Variety (January 1954)

Wednesday, January 27r 1954 From the Production Ceatres • • • mUtl tTTT'l ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' f.V JVEr YORK CITY Bill SIlbert» WMGM deejay, renewed for another year. New contract starts Feb. 9 .. . . “Cavalcade of Bands” to salute "March of Dimes” jan 29, opening with Henry Jerome, followed by Art Lowry’s orch and Phli Napoleon’s combo .. . .. Dr. Irvin Seale, broadcasting minister, will have a new book out in April called, "Ten Weirds That Will Change Your Life.” Publisher is Wm. Morrow . / . Barbara DeMott, former niiblicist for General Foods’ program "Renfro Valley Sunday Gatherin’,”; joins Dooley Advertising in Louisville ... . Bertram Lebhar, Jr., director of WMGM, vacationing in Florida . , . Nat Asch, 27-year-old sports director at same station, was cited by Honor Society of Long Island U. at its journalism department dinner last week, Claire Collins of ABC’s traffic department promoted to supervisor of ABC radio and tele sustaining traffic ... Charles Miehelson started distribution of his transcribed "Phil Rizzuto Sports Caravan’V . :. .... Organist Rosa Rio handling music on ABC’s, new soaper, Ever Since Eve” . .' . Guy Wallace replacing Alan Oaks as newscaster on W ABC’s early morning "AFL Shipping News” ... Harold Vermilyea added to "Our Gal Sunday” cast. . . . . Elizabeth Morgan, Guy Sorel, Adrienne Bayan, Danny Ocko, Frank Thomas, Jr. and Rosemary Prinz in the new "Front Page Farrell” sequence . . . Dick Leibert is new theme musician on "Just Plain Bill” and Fred Feibel is on "Our Gal Sunday.” NBC’s "Second Chance” strip went 11:45 a.m. network starting Monday (25). N.Y. segment, until then slotted 2:30 p.m , had been a rebroadcast. Program is. a Frank Cooper package with Sy, Fischer producing • . . KNX, Los Angeles, becomes the fourth of CBS’ o&o’s to hike daytime rates in the last few months, the others being WBBMChicago, WCBS-N.Y. and KMO^-St. Loo. Increase is effective Jan. 31 on Card 13 in the first daytime rise since 1946 . ; . George Herman, CBS Radio’s White House correspondent, to address the first annual Newsmen’s Conference at Bucknell U. on Lincoln’s Birthday ... Lou Cioffi, CBS newsman in Korea and Tokyo for the past two years, reassigned to web’s news hq here . . . Lowell Thomas on a two-week lecture tour to Kaiser-Willys dealers from N.Y. to Frisco. . WNBC will air tribute to Jackie Robinson, director of community services of .NBC’s N.Y. stations (and who occasionally takes time out to play ball for Dem Bums), tomorrow (Thurs.) when he’ll receive "distinguished service” award from Young Men’s Board of Trade at the Ad Club. As one of five state" winners of the citation, he’ll go to Buffalo on Saturday (30) to receive additional plaudits . . WNBCWNBT program manager Steve White to teach radio-tv announcing techniques at Barnard next summer and Columbia U. in the fall as Vet chief announcer Pat Kelly exits the chore after a couple of decades. White was trained at WNEW and hefs son of packager Roger White, a way-backwhenner as a radio producer. ^ IN CHICAGO ... Robert Hurleigh, ex-WGN news chief now working for Mutual in Washington, being : feted tomorrow night (Thurs.) by the Chi Press Club . . . Homer Heck, ex-WMAQ program director now with Foote, Cone & fielding, is supervising a new Saturday afternoon WMAQ literary-dramatic series using talent from his Northwestern U. radio production class . . . Charles Besosa and William Quinn named account execs assigned to A. C. Nielsen’s New York office . . . Entire "Chicago Theatre of the Air” troupe treks to .Washington to originate the MutualWGN show from there Saturday (30) . . . ABC "Breakfast Club” cast members getting the winter carnival treatment. Chirper Eileen Parker Junketed to Winona, Minin., Saturday (23) to p.a. at the winter sports show there. Singer Johnny Desmond travels to Saranac Lake Feb, 12 to be clowned the Winter Carnival king . . . WMAQ’s "Mission, Secret,” cloak and dagger serial, leading the local Pulse parade with a 4.5 Gordon Baking Co. is taking a daily 10-minute ride on Bill Evans early morning WGN disk show . . . Chi NBC announcer Dick Noble new chairman of the Public Information committee of the Illinois Teacher Training Institute alumni council ; . . WGN publicity director Jipi Hanlin autoing to the Coast for a three-week vacation. IN PHILADELPHIA . . . Ed McMahon and Chris .Keegan resumed clown assignments on WCAU-TV’s "Big Top” (23) \ . . Gene Krupa’s opening at the Rendezvous held up until Tuesday evening because of commitment on Red Buttons show . . , Ruth Welles, KYW commentator, has been named co-chairman of executive committee for membership enrollment in the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission and Fellowship House . . . John Raleigh, KYW news analyst, will be toastmaster at Sigma Chi fraternity’s annual dinner in the University Club (29) . . . Dennis Day will be in (Feb. 1) to make personal appearance at tea for Heart Fund . , . WHAT joined National Negro Network (25), presenting Juanita Hall’s "Story of Ruby Valentine” on cross-the-board morning schedule . . . Poster, Miller & Bierly, Inc. started' 12th year of morning newscasts (7:30 to 7:40 a.m., Mon.-Sat.) on WFIL (25). Allen Stone has been news commentator on program for last six years. IN WASHINGTON ... WWDC-Mutual have auditioned over 100 disks of applicants for d.j. Job being vacated by Milton Q. Ford, who goes over to WMAL-ABC, radio & tv, after a California vacation ; . . Dick Stakes has checked into WTTG-buMont as accountant, Neal Edwards has resigned as sales manager of' the DuMont station , . . WGMS, capital’s “Good Music” station, sponsoring a Hi-Fi Fair, in cooperation with Washington Audio Society, March 5, 6, & 7 . . . Jerry and Jima Strong, WMALABC’s husband-wife team, named "Sweethearts of *54” by Inner Wheel Club . . . Robert Coar, manager of Joint Congressional radio-tv studios, recovering after serious surgery . ... D.C. chapter of American Women in Radio & Television headed by Florence S. Lowe, Variety’s WashUigton bureau, hosted group’s national board at a party past week ... . . Everett Holies, Mutual’s Washington bureau chief,' in Berlin to cover Big Four foreign ministers’ powwow . , . ABC White House correspondent did a "Dragnet” takeoff at National Press Club presidential inauguration, with Vice President ‘Nixon following tv, show’s format as star witness ... Byron Films has made a 30-mihute color film of tne Cpnnie ' B. Gay "Town and Country Time” hillbilly show, with hasi aC* ^rar^ producing, for national distribution on a sponsored w SAN FRANCISCO . . . Producer Jaime del Valle in for confabs with local police dept, for jus proposed "Line-Up” teleseries for CBS. Stanza, if approved, will use ase histories from files of local gendarmes . . . Kudos are being exended to local radio-tv stations for their silence during the Leonard jwoskovitz kidnapping (16). At police’s request, all news sources held ho He^s °i kidnapping until victim was fr.eed and abductors appre‘ * ABC' commentator Chet Huntley due here (27) to speak ueipre the Council for Civic Unity . . . An FCC Examiner ruled that ■ should be granted Radio Diablo, Inc;, of Stockton (Channel nfr ’/ or a ne^ commercial telestation . . I Radio-telestar Del Courtney tora Bermuda jaunt , , , KCBS producer Pat McGuirk trekked to T«^n :° line UP material for the Jim Grady, Bill Weaver and Jane d stanzas . , . Wanda Ramey resigns radio KROW (Oakland) next ‘(Continued on page 40) N.Y. State Police Chiefs Blast CBS-TV’s ‘Badge’; Excites Kids’ Imagination Albany, Jan. 26. Charge that a network television show had presented criminals as persons who "would excite the imagination of any youngster” and had demonstrated crime techniques that might be imitated was levelled at CBS-TV by the New York State Assn, of Police Chiefs this week. Group’s charge concerned the Jan. iO telecast of "Man Behind the Badge.” R. W. Morris, exec secretary of the group, said a letter of protest fdiad been filed with CBS, complaining Of the fact that "two male characters playing theH roles of criminals were handsome, muscular individuals, who would excite the admiration of any youngster.” The association also protested "the depicting of criminal acts on television or other media and the glorification in any manner of those who engage in the perpetration of criminal acts.” On Par Seattle, Jan. 26. Sale of Tacoma television station KMO-TV and radio station KMO to a Seattle group, headed by Miss Jessica Lognston, has been announced. Stations were purchased from Carl E. Haymond for $500,000 subject to approval of the FCC. Other stockholders in the corporation formed to buy the stations were Miss C. V. Zaser and Robert E. Pollock. Pollock, manager of KAYO (formerly KRSC ) here, will be general manager of the Tacoma stations, and Rod . McArdle, commercial manager of KAYO, will be moved Up to manager. Jerry Geehan, present manager of the Tacoma stations, has been named manager of KMO and Ted Bell, assistant manager of -KAYO, will be assistant manager of KMO-TV. Miss Longston, Miss Zaser and Pollock, with Mrs. A. T. Brownlow of St. Helens, Ore., also operate KPUG, Bellingham; KSEM in Moses Lake and KBAR, Benley, Fla., as well as newspapers in Begley and St. Helens. ESTY; NORTHCROSS IN Kendall Foster, more familiarly known in the trade as A1 Foster/ has tendered his resignation as tv director of the William Esty agency. "Personality conflict” — the bane of many an agency man — is given as the reason. Succeeding Foster in the post will be Sam Northcross, his top associate, who has been with the agency for' the past eight years/* Foster "grew up” in the business at the Esty agency and took over the tv reins about four years ago, involved principally with all the R. J. Reynolds tv programming and some Colgate shows. He has two tentative offers which he’ll consider while taking a "between jobs” vacation hiatus. ’Stork’s’ Clearance Snafu "Stork Club” may be washed up after May 1 as a WNBT ( N.Y.) stanza Under Chrysler Dealers. Sherman Billingsley-hosted posh( ery has had a tough time grabi bing station clearances to achieve network status. Its 7 p. m. Thursday slotting is local option time. At one point Chrysler Dealers in Washington and Philly expressed interest, but the clearance prob• lem interfered. Billingsley said conversations are going on with potently spenders with a network view. RADIO-TELEVISION SS S."’ — " 1 ■ . ■ ' ' . ■■■'!■ I II Boost for the U’s NBC’s old ‘‘contract with . • WVEC-TV has gone out the window and a new two-year pact made with the NorfolkTidewater (Va.) UHF station. . Thus WVEC becomes a basic"” outlet of the web, boosting U operations considerably. First affiliation was made last June and Station Went on the air in September with top web programs. About 60,000 hi the area have converted to UHF, VHF. Sets number about 150,000. New deal was worked out between Harry Bannister, v.p. over station relations for the net, and Thomas P. Chisman, prexy-g.m. of WVEC-TV. Minneapolis, Jan. 26. WTCN-TV is claiming success for its "vice crusade” against St. Paul pinball machine gambling, the first such crusade ever undertaken by a tv or radio station here and now concluded. Carried on as a new feature with John Ford, one of its ace personalities, on five successive nights: during his 10 p.m. news, show revealing evidence uncovered by an investigating staff at a $700 cost to the station, the crusade has halted law violating cash pinball payoffs, Ford declares. _ Also, it landed St. Paul newspaper front page stories that publicized the station and crusade, got I ttention from some other tv and radio stations, stirred up St. Paul Mayor John Daubney and other city council members, brought hundreds of commendatory letters and phone calls, caused the internal revenue department to subpoena the WTCN-TV evidence so that it can determine if federal gambling stamp regulations have been violated, and forced the St. Paul police department into action against gambling, according to Ford. On the second night after, the crusade’s start, Ford had told his tv audience that an anonymous telephone caller threatened to bump him off if he didn’t quit the expose. « Crusade’s final days were marked by a stormy St. Paul city coun-. cil session attended by Ford and his assistants H. R. Horning on invitation and carried over the air by WTCN radio — the first time any such regular council proceedings ever had been broadcast direct from the council chambers. Fireworks were set off when Ford and Horning refused Mayor Daubney ’s demand that they sign complaints with the city attorney charging the pinball operators with gambling devices. Before a packed council chamber and to frequent spectator outbursts of boos or cheers, there were a succession of verbal explosions. Angered at the mayor’s cross-examination, Ford shhuted: "This is not an inquisition. We’re here at your invitation.” In explaining why they wouldn’t sign . the complaints, Ford and Hornig took the position thjit to do so would be tantamount to taking over the police department's duties and they had been sihiply in newsmen's capacities. The mayor, who is a candidate for reeiection in the present campaign and who charged that politics dictated the crusade, questioned the pair about WTCN’s ownership, the reasons for the investigation and the manner in which it was conducted. When in answer to the mayor’s query Ford started to tell why he hadn’t telephoned the police and advised them of the findings he was cut off. Police chief Neal McMahon told the council that . his department had received only five complaints about pinball gambling in 1953. He turned these over to the morals . division, hut there were no .prose*locutions, he. said. By JACK LEVY Washington, Jan. 26. Despite doubts felt in some quarters regarding the future of ultra high frequency television, there are indications here that point to continued growth of the service and ultimate expansion on a par with VHF. Some of the fears for UHF, it appears, result from . misinterpretations of casualties Which are Inevitable in. the development, of new industries. Much/ for example, is made of the $1 cancellations of UHF permits. Sometimes, the impression is given that 31 permits had advanced to the. point of operating station. But even so, the whole 31 amounted to less than 10% of the total number of UHF authorizations. Nor does surrender of a UHF permit necessarily imply lack of faith, in the. service. It should be remembered that eight VHF permits have also been turned back and that none of these permit holders indicated lack of faith in VHF. In most cases, whether UHF dr VHF, the motivation for withdrawal is a belated realization that a community can support only so many stations. Because channels were available for the asking, many prospectors went after them. Probably a fair proportion of the dropouts came from this class of permittee. It’s pointed out also that there were plenty of VHF dropouts in the early days of tv. In the first year of postwar . commercial video (1946), more than 75 applications were withdrawn (including five by 20th-Fox). And even as late as 1948, when nearly 100 stations were on the air, the FCC was cancelling permits for failure of their holders to carry out construction. Just as many prospective VHF applicants feared they could not take the risk in 1946, when less than 7,000 tv sets were produced, so are there some . UHF permit holders who fear to risk limited capital for stations which will take longer than VHF, because of the receiver conversion factor, to develop audience. Only Few On The Block Perhaps the best test of UHF’s future is the number of stations for sale. The Blackburn-Hamilton Co;/ one of the largest media brokers, reports it has only a few listings and a comparatively few deals under negotiation. James W. Blackburn, partner in the company, says he has appraised some UHF stations and found them making money. In time, he thinks, there will be many successful operations. Of course, he realizes, "some will fall by the wayside” but over the long pull those which are soundly conceived will come through. Although the sources of financing for purchases of tv stations are reluctant to put money into UHF, Blackburn thinks there are some fine opportunities in station acquisitions for those who have the resources and can hold on through the loss periods. Blackburn feels that the UHF situation will crystallize in the next six months and that better days are ahead. He thinks the industry is "just beginning” and will continue to have “growing pains” for some time. Only a handful of stations, he points out, have been on the air a full year, yet some are already in the black. It took several years before any VHF station got out of the red. Blackburn ddes not accept the premise that a network affiliation is essential to a UHF station, any more than to a VHF station. He points to WAT V in Newark, N; J. (New York area) as an example of a non network outlet which is doing well. He also points to KLACTV in Los Angeles which grossed $2,500,000 last year without a network and which is approaching the black. Just as AM stations have found ways of operating profitably in the face of growing competition, Blackburn believes that UHF. operators will find ways of meeting their competition by developing new formats and, possibly, by reducing costs. He also sees some signs which indicate faith in UHF, such as the Storer Broadcasting Co. purchase •qf Empire Cedi’s KPTV (channel ; ( Continued on page ' 40 )