Variety (July 1954)

REVIEW-PREVIEW Wednesday,July JSft, ^Si ^ By ROBERT M, WEITMAN (V.P. In Charge of ABC Programming,, Talent) To paraphrase William Shakespeare, “To Rerun Or Not To Rerun” is one of the most important questions in summer programming. ‘ Television, which in a few short years has won for itself a gigantic audience, is apparently bowing to the dictum that its ‘bad-weather friends” are not to be counted on when the sun shines hot and bright. \ Sponsors and their representatives, apparently feel that since they have the means and the in- clination to escape from their apartments - and homes during the summer days and nights, then all of America can dp just the same. It is a fallacy. It is an untruth. The proof lies in the simple arithmetic of the 8,000,000 people of New York City for example. Certainly not more than perhaps 5% are fortunate enough to escape a New York, summer; another possible 15% seek relief at the beaches and other outdoor recreations during the daylight hours of the summer week- * I0D w * ,iman ends. The same percentages probably hold true in all of America. Where, then, are the 6,000,000 or more people left within the limits of New York? What are they doing? What do they turn to to give them the pleasure television gives them nine months of the year? It is the practice of television to bring to the summer viewing public ■ reruns of programs previously presented. Albeit the majority of these ! reruns are of fine quality, they have been seen before and unless they are exceptional—no, almost counted among the “classics’*—the dial will be flipped and maybe the set will.be, turned off. It is my contention that the vast television audience of September through May can be retained almost intact if we will not “sluff them off” with reruns; that summer television viewing can be productive for a sponsor who cares enough for his winter audience to keep them through the summer. Sure television dials are switched off in the summertime. The public Is not getting the kind of entertainment they are accustomed to! They get reruns on film, movies they’re seen countless times, and when they do get a live show, it is far inferior to what they get the balance of the year. We find a parallel to the current thinking of the television in- dustry in the thinking of the motion picture industry up until about 10 years ago. Movie theatres used to close down for the summer period. Film distributors hoarded their product for the cooler months. Then some- one came along and showed movies in open-air facilities atop the closed-in theatre. Business during the summer months zoomed. The movies began to talk and the open-air theatre died because of the in- terference of street noises. Someone else came along with the idea, of giving movie audiences the coolness of the outdoor evenings within | the confines of a theatre and the air-conditioning of movie theatres was under way. Business in movie theatres skyrocketed. | Then Ca me Television We were so busy developing our new industry that we forgot the lesson that the theatres had learned. No, we didn’t close down. We merely began to. stagnate. We tried to palm off on the public the same cheesecake we had served to them some months before. But the cheesecake had turned sour or at any rate it did not taste as good •s that first bite when .it was first dished-out. So our television, audi- tnce turned away from us. But the people wanted entertainment. They, all couldn’t get out bt the city. They went to the movies. At least there they saw fresh entertainment. They hadn’t seen it before. But in the case of tele- vision the motion picture industry checked and found that television was trying to put one over on its public during the summer months. And quick as a flash they reacted by showing movies as good,, if not better, than their winter movies, during the months that television programming was weak. It is my firm conviction that fresh, new shows will hold our view- ers throughout the summer. That w r e do not have to close up shop. All of New York — and the rest of the big cities do not head for the \ hills and the beaches during the summer period. According to the • Consolidated Bdison Co. there are now more than 199,500 home air- conditioning units in operation in the parts of the city serviced by them. They anticipate that by next summer that total will be increased by at least another 90,000 units. They know, too, that many homes have an air-conditioning unit cooling off the same room that houses Ihe television set. Distributors of such equipment report that in the najority of installations the living room is the location of the first lir-conditioning unit in the home. The sharp cut in the price of this equipment will get them into many, many more homes. TV can capture its biggest audiences during the summer by provid- ng them with the kind of shows we are giving to them the rest of he year. We can get them while they’re off-guard saving money and sontinue to hold them through the rest of the year! And it can be ione! As I’ve said earlier, to rerun or not to rerun is the question facing us during the summer. Where we have good shows we know the public * wants to see again, all is well and good. But we do not have enough of these shows and so, in my opinion, we should try to program shows of new and fresh quality. Certainly we can’t do it by ourselves. Beginning as soon as we can, we should undertake a program of educating sponsors and potential sponsors to the great avenues of television productivity available to them during the summer months. We must make every effort to con- vince them to Join with us in the strength of our convictions. We must demonstrate to them that we can now, during the summer, attract large audiences and retain them with good shows so that this same audience will stay with the show through the rest of the year. We must get them to believe with lis that it’s “the good old summertime.” A • • . .'•» -V ■*:...>% MEL BLANC “Jack Benny Show"—TV TV “Musical Chairs’’—KTTV . Radio . ‘Jack Benny Show” “Cisco Kid” CBS-Network Mutual Network Standard Oil of Indiana Chicago, July 27. Standard Oil of Indiana has de- cided to go along again this season with ABC-TV’s telecasts of the Chicago Bears and Cardinals pro football games. Standard will bankroll the 12-game package" on 18 midwest outlets with the web co-oping the games in other mar- kets. This is ABC’s second National Pro League bundle set for this fall. Network earlier lined up Ameri- can Oil to sponsor the Washington Redskins’ telecasts Philadelphia, July 27. John J. “Chick” Kelly, promo- tion and publicity director at tele- vision station station WPTZ, has been named assistant to David Partridge, general advertising and sales promotion manager of West- inghouse Broadcasting; Inc. Announcement was made- by Chris J. Witting, president of West- inghouse, who said Kelly will be headquartered in New York, start- ing Sept. 1. Kelly has been with WPTZ, one of the chain’s three tv outlets Since 1950. By PAUL WHITEMAN Everybody recognizes the des- perate heed for developing new talent, but when it comes to doing something about it, the Old atti- tude “let Joe do it” prevails in most quarters. With television eat- ing up talent faster than any other medium of show business that we have ever known, it is up to the professionals of - our business to encourage the amateur talent shows. In most cases show people give talent shows the brushoff, and in doing so make the jobs of those of us with a sincere interest in the young per- formers much harder. At one,time there was the vaudeville circuit for the develop- ment of new performers: they had a Paul Whiteman chance to de- velop their talent and a sense of showmanship. But today there is no sounding stage for the unpolished performer. That puts the job squarely on the shoulders of tv. It must develop its own farm system and the an- swer is the many amateur shows on both network and local, basis. To start with there is Teally a natural type of appeal in these shows. People always pull for the underdog and these kids are in that category until they blossom out as full-fledged performers. Another thingTtnat many people lose sight of is the amount of pre- liminary screening we, and all talent shows for that matter, do before getting a show together. Each week for our hour ABC-TV show, “On the Boardwalk,” we au- dition about 400 acts and from this group we select six or seven to appear. Even the few we do select are far from polished, there just aren’t enough places for these kids to become polished. « ; j Not Just An Audition As anyone can see, this is a ter- rific screening job. But our work doesn’t end there. After we take a handful of acts and give them a chance to audition on the air, we cut the six or seven down to three winners. Then we take these three and with the help of a few far-sighted professionals we attempt to help these kids by rehearsing and coach- ing them for a week. With the little help we can give them in a week we bring them back on the stage to perform. with costumes, scenery and the full band. This is what. I have in mind by helping to develop new talent. Just an au- dition without-coaching is hardly the answer to the pressing need for new, trained talent to fill the many, many programs aired every week by the four tv networks, not to even mention the hundreds of local stations that also have a need for trained performers. When you consider that every half-hour or hour show has gen- -. . - (Continue^ oo.page 98) . ; By G0RDON GRA¥ i ^•# G e neral Mdna0er, WOR f ^C?^r^) ' - A time to think'^ tline to he heed not for him* die 5 time to live.. Tbbsfc ere se ]f. Few" men ''jijwk shvffled off tlie time* that try mens souls..... 4 mortal, coil tpfindltturpedso " ^^e ?Lr d immortal Today, his ^h'rase?,Jht You put a piece of c{e*n white to®****?. * rwte> * paper in the typewriter and you greater pa,rt, lit® than ever be- think of an article yopvare going f!ore. -/ p \, '. L to write. You try to put your j —And .Then, There’* Pride I thoughts in focus. A million pic- * —— ~——l tures flash through your mind tak- You tbmkof your plans-, fqr fhe ing you hack to the .past. The fu- future because of the suecese.of ^he ture is still- a blur, aiid. then you classics on the “Radio Hayhpuse,” remember what the hero of the you'd like to tell the. Man-Who- play, “Berkeley Square”said:“You Knew-It-All that you are. planning are in a plane flying overhead, be- to present a transcribed; .’Series* of low you is the river-and time is Shakespeare’s great works: - “Mac- like that river. You can see where beth,” ‘The t Tempest,” . “ftomeo it begins, where it is and where'and Juliet,” “Hamlet>” “Richard it is going.” Ill,” “Othello;”'“Taming of ihe You wish it were that easy. You Shrew,’’ “Henry W.” And then you wish you could see it all, You are decide to < tell .him about a movie living in a science fiction world. You are not a time traveler like the hero in “Berkeley Square” but, you are living in an age of wonder reminded^ him of the^ climatic and miracles. You hear the kids speech the-hero made. ’ You* don t |o SgV&e^oon!" Ifsln atomic Sge; an electronic age; a gadget “jy machine age. Speed and tension; fjj-j 1 "*? t p V f_ n/fni' anxiety and international conflicts; “j?.° £ ; hysterias of. all kinds echo around ’gg * you: investigations, juvenile de- m ^t v * linquency, hoodlumism, inflation, You think of the Man-Who-Knew- deflation, rising production costs, It-AU and your^reyiew-preyiew ; ar- rising labor costs; fantastic new in- tide and you wonder-if you Ought ventions; magnetic tape recordings, to write about ‘Pride. ; The magic color television, miniature cameras, word is—Pride. Yoii are-proud The echos thunder on: “What are to be in an industry :which serves we going to do about' the problems the public interest. You ate proud of the aged; what are we going pt the showmanship, program to do about movie theatres closing ideas, the personalities, the. pro- down; what are we going to do motion, the publicity, the enthusi- about residuals for half-hour tv asm, the courage, the efforts .of all films; where are we going to get the people in front of and behind new talent; what’s golqg to be with the microphone who for years have UHF and VHF; when are there go- tried -to bring entertainment, -in- ing to be more newstations;what’s formation and education ..to me wrong with -rating systems; how growing and ever-changing audi- many stations can live in one mar- ence. Yqu are proud of ..the fact ket; what are we .going to do about that you are still planning for the nighttime radio; what are we going future, although you can’t tell the to do about daytime radio; what’s Man-Who-Knew-It-AU what you are the future of live programming; hoping for. But you know that where are we going from here?” what he lacks; pride .and faith— The frenzied >■ questions whirl- th a t s something you have, wind into silence and' fear.. That # So you tell him about the Adver- fear translates itself into anxiety tising Council’s campaign on ‘The and complaints and do-nothingness- Future of America.” “The better and worrying about the other you know America, the better the fellow. Yon Think, Think, Think future looks.” You tell him about the public service campaign you are running in a letter writing cpn- You think of how the world you test entitled ‘Why I -Have Faith live in relates to you directly. You in the Future of America.’• You think of the ratings and the sur- tell him about the tremendous mail veys and the research and the response, the beautiful and inspir- articles on the changing composi- ing letters.. And you relate it, to tion of the audience. You think of your industry and to your stations, the bright young Madison Avenue You tell him that you can look man you had met at a party re- into America’s future and you can cently. You mentally had dubbed set your hopes high. You tell him: him, the Man-Who-knew-It-All. He “This dynamic country has been had all the answers. Indiscrimi- in a period of tremendous growth, nately, he knocked stations, net- This has mearit more jobs, more works, packages, programs—every- money, more security, more homes thing was wrong. And when he and more opportunities for every- got around to WOR, I asked him one. As you look into the future, to be as specific as possible. Glit- all that can be seen is promise tering generalities about programs, of even greater growth for your production, public service, new country and for you. This is the ideas, new techniques, the lack of big promise. The sweeping changes initiative and imagination filled the that have been taking place in Martini air for another 15 min- America during the last dozen utes. So I asked him if he knew years have been resulting in vastly about the allocations of public expanding needs, and meeting service messages, the time ’devoted these needs offers greater oppor- to Polio, Cerebral Palsy, Heart tunities than ever before to prac- disease and a host of others. I tically every group in our society, asked him if he knew about the are *n a new age of promise, three-week forum Martha Deane Unprecedented population increase had conducted on mental hygiene *n the past decade, marked im- for the Mental Hygiene Associa- piovements ip our living and work- tion. Of course, the Man-Who- in 6 standards, other striking Knew-It-All had never heard of it. changes in the Americap scene He had never heard of “Harlem have been creating^ wide variety Detective,” “High Tension,” “Spot- needs meeting these-needjro light,” “Colonel Venture.” He fe « u 8^ opportunities from had never heard of our experi- which all of us can benefit, ments in .new camera techniques. Here in greater- metropolitan He had never heard of the recep- New York with the population ever tion accorded the non-violence increasing, we will never he with- “Colonel Venture” program. He out customers, listeners and had never read the many news- viewers. paper and trade press plaudits. He You think of all this as you try never looked at the “Merry Mail- to put it all on paper and now the man” or knew of the job Ray future comes into focus and you Heatherton was doing on radio and know that it Will be as bright as tv. He knew nothing of the many you make it. You know that the public service films on tv and most eternal verities still held true, of all, he knew nothing about the There is no substitute for hard “Radio Playhouse.” work. As Edison said, “It is a mat- You think of the Man-Who-Knew- ter of 2% inspiration and 9Wo It-All, the critic living in a vacuum perspiration.” You know that and you remember a little bit of there is a time to live, a time to your Shakespeare. “What dreams die, a time to think and a time may come,” Hamlet muses, “When to do*— *we have shuffled off this mortal You think It over and now you coil, must give us pause . . .” And know the theme for your article: for centuries literate man has Now Is the time for mused with him and taken pause, men to work together toward tne .The words, are_Shakespeare’s> Jbut^future.