session found Daily News officials on the stand hammering away at fallacies in the second of a series of AJC studies of the newspaper's story con- tent. The latest AJC analysis came up with conclusion that News was more anti-Semitic and anti-Negro than any of four other metropolitan morning paperp surveyed. F. M. Flynn, business manager of the News; Ralph Neale, his assist- ant, and Carl Warren, the paper's broadcast editor, all took the stand to brand the AJC's conclusions as "fundamentally unfair and unwar- ranted." Flynn aamitted the News now wishes it had not run Wash- ington columnist John O'Donnell's pieces on the Patton-slapping inci- dent and impending resignations from the Supreme Court, but added that the News has no policy to handle news in any but an objective manner. Educational Broadcasters Battle For Places Against Religionists WGAY's lOOG Setup Washington, Oct. 8. Washington's nev/est radio station, WGAY, Silver Spring, Md., expects to begin Operation about Dec. I. Studios of WGAY will be one of the first in the country designed from the beginning to accommodate simul- taneous broadcasts on FM and AM. Estimated cost of both AM and FM outlets is $100,000. Washingtor, Oct. 8. The non-commercial educational FM broadcasters^whose slowness in exploiting the 20 valuable FM chan- nels assigned them has been a con- stant target of the spectrum-con- gested commercial FM'ers v/ho would like to take over—mobilized last week to stave off a new kind of putsch by the wholesale move- ment of religious sects and newly- organized Bible schools into their part of the FM band. The National Assn. of Educational ■Broadcasters, meeting in East Lan- sing, Mich., last week, noted with sorrow- that FCC had licensed the first such applicant in . the non-com- mercial band. This is the Providence (R. I.) Bible Institute, a recent non- commercial permittee, whbse "prin- cipal purpose is grooming of young people for Evangelical pulpits. The small but articulate N.A.E.B. called on the FCC ■ to clarify its rules on educational FM operation, pointing out that present language limits non-commercial licenses to educational institutions only, on showing that station will be used to advance an educational program. The Assn. asked FCC to insure that such bidders were accredited' schools or religious universities,' or had some other form of recognition from school authorities. If the Commission does- not agree with this line of thinking, the N.A.E.B. added, a public hearing should be held at which all respon- sible points of : view could air their opinions on the matter. WMBI Wants In At the same meeting last week, the Moody Bible Institute of Chica- go, licensee of WMBI, a non-com- mercial AM outlet, sought admission to the N.A.E.B. Significantly, the ap- lication was referred to a vote of the full assn. membership. The N.A.E.B. move followed closely a- similar action taken by the National Education Assn., whose pres.; Belmont Farley, is understood to have forwarded a strongly-word^- ed protest to FCC against the li- censing of any but bona fide educa- tional groups in this part of. th* spectrum. Educators are anxious to get FCC policy clear here ;and noWj in view of increased push of religious groups, into both commercial and non-com- mercial radio, and in Uoth the standr ard and FM bands. FCC is already nursing applica- tions for non-commercial FM opera- tion from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) for Brooklyn; and from the Bible Institutes of Los Angeles and Den- ver. The; educators point out that they have no quarrel with the also- pending application of Fordham University which, though chartered as a religious school, is an accredit- ed university in its own right; (Al- though FCC staffers are mum on the question it is speculated that the Commission has held off acting on the Bible institute requests until it gets its lines of action clarified.) Delicate Ground _ Educators say that, unless ■ FCC tightens up on the non-commercial band, there is nothing to prevent preachers and others who smack up against competition in getting a commercial.license in the good mar- kets from immediately forming some sort of institute or school and then applying in the same cities on the educators' home territory. Educators, hamstrung in their own ambitions for cross-country FM net- works by lagging appropriations from State Boards of Education, ad-. niit they are on delicate ground in seeking to keep the 20 FM bands for their exclusive use. Their pres* ent spectrum will accommodates anywhere from 700 to 800 stations, (Continued on page 62) door-Opener THIS SMILING LADY Opens doors in more 'ways than here pictured. As one of the most literate saleswomen on the air today, she is known to approximately 167,000 WOR listeners every weekday afternoon as Martha Deane. t'rivately^ she is a New York housewife, mother of twins, ex-NEA woman's feature editor- writer, beauty and fashion adviser; not to mention that she's consistently Mooper-rated among the highest-ranking woman pers<»ialities in New York radio today. Her present WOR sponsors include such astute promoters as Abraham Ik Straus, Pure Food Co., N. Y. Herald Tribune, Burlington Mills, etc. What they think of her couldn't be more accurately mirrored than in the unsolicited com- ment of an executive of the O'Cedar Corp.: "Miss Deane has a large and loyal following. She successfully— and in an amazingly short time — established our product in Greater-New York." She shrugs this off. But her record brilliantly contradicts such modesty. Now entering her sixth year of WOR popularity, she has to her credit such kudos as — First award, 1945, from Ohio State University for "The most stimu- lating presentation of ideas and information." She was chdsen best woman commentator in 1942 by hundreds of radio editors in the United States and Canada in a poll conducted by Motion^Pietere Daily. Locally, says the N. Y. Daily News,"... her material packs plenty of interest... copy is splendid," Says the N. Y. Times, "This show has really advanced the art of the woman's program." A few openings are immediately available on WOR's Martha Deane pro- gram for those advertisers, or their agencies, who are interested in the tactful, but always jyower-full, selling of Martha Deane. The address is —WOR, at 1440 Broadway, in New York.