Variety (Mar 1948)

Wednesday, March 3, 1948 G1RCU1IG THE KILOCYCLES Oin«innK*l-TCgnslderiug oflers for a swltcli to the ad agenqy field, I^aurence E. Neville resigned last week from WLW aft?r 28 months in its apecial broadcasting services division, Denver—!BiU Gillin, lately national •spot advertising, KLZ, named man- ager Of Alf M. Landon's new Denver station. Opens about May 1 in Park Lane liOtel. CalMetters not assigned «s yet. ^ Boston — Quartet of WBZ and WBZA veterans deceived service but- tons from' Westinghouse this week on basis of 15- and'20-year service records. W. Gordon Swan, program manager, got 20-year button for 23 years with, the outfit; 15-year buttons were awarded to announcer Malcolm MeCormaek, night news editor John F. McNamara, and oSice, manager and auditor Robert S. Halloran. Mioncapolis^E. W. Ziebarth, di- jector of education for WCCO and central cUvision «f CBS, will receive doctor of philosophy degree from Vniv. of Minnesota on March 18. Pittsburgh — Martin Agron- sky's early morning newscasts on WCAE have landed a bankroller. General Electric Radios, and Ray Scett gets to do the cut-in commer' cials. Book company sponsor of Dorothy Matthews' Saturday after- noon disk show has just renewed her for 13 more weeks on KQV. And on same station, Nancy Dixon's (Rosa- land^Kharfen) tab has Taeen picked up for another solid year. ant general manager and newly named vice-president. Cleveland. — Formation of Gerst, Sylvester & Walsh ad agency ma- terialized here with principals being W, J. Sylvester, sales manager WJW; Edward Walsh, advertising sales- man of WHK, and Arthur Gerst, owner of Gerst Advertising Agency. AMMO 35 Dm :M9t|ie«H—Bob Moore, formerly with KSCJ-Sioux City, as newscaster and staff announcer, has joined the jstaff of WHO and WHO-FM, Des Moines. Cleveland.—£. Harry Camp, sales manager for WGAB for the past nine year.s, has resigned. Although Jhis future plans have not been dis- closed it is expected he'll take a A«w executive post in radio, out- Side Cleveland. Sales activities will be 4)irected^ by Carl George, assist- 4 COVERAGE ; . »- t .WJben you buy The Team you get KMBQ plus KEEIM, its new $,000-watt daytime 550 Kc. associate sta- tion for rural Kansas. The Team's coverage is custom-built to cover all the Kansas . City market. And The Team is the only Kansas City broad- caster doing that job. of Kansas City tar Rvtal Kansas f«f c»mpl*to Coverage of KitiMt City'i trade area -fREE* PETERS, INC. NMkinat RepnseirtattM* Memphis Latest additions to WMPS staff are Garry Goodwill, announcer, formerly with RDKA, and Esther Whitehead, continuity department ' formerly with Foote, Cone & Belding in Chicago. Wichita—KAKE, local MBS out- let, observed Leap Year on Feb. 28 by handing over all announcing chores to a group of local non-pro- fessional women. Femmes, who handled all gabber duties for 18 hours, also were featured in a spe- cial Leap Year airer. Cleveland—WGAR starts a farm .show from 6:30 to 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday with Dick Kathe, formerly WMRNi as farm editor. San Antonie-^Alex Cole has joined ihe sales-staff of KITE, com- ing from.a similar post with KMAC. Television Reviews Sasa Continiied trom page lews 26 '1 the medium shot which gives the viewer the best perspective of the action as a whole. There is a time and place for closeups but athletic fields are not .studios and the two techniques, for the cameras, should be separate and distinct LEADERS IN INDVSTRT With Allen Scatty Arthur C. Kauf- nuuin, John A. Marpby Producer: Herbert BInggold Director: Paul NlchoIS' . 18 Mini.; 8:15 B-aa.. Tuea. (24) fHEYNCVLDS & CO. WPTZ, Phlla. (Phil Klein) A stock brokerage, Reynolds & Co., is trying something virtually unheard of—^trying to get clients via an air show. Using video and big names in business and industry in and around Philly, the brokers hope to hit the upper bracket audience which might be potential customers for stoclts and bonds. The show is of the interview type with some props to give it visual interest. Guest on show reviewed was Arthur C. Kanfraann. executive head of Gimbel Bros, and newly- elected president of the Philly Chamber of Commerce. Kaufmann described the working of the huge department .store with photographs Showing the various departments. Show was given a lift by the glib ad. lib of Allen Scott, who is: a vet announcer and has the know-how in handling q and a so that it has some life. Kaud!mann made an apt sub- ject for the «iiz; the guy has a natm'al sense of humor. John A. Murphy, a partner in the firm of Reynolds, takes a brief part in the questioning, while the com- mercials are restricted to a pitch to viewers to send for a booklet on in- vestments, giving the show the aura of a public service rather than a straight sales approach. This type of show could be deadly on video, but rapidflre handling by Scott malces it okay listening and viewing. : Shal. TO THE QUEEN'S TASTE WMh Mrs. Dione Lucas 3« MIns.; Thnrs.^ 8:1S p.nl. Siutainlng WCBS^TV, N. Y. ''To the Queen's Taste" is a natural type of women's show lor video. It!s a cookery program originating from the kitchen of the Cordon Bleu Restaurant which gives the femmes a chance to see a theoreticsil xecipe being worked out in practice with perfect clarity. The cameras have little to do except follow the culinary legerdemain of Mrs. Dione Lucas, owner of the-restaurant. Besides be- ing one of the country's topranking chefs, Mrs. Lucas has eno\)gh wit and charm to make this program acceptable to non>-cooking males. Under normal procedure,. however, this type of show should be slotted for afternoon viewers. No doubt working under the theory that television set owners can afford them,-Mrs. Lucas avoids such plebian dishes as hamburgers and prefers to play around with shrimps a la Creole and champignons a la patisserie, or some such dish. The recipes are worked out step-by-step with Mrs Lucas keeping up a steady flow of chatter containing helnful hints to housewives. At the end or the half'hour, the dishes are taken out of the oven, definitely not halt- baked. Hertn. Power of the Portable Hollywood, March 2. The importance of the port? able radio is best dramatized by Loretta Young's crack, "We have the entire house and swimming pool all hooked up for every- thing fancy from the Capehart to radio—I suppose the television is next—but we wind up actual- ly using the portable radios the most." ■ ■ i Hollywood, like the showfolk in New York, is perhaps the most airminded consumer mar.* ket, so far as receiving sets are concerned. JWT Continued frem page 37 MMitoi% Ae For^ Conntries first "Aldrich Family" or "Hardy Family" serie.s. Other viewers a.sked for more my.stery shows and one Brooklyn physician suggested that Kraft mix 'em up for more variety, running a mystery one week, a drama the next, then a comedy, etc. Long Branch, N. J., viewer, prais- ing the "consistently high level of entertainment" in the Kraft .shows, declared: "Other sponsors will have to recognize television for what it is today and be willing to undertake the high cost of fine television en- tertainment in order to compete with the excellent showmanship af- forded the public by your company." Another viewer, bringing up tele's potential threat to the legit theatre, noted that the Broadway production of "A Young Man's Fancy" had closed to wait for another available theatre. She suggested it be staged in the interim on video, so that it could be judged when the play re^ opened whether tele would actually out into legit boxollice. ("Fancy" has since been completely aban- doned.) Kraft also got its humorous let- tens. Group of high-school kids in Boonton, N. J., noted they had staged the same play in their high school auditorium, and declared: "We liked ours better. Our play got three cur- tain calls. Yours received none... Anytime you want us to come and put on a good show for you, let us know." A building contractor in Huntington, N. J., after buttering up Kraft by praising the shows, recalled lie'd been a star athlete in hi^ school and also sang with a barber- shop quartet. He suggested himself as the. star of a sports show and a barbership harmonizing program on teie. ■■ Washington, March 2. (Follourfjip detielopments in radio around the world have been, broad- c«st by the Darious countries ond monitored by the U, S. Government.) CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Immediate- ly after the Communist seizure of the Czeeh government, the job of "purging" employees of Radio Sta- tion Prague got under way. The Action Committee of the station summoned all employees of the sta- tion to a meeting and decided that "certain employees known for their Will. Morris S Continued ttom pace 27 Sm Marvin Salzman now heads up its tele department. Jack Mulvihill, now ea.st, tops GAC's radio-television department here. Milt Krasny, agency chief here, says several packages are being worked on and it'?: likely activities will increase soon. Berg^Allenberg has Harmon Nelson doubling be- tween radio and tele, aided by Keith Brown, and like others, doing groundwork with ad agencies, nets and stations-in-the-making. Nick Kessely, recently brought from New York, is share-watching radio-tele for Sam Jaffe. Music Corp. of America's Mickey Rockford, Coast air-rep, and aides are also on the double duty kick. Part-timing for Famous Artists is Tom Greenhow, and dittoing for M. C. Levee is Ben Benjamin, who says he's packaging some puppet shows initiaUy.' Mort Warner holds the dual fort for Art- ists, Ltd., while Carlton Alsop is the radio-tele, frontet tOr A. & S. Lyons, with "Barry Wood Show" al- ready: gomg on KTLA. NBC Accelerates Continued from pace 27 ; Radio Reviews s contlnned from page 29 -5 classical and hoe down strains were alternated in the program, which carries a $25 weekly cash award tor the best letter explaining why either of the two styles of music is pre- ferred. Inclination of the live talent to robustly applaud selections played by their own clan was a distinct drawback to the initial program as the recordings, had no palm-pound- ers to win more support, Marshall Pope, wlio m.c.'d the .show, pleaded through the program with dialers not to turn ofl! their sets when music being played was not their particular choice, explain- ing that some of the tunes, such as "Chokin' the Reefds," by the hiU- billies and "Dance of the Reed Pipes" by the symph had much in common. The symph music Included a few bars from Beethoven's "Fifth," a two-minute excerpt from "Carmen," Tschaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flow- ers," "Dance, of the Reed Pipes'' and "Caprice Espanol." The ditties turned out individually and en masse- by the hillbillies included "Turkey in the Straw," "Shave and a Hair- cut — Two Bits," "Paddy On the Turnpike," "Dill Pickle Rag," "Careless Darling" and . "Mama Don?tLike Symphony Music in Here Now." The wide convasts in the styles of music being presented seems cer- tain to attract a large following, and it looks like the station will not have to wait long for a bankroUer. Sahtt. : follow-up Conmiefit; I Fred Allen took over the sermon- izing stint of "Tlie Family Hour" on MBS last Thursday (2«) and gave it a delivery that was so wai'm and forthright that it couldn't have helped but cause many a listener to perk up his ears arid wonder at the comic's alter personality. The theme was of the usual pattern which pre- cedes and follows the dramatized story, namely, a plea for family prayer, but Allen, instead of tossing off one of those lip-service jobs, molded it into something that sound- ed as though the thought had deep meaning for him and: had a strong persona! association. negative attitude" should be su.s- pended forthwith. One employee, described as a "disrupter" had fled the country. The Action Committc* also charged that a former .8tl« uouncer, Mancal, had sought to gather a group to occupy the radio station. Some people were forbid- den further access to the station. BULGARIA: A bill to formaliie the government monopoly of Hie Bulgarian radio service has been submitted to the Supreme National Sobranie. The monopoly would in- clude construction and maintenance of radio communications and br«ad- c^ting stations, transmission of speeches, music, television, etc, Tlie monopoly would be controlled by the Posts, Telegraph and Tel.-phone Ministry, the committee for Science, Arts and Culture, the Directorate General of Radio Broadcasting, and the National Defense and Interior Ministries. BELGIUM! The Private Radio Broadcasting Assn. has protested the closing down of private stations, and has requested thaf the government introduce, the radio broadcasting l.nw which has been promised Suice 1945. NORTHERN KOREA: Owners of radio receiving sets have been or- dered to take out permits' immediate- ly and to notify the ofHcit^ of any change of address, BRAZIL: The MSaiistry of Educa- tion and Hfealth Has begun experi- mental service on its new j^ortwave educational station. t>hiladelphia, March 2. WPlEN's recent offer to 4ff public service organizations here of free sustaining time, has been snapped up—but quick. Arrangements have been com- pleted with 16 groups, which taltes care of all of the station's sustaining time now. The remaining 24, .says Program Director, John McClay,, won't be forgotten. "Over the course of the year," he added,, "all will re- ceive equal, free air time." DMTE» RKXAIX URro CO. WetliHwday, NBC, ie:30 ,V.!Ui.. V.D.T. M-<i-M—.'''Oil th« iDliind With Ym" "THIS Time Foa netmr atit.: tau CLAVTiw start operating at about the same time, so that "-the two stations will comprise a ..modified regional net Uptil they can be linked to the east coast chain. Mullen declared that the coast-to-coast link would be completed by 1950 "at the latest." Pacting of the Chronicle station by NBC and the working arrange- ment with Balto's WBAL-TV, which is owned-and-operated by the Hearst syndicate, has knocked two stations, at least, fi'om the contemplated net- work Of newspaper-owned outlets. Other trade reports, meanwhile, indicate formation of such a web may fall by the wayside before it's even started. WPIX, the N. Y. Daily New.s' forthcoming station, for in- stance, is rumored already castinjt; around for a major network affilia"-. tion. H.adio Sta.t.ibH N E W Y O R K BOLLI^G COMPANYii^a Effective Marcli 8, 194S