Variety (April 1953)

36 HABIO-mi!V1$ION ■Wednesday, April 8 , 1953 TV’s Easter Parade Continued from page 29 while interviews were being; cj; ducted. „ t At the Waldorf, McCarthy and Miss Ravisse interviewed, among others, James A. Farley, a Hun- garian countess, and actressv^lar-v lene Cameron. Recorded maw* ground music throughout was an- noying. Frofti the vantage point of a cus- tom tailor’s shop across the way from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Charles Collingwood, for ■« CBS, gave the history of the Easter Pa- rade, which could be seen fitfully in the distance through the win- dow. Later, aftei; much switching of the dial, he was found with au- thor Cleveland Amory (“The Last Resorts’*), who. gave some lowdown on New YQrk-’s.high society. Awkward Stars At the Plaza, CBS’ hotel head- quarters, Ann Rutherford, subbing for Celeste Holm, who had bowed out of the event after signing with NBC, was nervous (as was Sally Forrest reading fashion notes) and anxiously awaiting cues in the Ter- race Room, which had loud, dis- tracting background noise. Also present was Walter Slezak of “My Three Angels,” who interviewed a group of children including his German-speaking three. Outside the Plaza, Mike and Buff Wallace chatted with such ar- . rivals as Bert Lytell, who told two awkward anecdotes; several wom- en with the Travelers Aid Society and the New York Cancer Com- mittee, and hotel owner Conrad Hilton. After about 17 minutes in New York, at the Sherry Netherland where Reginald Gardiner and Maggi McNellis chatted with such guests as Gloria Vanderbilt Sto- kowski and her son Stan, Russell Nype, and Mrs. Orson Munn Sr. and Jr., the ABC network switched to Washington's Mayflower Hotel, where a brunch was being held for the International Rescue Com- mittee (to help enslaved peoples). The Washington faces—among them Senators Paul Douglas, Theodore F. Green and Pat McCar- ran, with Mrs. •William Randolph Hearst Jr. as hostess—were wel- come in their television newness, but the hotel atmosphere suffered from sameness, and the people seen were too many, and too has- tily and briefly met. There was also a Washington fashion parade. Now that television’s Easter Pa- rade coverage has been frightened away from Fifth Avenue, it would be wise to explore hot only other locations, as ABC has done, but other approaches to avoid over- whelming the viewers with a mul- tiplicity of guests too superficially presented. Television shows lack '<# pagination by merely offering an almost endless string of peo- ple, mainly celebrities (bona fide or otherwise), to stand up before the cameras and take a figurative bow.,, ‘ - Now starring on NBC's ALL STAR REVIIR Saturdays, 8-9 p,m., EST Mgt.i William Morris Agancy TV Star Jag Continued from page 21 in radio and television, as witness “I Love Lucy*’ and the fall starter in “My Favorite Husband.” CBS has in the works a new creative hoard of writers, such as- those radio boys who established the situation comedies as a bull mar- ket years ago. Hubbell Robinson Jr„ CBS-TV programming chief, has signed playwright Ronald Alexander (“Time Out for Ginger”) as the start of a large creative staff that will knock heads together in de- velpping new tele properties. While not uninterested in stars— such as Danny Kaye, for instance— CBS is concerned with creating the right property first and then ac- quiring the star (or grooming one>. .Any way you look at it, the fall season shapes up as one of the most active one in years, as op- posed to last season’t generally moribund condition, when new tele shows , were few and far between. Hallmark Continued from page 26 shows have been most helpful in building recognition and sales for Hallmark cards. We feel that pro- du ' * *is like ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Amahl an« «, j Night Visitors’ make im- portant contributions to TV, -and fit perfectly into the ‘Hallmark Hall of Faitne’ objectives on radio and TV.” Hallmark will promote its “Ham- let” sponsorship by distributing a four-page “Study Guide to Ham- let” to 12,000 high school and col- lege English teachers throughout the U. S. Students will find in it pictures of the cast, a history of the play, and an explanation of its relationship to modern life.. Besides Evans in the role of Hamlet, the cast will contain Ruth Chatterton as Queen Gertrude, Sarah Churchill as Ophelia, Joseph Schildkraut as King Claudius, and Barry Jones as Polonius. Unlike its sponsorship of “Amahl,” Hallmark will offer commercials at the be- ginning, middle and end of the drama. A five-minute break will be made at midpoint of the telecast to allow Evans a breathing spell. Fore-Aft Baseball Continued from page 27.; fore the season opens next week. Wife of Giant manager Leo Du- rocher wasn’t expected to repeat her chores of last year, but re- centy decided to do the turn once again, Otherwise, the lineup looks like this: Dodger games on WOR-TV are AMERICAN-BRITISH T.V. MOVIES, INC. 200 West 57th St., Ntw York City JU 6-7198/9 Directors: Nathan Kramer, Michael Hyams A.B.T.V. 13 first in the field with a package of BRAND NEW FEATURE MYSTERIES ■ *55* MINUTES EACH ALL EMTED Br FILM EXPERTS. THESE FEATURE FILMS ALSO AVAILABLE IN THEIR ORIGINAL LENGTH. preceded by the half-hour “Happy Felton’s Knot Hole Gang,” picked up a couple of weeks ago by Bank of the Manhattan Co. Post-game sessions of 15-minutes are shared by Studebaker Dealers and Tide- water Associated Oil, latter, re- peating its sponsorship of last year. On WPIX, Yankees signed 1 comic Joe E. Brown to handle pre- and pdst-game chores, consisting of a 15-minute stanza before and 10 minutes following the games. R, J. Reynolds bankrolls^ for Camels and Cavaliers. Since it’s a Yankee package, Brown will- also assist Mel Allen and Jim Woods in the commentary on. the games them- selves. Also on WPIX, Frisch will do post-game chores of 10-minutes for Lincoln-Mercury Dealers while Miss Day, as yet unsponsored, does the pre-game slot. Inside Staff—-Radio Sra. Take, 9 = Continued from page 26 —J mercial field. Sen. Tobey said he felt he could speak for the people of Sen. Butler’s state as well as his own “and say. that we have enough commercials now.” •It was at this point that Tobey announced that the committee would meet with the FCC to con- sider “the whole field” of Educa- tional video. It became obvious, from the hearing on Doerfer, that Sen. Bricker is pushing to safeguard reservation of channels for educa- tional TV after, next June 2, when commercial broadcasters may peti- tion the Commission to take up educational channels which have not been applied for. The Ohio solon urged that the channels be “kept open” to give the educational institution the opportunity “to out- fit its own station in its own time and in its own way.” “I just don’t want to see this great (television) facility taken over entirely,” Sen. Bricker con- tinued, “to the exclusion of control by educational institutions. We have the money. We have the op- erating facilities. We have the peo- ple, training and trained, who could conduct an around-the-clock program.” WOR, Mutual’s New York flagship, recently snowballed a $100 one- shot advertisement on the station into a $50,000-a-year billings propo- sition, ‘ Client was Plantation Estates, a realty firm which sells plots in Florida to retiring cduples. WOH salesman talked the firm some months ago into buying one announcement on the early morning John Gambling show. Finn had been working on an advertising cost basis of $5 per inquiry. Initial announcement brought a response that cued Plantation to buy time to the point'where it now has 15 minutes of Gambling on Saturdays, plus other spots to the tune of $1,000 weekly. Claims, too, it’s sold out one area of plots and has started another development in Florida. / For writing and producing “Only One to a Customer,” NBC radio documentary on heart disease last year, Wade Arnold, NfiC executive producer has been chosen as the first winner of the American Heart Assn’s annual Howard W. Blakeslee Award ($1,000) for outstanding scientific reporting in. the .field of heart and blood vessel diseases Award will be formally presented Friday (10) at the annual dinner of the American Heart Asai. in Atlantic City. It was established last year in memory of Howard W. Blakeslee, Associated Press science editor and founder of the National Assn, of Science Writers, who died of heart disease. CBS employes in the Labor Grade»structure (practically all white- collar arid service employes) receive a hike in salary, retroactive to March 30, in their paychecks April 10 or 17. Salary minimums have been boosted from $2 to $12, and employes will get these increases or a 5% general increase, whichever is higher. A merit-raise system goes into effect May 3. Broadcasters covering the latest atom bomb explosion at Yucca Flat. Nevada, have received membership cards to the Ancient and Honorable Society of Atombombwatchers, Las Vegas Local No. 1 from the Flamingo Hotel. Cards attest holders have “shivered, sweated and stuck.” WLIB, N. Y. indie, is making its Harlem Easter Party an annual affair, following the appearance of 1,000 youngsters Saturday (4) at the stationV Hotel* Theresa studios. Station had announced the party the day before, and had to turn away a number of youngster^. Mer- chandising tie-ins were set with sponsors, who provided free-refresh- ments and gifts' to the kids. William S. Hedges, NBC veepee and chairman of the nominating committee of the New York chapter of the Radio Pioneers, has an- nounced a slate of officers for the «upcoming meeting and election of the Club to be held May 20. Committee’s slate is: President, Patt Barnes; 1st veepee, Frank Silverhail of B.B.D&O.; 2d veepee, Charles Butterfield. AP radio columnist; 3rd veepee, Henrietta Harrison of the YMCA; Secretary, Sr U ^ e Robertson of Broadcasting magazine, and Treasurer, Charles A* Wall of AMP and BMI. Murrow 555 Continued from page 23 ups, no film at all, and has created a good deal of sponsor thinking. Amoco, for instance, which has first refusal rights, would like to back Murrow in TV as it has in radio since-the days of the blitz in London. But five a week on radio and two a week on tele are a lot of news shows. So Amoco is reportedly mulling the possibility of cutting the Mur- row 7:45 p. m. rqdio strip to three a week, picking up the tele tab for “Persori to .Person” at either two 15-minute periods, which would give the oil company full, weekly Murrow coverage on both radio and tele, or one half-hour period during the week. ** There’s also some network think- ing about making life easier for the radio-TV reporter by advancing Murrow’s radio time one hour ear- lier into the Lowell Thomas spot (Procter & Gamble is dropping Thomas in June). With all this, Alcoa is not happy. Aluminum firm, liking Murrow for its institutional advertising, wants if possible, to keep the newsman a television exclusive and is worried about added Murrow tele exposure under different sponsorship if “Person to Person” debuts under the Amoco flag. . ^ Beaumont, Tex.—All four of the local radio stations will be repre- sented in the legit production of “A Message, for Kings” to be pre- sented here April 15. Karl von Leuwen, program director for KRIC, is director and a member of the cast. Ed Ogden, engineer for KFDM, is technical director of the play. Virginia Moon, of the KTRM staff, will be narrator. In -the cast are Charles St, John of KJIM and Homor Odom and Will Coker from KFDM. C>1 i L hb) 1 J'. 7 J Radio - TV Announcer - Producer Metropolitan Stations Experience Newsreels, Commercial Films, etc. Also Stag* and Recordings. Available as Announcer and/or Producer. Write Box V. 975, Variety 154 W. 46th St., N. Y. C„ or phone ORegon 9*2720 . o>l r>.i -J 1 Those personal pitches by pop vocalists for their own disks will be extended into the classical field for the first time on ABC, when Jan Peerce tops off his 90-minute Monday night musical host stint Wlth ?r-?" minute . dlsk and gab sesSion - Metopera tenor will play his own Victor etchings, intro and interview guests, and generally dis- cuss the longhair fields. ABC has been experiencing all kinds of difficulty with a title for its new senes, name of which was changed for the third time this week. Originally tagged “ABC Caravan,” it was changed a couple of weeks ago to the ‘ ABC Playbill.” Third change came when “The ±uayDill, N. Y. legit program magazine, warned the network the was . c ?Py r b=>ht ed and that the firm had worf two previous suits of title infringement. * It’s now the “ABC Playhouse.” Lincoln-Mercury In WCBS Weather Tuneup Lincoln-Mercury, through Ken- yon & Eckhardt, has bought a fixed position weather package on WCBS, N. Y., beginning next week. Two one-minute spots, at 6 and 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday, will be in a singing commercial format, with 20 seconds of music, 10 seconds of straight weather and 30 seconds for the commercial. Lyrics and music for tunes are written by Ernie Hartman, WCBS assistant program director, and Margo Burke. vo\°^ aba /T,WOW last Thursday (2) staged its 30th anni show, fea- turing Jolly Joe Martin, A1 Lamm and rebroadcasts of station’s past top shows. Cincinnati—Joe E. Marks, vet comic and a resident of Covington, K y-* opposite Cincy, ha£ exited as a WLW-TV staffer. He has signed for outdoor operettas this summer in St. Louis and Kansas City. Our Business is growing by leaps and bounds. We would like to discuss with a good radio and television agent the possibilities of joining us. BOX V-753, Variety 154 West 46th Street New York 36, N. Y. 1 Hi ... always has been the best cost- per thousand medium. Today, KSTP Radio is a better buy than ever before. A dollar gets a lot more I Ask Your Petry Man. ; 4 . i r •■I’*’ 4 I "a > i i « vl» Vfi poi'en i REPRESENTED ■I EDWARD PETRY J k «ni COMPANY: