Variety (August 1950)

26 R^MO Wednesday, August 9, 1950 ABC thought it was going out on a limb when it decided to knock everything off the 3:30 to 6 after- noon schedule for the only net- work. pickup of the United Nations Security Council meetings. The UN pickups, supplemented by net- work commentators to lend color to the proceedings, were inaugurated last Tuesday (1), and ABC figured It was worth a try for a few days, at any rate, until the sponsor and station squawks started rolling in. Network execs practically did a double-take, however,, when, by weekend, the mail started pouring in; The stations, despite the fact that it meant coin out of the till by sacrificing commercial segments, were all for it and expressed a preference for its continuance. As of yesterday (Tues>V not a single beef had been registered. The stations claim 'liey’re taking audi- ence away from the other Web af- filiates and indies; that the drama inherent in the Security Council sessions, plus public, anxiety over the current Russo-UN crisis, are packing ’em in at the Hooper- Nieison gate. (One station wrote in to say “it’s the greatest idea since •Stop the Music.”’). Newspapers generally throughout the country have, been: landing; the network pickup of the UN sessions. As result ABC plans to continue the pickups through the month of August. Commercial shows, affect- ed include several network co-ops, a flock of Station biz and national and local spots. •Effective tomorrow (Thurs.) the web will do a repeat playback of edited highlights; cross-the-board at 10:30-11 p.m., because of letters; requesting an evening airing •• ■. v > 20th’s $6,000 Saturation, Drive on N. Y. Stations As ‘No Way Out’ Come*on 20th-Fox’s saturation campaign for its “NO Way Out” in Gotham, which will use nine independent radio stations on Aug,. 13, 14 and 15, will get extra special attention from the broadcasting and film in- dustries. Reason is that AM is being used exclusively, shortly after Columbia’s recent test with Video-only broadcast advertising for “711 Ocean Drive.” For “711,” Columbia approached tele, stations in New York and spent $2,000 apiece on WNBT, WOR-TV, WJZ-TV, WPIX and WABD. (WCBS-TV didn’t make a bid.) Each made a package of spots and participations, which av- eraged around. 25 plugs daily on all five outlets. They had a bigger selection of clips from the film row than any other studio to date has made available. Results from the two campaigns Will not be strictly comparable, Since “711” has the advantage of a vaude show at the Par and be- cause “NO Way Out” has a tolerance theme with presumably less draw than the “Til”’ betting syndicate motif. However, AM advocates feel that 20th may get more from its radio expenditure, which is reportedly around $6,000. It bought, via Bu- chanan agency, 15 spots daily for the three-day . span on the nine sta- tions: WNEW, WMCA, WINS, WMGM, WLIB, WEVD, WWRL, WHOM and WOV. It will get a total of 405 spots during the saturation drive. All For One— Minneapolis, Aug. 8. For the first time in local radio annals, a Twin City sta- tion, WTCN, is calling its lis- teners’ attention to the fact that another station, KUOM, is broadcasting a vital, timely program, the present United. Nations’ Security Council ses- sions, and is inviting its lis- teners to switch over if they’re interested. Radio folks here says it’s a most' linusual ges- ture calculated to cement good public relations. WTCN, Twin City ABC out- let, decided it couldn’t make room for the ABC weekday UN broadcasts, having much of its afternoon sustaining time . sold; It offered them to KUOM, University of Minne- sota non-commercial station, and the latter decided to carry them as a public service. KUOM estimates the station is attracting the largest listen-! ing audiences in its history. HcALUSIER, LUDLAH Sherman & Marquette are ex- panding their New York organiza- tion along with increased billings and acquisition of part of Colgate’s big Sunday night television show, plus a segment of “Howdy Doody” for Halo Shampoo. W. A. McAllis- ter, formerly with J. M. Mathes, comes in as account executive of Ajax Cleanser and Cashmere soap. Stuart Ludlam becomes head of TV-radio for the agency in Chi- cago, New York and Hpllywood. Announcement of successor to Carl Brown, recently resigned to start his own agency, will be made shortly. In the meantime Stuart Sherman heads up the New York agency operation. Leo Barnett’s CBS board chairman William S. Paley arrived back from a Euro- pean jaunt last week and immedi- ately wOht into a huddle with Frank Sinatra, who has been under verbal commitment to the network for a television show (and probably a radio program) next season. Details embracing a three-year contract for Sinatra’s exclusive services had not been finalized prior to Paley’s trip abroad and even though several minor kinks were still to be ironed out as the result of last week’s huddle, it’s now considered a certainty that Sinatra’s Saturday night CBS-TV show will go to the post in the fall, The 'web’s programming chief, Hubbell Robinson, Jr., is currently whipping up the production de- tails. In addition, Sinatra will likely do a pre-transcribed radio series for the network. After huddling with Paley, Sina- tra hopped to Paris last Thursday (3) for a 10-day stay: Dallas, Aug. 8. Liberty . Broadcasting System, network which sprang up three years ago with the airing of re-- created baseball games; says it’s set to become the fifth U. S. web with fulltime broadcasting to 48 states on Get. 2. EIGEN SWITCHES SHOW TO OWN N. Y. BISTRO Jack Eigen will move his WMGM disk jockey show from New York’s | Copacabana to his own new res- taurant, the Jack Eigen Room, !■ starting Sept. 23. He closes at the j Copa Sept. 22, completing four years of broadcasting from the nitery. ^ New site is the old Monte Carlo Beach Club on East 54th St, off Madison Ave. Meanwhile, the Copa, after talk- ing to several radio stations, signed with WVNJ, Newark, N. J. station, to broadcast the all-night stint. A staff, disk ■ jockey will handle, the show. Eigen, who owns the new res- taurant with Leonard Ashbaeh, Majestic Radio topper, will con- tinue broadcasting seven .days a j week, from midnight to 4 a.m. He described his departure from the Copa as completely amicable. STEINER EXITS MORRIS LABOR DAY DRAMA Hollywood, Aug, 8. History of the International Assn, of Machinists will be drama- | tized in “Boomer Jones,” half- 1 | hour dramatic Show by Morton Wishengrad which is being readied for a coast-to-coast Labor Day broadcast. Brian Donlevy, William Holden and Marie MacDonald al- ready have been set for star roles with Mel Ferrer directing. Labor radio consultant M. S. No- vik worked Out the basic details during a recent trip here from New York and I AM public relations di- rector Gordon Cole is here now completing arrangements. Special music has been cleffed by David Raksin and James Bell, Harold Vermilyea, Jeff Corey, Barney Phillips, Tom Powers, Earle ROss, Michael Ross and Herbert Vigran have been set for supporting roles, Hy Averback will handle the an- nouncer’s Chores. LBS now has 237 outlets taking its programs in 34 .states. These are outside the northeast and mid- west major league baseball belt. . New web will not sell programs to! national bankrollers but will Offer them to stations for a set fee with the affiliates peddling them to local backers on a co-operative basis. Co-op policy will be used, LBS veepee Jim Foster said, be- cause local outlets can clear “six or seven times as much on a local sale as they’d get from Our net- work account after discounts.” Web Will also air Yankee; pro football games, with WINS, N.Y;, as the Gotham outlet. On Sundays When Yankees don’t play, N. Y. Giants will be picked up by Ted Husing, Foster said. Programming plans include: nighttime play-by-play sports about two hours daily; Army football games, with Ted Husing; “Liberty Minstrels”; a. news commentator from! Washington and three news- casts per day from the; capital; band remotes in late evening; Army and Navy basketball on Sat- urday afternoons after the grid season; Louisiana State U. football; and “Great Days in Sports” With Gordon McLendon (who also heads LBS), LBS is also planning a stanza called “Cross Words and Sweet Music,” along the lines of its “Mu- sical Bingo” airer. Chicago, Aug. 8. NBC exec veepee Charles R. Denny apparently pas been at least partially successful in his pleas to affiliates for additional network time. The web last week was able to close the deal with Armour whereby' the meat packing firm picked up a quarter-hour cross-the- board time strip previously in the station time category. Time bought by Armour is the 11:15 to 11:30 a.m. period in the central time zone and the 1:15 to 1:30 p.m. slot in the eastern zone. The show, as yet unpicked, will be aired live in the central and west-, em zones and repeated in the p.m. period in the east starting Sept. 4. Foote, Cone and Belding is the agency, Nielsen Figures Show How U S, Radio Listening Ira L. Steiner, for the past 10 years with the William. Morris agency, has left to join Ted Ashley Associates. He had worked with Wallace S. Jordon, chief of WM’s radio and tele department, and had handled such deals as the Bob Hope .video shows for Frigidaire and “Pulitzer Prize Plays,” which Schlitz bought on ABC-TV. George Gruskin, Coast head Of WM, flew to Gotham Monday (7) to pinchhit on pending negotia- tions. Steiner, who joined WM to head its ad and publicity dept., later handled recordings and transcrip- tions and after a tour in the serv- ylce joined the AM-TV dept, Ashley, Incidentally, is also a WM alumnus. For Sun. Aft. Pickup Although Wildroot has cancelled out on the Sunday night at 8 “Sam Spade” show on NBC, the client, via B B D & O agency, has put in an Order for the 5:30 to 6 Sunday afternoon time on the web for sponsorship of a new Show this fall. (NBC, meanwhile, is pitch- ing up “Spade” to other prospect- ive clients^ Wildroot has shown some in- terest in the “Cloak and Dagger” adventure series, currently heard sustaining in the Sunday 4 p.m. Slot. If bought “Dagger” would be moved into the 5;30 period. Chicago, Aug. 8. Nationwide radio listening habits, which have been toboggan- ing. since last year; have snapped back and are now higher than in the comparable! period of 1949, as against earlier losses Of 5 to 10% when com pared with last year, according to A. C.. Nielsen’s report for early July. Korean war inter- est is responsible, with news broadcasts showing outstanding . increases. . Morning and afternoon listen! ng, formerly slightly below the 1949 figure; is now up 5%. Nighttime listening, which .all year had taken a 10 to 15% shellacking when com- pared with 1949, is now on a par with last year. Stalemated Chicago, Aug. 8. NetWork staffer, inquring why he was given notice, was told that The Boss objected to his playing chess during work-, ing hours. . “He doesn’t care if you play gin rummy, shoot craps, or hold a secretary’s hand .during working hours. But playing chess requires brain work, and if you’re going to think during office hours, you should think about the network.” MBS’GEN. FOODS Chicago, Aug. 8. Talk of Chicago is the zooming of the Leo Burnett agency. Last year the agency had a single client in the network tele picture. This fall the clients of the Chi outfit will be bankrolling, wholly or in part, six major network shows; It’s no accident that the com- pany, which in its 15-year existence has upped its annual billings from $1,000,000 to over $22,000,000, is deeply enmeshed in the new me- dium. Leo Burnett, prexy and sparkplug of the young agency, has beep a video enthusiast since its earliest *days. Back in the days when commercial network teevee shows were still a big question mark, Burnett urged his staffers and ad chiefs of his clients to buy sets for their homes so they could study the advertising potentials of the electronic offspring. • Not that radio has been neg- lected. Two additional AM net- work billings have been added for the fall, bringing the total to seven shows, The two media will .share more than a quarter of the agency’s total billings during the. upcoming season. Long considered something of a' phenomenon along Michigan ave- nue, the company mushroomed v from three accounts when Burnett set up the agency in 1935 to the present client list of 22. Burnett organized his company that year after exiting the Chi office of the Erwin. Wasey agency, taking with him three of its accounts—the Hoover Co., Realsilk, and the Min- nesota Valley Canning Co., now the Green Giant Co. Company, which last Friday (4) celebrated its 15th anni, considers (Continued, on page 36) Mutual may find itself losing a good slice of billings,, and right smack in its strong Sunday lineup, if General Foods decides to cancel “Juvenile Jury” at the .end of its 13-week cycle in December. “Hop- along Cassidy,” which GF also backed following “Jury,” has been shifted to CBS. Question now is whether GF will hold on to Hoppv’s 4 p. m. time or relinquish it. If it drops the pe- riod, thereby losing the contiguous rate discount. “Jury” will be care- fully Watched this fall with its fate next year in the balance. How- ever, the period is considered a cream availability, and the bank- roller may hold it. Meanwhile, GF mav move “Jury” from its present 3:30 p. m. spot into Hoppy’s 4 p. m. berth, which would be, a stronger position. Sponsor has occupied the back-to- back slots on MBS for five years, with “House of. Mystery” having followed “Jury’’ until the HOppy western' was substituted this year. Another loyal Mutual backer. Williamson Candy, is now being wooed to move its “True Detective’’ to another web. Whodunit is aired Sunday at 5:30 p. m. Yankee Names Kennett To Head Cop. Outlets ♦Hartford, Aug. 8. Yankee network has appointed Robert L. Kennett as generaUman- ager of its owned-and-operated stations in Connecticut, WONS here and WICC, Bridgeport. Move follows resignation of Dickins J, Wright as general. manager of WICC to take over, the same post at WPAT, Paterson, N. J. Kennett. has been g.m. of WONS for the past two years. At the same time, Yankee upped Ralph H. Klein, program director of WONS, to station supervisor, Charles Parker, WICC sales manager, was promoted to supervisor of that out- let. In Alan Hynd’s 100G Snit Vs. NBC’s‘Wanted’ In N. Y. federal court Friday (4) NBC and McGraw Associates, pro- ducers of “Wanted,” were slapped With a $100,000 plagiarism suit by writer Alan Hynd. Also named as a defendant in Hynd’s action was Martin Rich- mond, the McGraWs’ attorney. Hynd charges that the McGraws approached him 1 last year in search* of a program idea built around true crime, a subject that earns Hynd around $50,000 annually through books, mags and foreign syndication. He Says McGraws made a verbal agreement that Hynd would be a full partner in any program eventuating from his ideas and know-how, and that he had come up with the “Wanted” idea. He worked with McGraws in selling NBC the idea and- cut three auditions, he claims, but the Mc- Graws inked a pact with NBC with- out his knowledge. He adds he was slated to do the narration but walked off two days before the preeni. CBS Slapped for $35,000 Hollywood, Aug. 8. State supreme court here has awarded Jack Stanley $35,000 on his Charges that the web’s “Holly- wood Presents” was based on the layout, “Walter Wanger Presents,” which he tried to sell the net; ‘COTTY’ TO N Y. AS Hollywood,. Aug. 8. Erwiri-Wasey is moving G. H. Cottington to New York to head up radio and television, For the past two years he has handled pro- duction of the Carnation shows from here. Fred Jordan, executive veepee of the agency, will pick a succes- sor to direct the firm’s ,radio ac- tivities. Charles Lowe continues as director of TV in Hollywood. FEEN-A-MINT’S SPOT DRIVE Feen-a-Mint is launching a heavy spot campaign for 32 weeks, start- ing next month. Laxative last spring made a 13-week test, as a result of which the new drive is being incepted. Agency is Duane Jones.