Variety (October 1954)

Wednesday* October 27* 1954 RADIO-TELEVISION 29 ■Television stations, that are ordering color equipment for future installation are tending to, keep their plans completely secret locally; There are several reasons. First, it confuses the public. Second, it vexes dealers with large black-andrwhite inventories to liquidate. One telecaster put it this way, referring.to Indianapolis: .“When you talk about television in color ' a community where only three color receivers are known to exist, it’s just plain silly to stress color. It’s for. the day after tomorrow. But meanwhile management has to think ahead,’’ ; Washington, Oct. 26. 4- •If the Senate Juvenile. D.eliri- SubrCommittee was after proof that television is sinful and a cause of juvenile delinquency, its mountainous, two-day hearings ol' last week seem to have labored jul delivered' the proverbial mouse. Sessions developed several dead ends and confusions. Sen. Robert C. Hendrickson (R., N. J.), the committee chairman, asked witnesses over and over whether they didn’t think televi- ion needed, a czar to censor video programs, similar to the Breen Of- fice in Hollywood. At the same time, the committee staff centered Its attack ^lipon " the' violence arid crime in th old films which are shown on tv. Incongruity was that virtually all such films carry the seat of ap- proval of the' Green office and had a Iso been okayed by state and. local censorship boards all over the U. S„ prior to their theatrical runs. When Hendrickson asked whether the FOG ought to be the censoring body, Commissioner Rosel H. Hyde reminded that this wouldn’t be com stitutional under the Supreme Court’s rulings against motion pic- ture censorship, and added em- phatically: “The maintenance. Of adequate program standards cannot,, and should not, be attempted by estab- lishing the Federal Communica- Commissipn, or any other Govern- ment agency, as a censorship board to which all stations must submit their programs for prior. approval or which is empowered to impose specific restrictions or limitations on the contents of such programs. The Commission is expressly pro- hibited by the Communications Act from exercising any powers of cen- sorship over the contents of radio programs, and we think the Con- gress was wise in enacting this provision.” Result was that Sen. Hendrick- son reversed his field, explained he wasn’t pushing for a “czar” or any- thing. similar. He said he was just asking for information. When Senate committee staffers and others made the point there should be special antiseptic pro- grams, sans crime, violence and (Continued on page 38) to Lansing,'Mich.. Oct. 26. WJIM-TV will dedicate its new $1,000,000 radio-tv center with an hOur-lorig show Sunday (31) head- lining Eddie Fisher and George Gobel. Featured will be Janis Paige, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and orch, McGuire Sisters, Bud and Cece Robinson and Janice So- mers, Michigan State College beau- ty Who placed: fourth in the Miss America .contest this year. Gregg Garrison, director for Milton, Berle, Ray Bolger arid others will come from New York to produce and direct the W.JIM program. Hollywood, April 26. Sweeping retrenchment on the ABC high level, which unseated several top execs, in N. Y. a few vyeeks ago, swept into . Holly wood last week and claimed two 'casu- alties. Donn B. Tatum, director of tv affairs for the. western, division, nd Phillip G. Caldwell, chief eri- gineer. terminated their associa- tion with tlie network. Ken Craig, former.tv program di- rector fpr the division, assumes most of Tatum’s duties in his new role of national and regional tv network program coordinator. Cam Pierce, chief technical engineer, moves into the newly-created post of engineering coordinator of the division. Ralbh Deriechaud will be bis administrative assistant Court- ney McLeod, traffic supervisor for .ibe ; yafljtiv^k, -adj$,4y t tQ his .duties. ,-*j,*;* Washington, Oct. 26. With FCC hearings bn . the Ed- ward Lamb case resuming this week after , a one-week recess,, Ex- aminer Herbert Schrafman today (Tries.) heard testimony from. a former Communist who was char- acterized by attorneys for both sides as the most credible Witness to take the stand thus far. Witness was Eugene Stoll, of Swanson, O., whose testimony covered two in- cidents, one in 19$4. and another this past June. Stoll testified that iri 1944 Lamb was a mdmber of a committee in Toledo which sponsored a perform- ance of “Band Wagon,” a variety show (not the legiter), to raise money to support President. Roose- velt’s bid for a fourth term. The local Democratic organization had refused to Sponsor the show be- cause Earl. Browder had appeared during intermission in one of the show’s eastern appearances and the Democrats thus felt it was Com- munist-inspired, .Stdll said that several members of the sponsor- ing committee of which Lanib was a member belonged to the Coi - munist Party, and added that sev- eral members of the cast have since been, “unfriendly witnesses” before Congressional investigating committees. . Second part of his testimony re- lated to a meeting he had with .Lamb in the latter’s office- on June 9 of. this year, arranged by Mrs. (Continued on page 32) When CBS ; corporate prexy Frank Stanton moved into Milwau- kee arid , walked out last week With a deal to buy- WOKY-TV as the first of two UHF. stations , in the new “five plus two” ownership regrilatipris ■ (five V’s and two U’s), it was probably only the* prelude to a whole checkerboard pattern. oft maneuvers. While obviorisly it!s all designed to strengthen CBS’ po- sition in the owned-and-operated sweepstakes, . the significance of the “coming events” lies in the ef- fect it’s bound to have in the sta- tion ownership-affiliation picture generally and, as it relates to. Pittsburgh, points a big question^ mark as to DuMont's future status. Even before the ink was dry on the Milwaukee purchase (still sub- ject to FCC approval),. CBS was already earmarked as the “villain’’ by the Hearst group, which has Milwaukee aspirations of its own in bidding for the V channel there and thus hoping to establish a CBS affiliation. NBC, .of course, ’ out of the question for Hearst, should the latter get the nod on its ap- plication for the relationship be- tween the "network arid Walter Damm (WTMJ) was never rosier. And. with CBS moving in with its own o&o- U operation, it puts the Hearst group in a tenuous position in its bid to expand its television empire. (Hearst radio station WlSN in Milwaukee is a CBS affiliate.) Aggravatirig the situation even more, Milwaukee’s other and more prosperous TJ (WCAN-TV.) loses orit .on’, its present CBS-TV affiliation, with the ownership smarting tinder the blow. This, however^is nothing compared to what’s on tap if, as re-; ported, CBS finalizes its deal to move into Pittsburgh (eighth larg- est market)., with **n o&o station through purchase of the nearby Steubenville VHF station on Chan- nel 19. (When Stanton revealed a couple weeks back that a V pur- chase was imminent, it’s presumed he meant Pittsburgh,) Subsequent- ly Stanton last week announced CBS had withdrawn from the Bos- ton competition for a V channel. With Pittsburgh in the bag, it would leave one V to go—and CBS still has a St. Louis gleam in its tv eye to round out the V picture. Thus a lot of interesting ques- tios are posed oil the Pittsburgh front. Only last week officials of KQV (which recently bought back the minority interest CBS had in the local station) confirmed a merger of the five applicants for Channel 4 at nearby Irwin«was on tap, which would mean another V for Pittsburgh within the next six months. Channel 4 is one of two V’s . allocated to the Pitt .district, ( Continued on page 32 ) STARS TO ROLL IN NEW CHRYSLER CAR Hollywood, Oct. 26. All Chrysler television salesmen are being lined up for the star- studded“Shower of Stars’- Nov. 18, when the sponsor unveils new mod- els at the auto show here. Groivcho Marx, Danny Thomas, Eddie Mayehoff, Bill Bishop, Mi- chael O’Shea and James Dunn will be on tap for the show Which Ralph Levy will produce. Seymour j Bern^ will direct, (.'..►Betty. -Grable^and (Harry > James, I aretalej.seU for, jlRe* GBS^TV show. DuM’s Please Buy ‘Please’ . DuMont is playing it's hand down to the last card in an effort to get a bankroller for “One Minute Please.” That suStainer’s gotten rnore support front net topper Ted Bergmann than received by any other of like cost on the network roster. Strategy on the panel stanza is a departure from recent standard op^ crating procedure at the net. “Min-' ute” has been kept on longer than. any other sustairier costing in ex- cess of. $2,000. Few of any kind last j more than 13 weeks, but this casing j is in its 18th week. Moreover, the program is being given the con- tinued benefit of Tuesdays (consid- ered the strongest DuMont night because of Bishop Sheen’s 8 p.m. leadoff), despite the fact that a few networkers would like to try something else in the new “Min- ute” at 9 time. The panel stanza, chiefly habitated by Herpiione Gin- gold and Ernie KovaCs plus Alice Pearce and others on less frequent occasions, is in the “near miss” cat- egory: Within the past few weeks Pharmaceuticals, through the Ed Kletter agency, nearly took it in- stead of “The Stranger,!* but a last- minutSe c^ahgq.Qfjmjncl finished pff v Ulikt tfeaJL, Hollywood, Oct. 26. Only on the megacycles a few vyeeks; NBC’s highly-touted “Me- dic” is already suffering from in- tra-mural ills. Bernard Girard, di- rector of the show since its in- ception, has exited following dis- agreement with, creator-writer Jim Moser over conception of treat- ment on the next 13 telefilms.,,. Girard asked for and received his. release from his longterm pact, but will retain his percentage ownership of this year’s program, which is sponsored by Dow Chemi- cal. Girard megged the first 13 telefilms. Girard .said he. will announce his future plans very soon. Reports of axings on the topmost executive echelon at Mutual Broad- casting have been circulating for over a week with observers link- ing some of the “economy meas- ures” at the radio net with the ultimate departure of one or two board members- Two weeks ago it was noticed that budgetary cutbacks of per- haps as much as .10% had begun. The .initial move in that direction came . when two execs from pro- gram promotion and one from sta- tion relations were lopped off the payroll. Since then -other- signifi- cant personnel' lopoffs were made. Within the past few days, it’s been revealed that Bea Marschner, head of web personnel, and Ruth Herid- ler, office manager, were given the heave. The net lately described the axings not as budget moves but as a “matter of pruning along Ines of the network’s future plans,” O’Neil said that department heads have been asked to suggest changes to “keep up with the times." Misses Marschner arid Hendler were under the aegis of financial veep Jim Wallen, and their walk- ing papers were taken as a sign to networkers that Wallen was in jeopardy at Mutual. Wallen, who had denied that he might be one of the v.p.s to be dismissed, is seen as a victim of accumulating cir- cumstances. Not only were two key figures in his own area of power fired from under hii , but there have been previous maneuveririgs that have' increased his precarious-. nesS in the eyes of outsiders. Prexy Tom O’Neil has handed a hefty share of Wallen’s financial, duties to his own administrative assistant, (Continued Oil page 32 ) Kenjmn & Eckhardt is riding wide and handsome these days with tv billings hovering around $21,500,000—$5,000,000 of that alhount siphoned, into national,and local, spots—an alltime high for the Bill Lewisrprexied agency. Top programming item on the IC & E agenda, of course, . ' the Lincolh- Mercury “Toast of the,Town”,'..rep- resenting an annual ..outlay of ap- proximately $5,5(00,000,' However, running it a close second, are th combined, Ford-RGA billings for sponsorship of. the every-foUrth Monday 90-minute Fred Coo- helmed spectaculars, plus RCA’s participation iff th threC-weeks- outrof-foiu: .Sid Caesar hour 'show. FprdrRCA lay it on tlie line to the tune of. more than $4,000,000 for tlie program collaboration. As the agency which took the K & E Lincoln Status J Although, under the new Ford^plan to set up different divisions for Lincoln and Met-. cury (just as General Motors and Procter & Gamble does), the Kenyon & Eckhardt com-; bined billings look headed for separation, as far as “Toast of th Town” is . concerned. The agency is prbtected through [“' the ’55 season, which has ahr ready been, committed.. It’s reported Young & Rubi- cam Will get the Lincoln biz, with K & E sticking on Mv»i> cury. At any rate, it’s under- stood nothing wilL happen until October, ’55. 1 rf FAWCETT EXITS BBC TO ‘GO COMMERCIAL’ London, Oct; 26. The. exodus from BBC-TV to commercial television continues. The latest to ankle the state monopoly service is Eric Fawcett, one of the top drama producers vvho has joined a J: Arthur Rank subsidiary and will take charge of production of comrnercials, For the whole of 1953, Fawcett was on a loanOut. from the BBC to Norman Collins where he helped in the pioneering of the High Defi- nition electronic film system now in use of Highbury, Studios. Fawcett is the fourth producer to quit the BBC for commercialism during the past few weeks and many more resignations are ari- ticipated immediately the Inde- pendent Television Authority, has announced) ■ the-. program contract tors# I *• - v -. 'i- initial bows a couple seasons back for the first of the tv spectaculars, (the FOrd 50th anni hoopla with Mary Martin and Ethel Merman)* which many concede lias yet, to be matched* K .& E has: one of the major stakes riding the NBC-TV spec concept today via the Ford- RCA teamup for the Monday night exUavagynzas. . Too, the manner in which K & E initially integrated “Toast” emcee Ed Sullivan into the whole Lin- coin-Mercury rnerchandising-salesf exploitation framework (to the ex-, tent that he now has a personal identity with the product and the automobile cofnpariyj is setting a pattern generally in the agency’s overall merchandising scheme. Thus Sid Caesar is establishing an RCA relationship in much the same manner, being scheduled for a Philly appearance before RCA dealers in November as No. 1 on the hit-the-road roster. Even his wife, Florence, is being channeled fContinued on page 32) Toast’ Burns As Pittsburgh, Oct. 26- Dissatisfi.ed with its off-again, on- again status on DuMont’s o.&o. WDTV, Pittsburgh’s lone VHF op- eration, “Toast of the Town” has. pulled out of the alternating set-up witli “The Comedy Hour”, and placed the program elsewhere. in this area. In fact, it’s going on two stations oh a regular weekly basis, WENS* UHF Channel; 16 here, and WSTV-TV, which is VHF Channel 9 in Steubenville, O. For . some time, the Ed..-.Sullivan program, prodded by Liricoln-Mer- cury dealers; in this area, has been champing at the bit because of tlie irregularity with wlilch. it’s been carried in Pittsburgh and blowoff came when the pre- emptions were increased by WDTV because of the frequency of the Sunday night Spectaculars in the '^Comedy Hour” slot. Permanent switch takes place Sunday (31). As yet, WDTV doesn't know whether it will carry “Com- edy Hour” as a regular thing of alternate it with some other,filmed programs which have for ji long time. been $ryipg ,desperately to ‘.get.into,this jnaiUwt. * «-«